[Drafts, 05/2021]

 leave it all behind

and there is happiness

Things to do before I go [Drafts, 04/2017]

(1) write a letter to all 6 girls from secondary school

(2) write a letter to my favourite girl cousins from both sides

(3) donate books that I loved

(4) donate my favourite book, We Were Liars (this is gonna be difficult)

(5) donate my 2015 diary to the one whom I call the wind

(6) take the train from Jurong East to Marina South Pier and not shed a single tear May 2017

(7) take bus service 858 from one end to the other (it's the longest/furthest bus service)

(8) compile all my poems and send them to local publishing houses. (It's okay if they don't get published)

(9) ask the girls from the wind's secondary school out at least once asked, but never executed April 2017

(10) hand in my resignation letter

(11) get a tattoo of a bird between the scars left by the wind

(12) get a tattoo of a rose behind the ear which the flower tucked my hair into

(13) at least try to find out where her graveyard is. May 2017

(14) face my fears and visit my grandfather at the nursing home June 2017

(15) tell my colleagues everything I've kept in for 2 years April 2017

some small things

 I made the interviewers laugh,

but when they asked me what my biggest weakness was

I'd said I took things to heart

and they laughed again, because that isn't a good thing in the service line

But I take criticisms just fine, 

customers say the meanest things when they know you are at their beck and call,

they are gone once they pay, and only linger around while you rant to a colleague

It is the little things that stick around,

papercuts are the most common comparison, as if the pain comes from random brushes against the corner of a note,

not from the pinches from others that are small to give but sharp to receive

It starts from the ticks in conversations, your mood copying the blue

You say I lack communication but when I talk, I'm playing victim

I'm crying before you, my throat hurts from trying to hold it in, you lose your temper within half a minute

I'm trying to understand you and you don't even want to talk to me? What the fuck?

I tell you the things that happen at home, you are the older sister I never had,

but suddenly you're not on my side, 

suddenly, you're not replying when I finally start telling you exactly how they treat me,

and when I ask why did you ignore this?

the whole world doesn't fucking revolve around you

??????

She calls you crying, and suddenly I am the bad guy, and you dare to intervene despite being absent most of the time?

Where were you when they were getting violent, your guests and my housemates?

You made me your bridesmaid, 

the first and last time I would ever be someone's, 

the lonely father's among the mother's and stepfather's,

3 best friends and a cousin from the other side whom you call your love,

Me? 17, socially awkward, lost, confused, drinking the champagne that our grandmother would never believe you'd served me, for you were always so perfect while I was the nonsensical one

Eight years later, wedding anniversary, the sequence of old photographs from a day I remember clearly for all the wrong reasons

I finally get to the picture of your bridesmaids,

and it is the very one I was not in.

_

It starts from

the countless plans we made that divert because you had a fight with your man,

you weren't feeling it,

you had last minute assignments at the exact same time we planned to meet,

or simply because you decide to keep quiet, relieved when I didn't seem to remember either

Your lack of enthusiasm, you couldn't seem to care less about the places we could eat

it's so hard for you to reply even though you're on your phone all the time the few times I see you

The same thing, I keep to myself until I explode, but when I am truthful,

I am accused of not accepting you for the way you are,

for not accepting that you are a terrible listener, I am uptight for getting annoyed after you make the same joke a few times in a row

Our engagements, 

June, you were the first person I texted before I went to social media,

I asked you to be my bridesmaid

December, I waited for you to personally text me a picture of yourself, in whatever colour you wore, whatever ring you picked out, whatever picture you took

No texts came, and now I am having seconds thoughts, 

it would seem to make both of us happy if you were just another relative at my wedding

All along, the countless reposts from your other acquaintances, the very same girl you work with everyday, posing by the same conveyor belt again and again

I am never in your stories

We went into a photobooth 4 years ago, my copy remains on my wall while you lost yours a long time ago

I run to your house for comfort sometimes, but I feel unsafe again, seeing your corkboard

choked full of photographs with your other friends

Wait, why do I say other when I am not a friend,

only now I know you put up with me because our parents are siblings,

and we just happen to be born in the same year.

_

two smaller reasons why death by draining blood seems ideal

restless, cwk

Wonder, floating in mostly empty space, is easier than calling. Low conversations with quick glances over the shoulder. Bending over backwards to assume, landing on the wrong angle and breaking ankle, sometimes neck. We are expected to revel in our individuality while walking the same road at the same pace with everyone else.

Wanderlust, romanticised by paper-thin minds, reflects a love of the world. Blissfully unaware of the dirty side of the coin, tails of abandon and confusion. My seventh face with her feet parallel to mine, a winter as normal as my eternal summer? Or in my shadow, lagging by mere centimeters? 

I want to know how you're doing, imprinting your thumb in the same spot I do, or signing autographs for flash photography. How are we the same person still, in places with different conversations and railway systems? Even the blood in our veins is not answer. 

Time slows, in our favour?, chances repeat, any taken? The loves for lines encircle, we enter and exit the same wormholes. Oblivious is unharmed, even with skulls on flame. But I know you, traveller of universe, as you know me, traveller of time. Boughed down by the souls of steel we traded our youths for. 

Heads in clouds, one in daydream and the other in satisfaction. One's wonder in curiousity that kills, the other in smartness that pays off. Nonchalance, one with better things to care of and the other who keeps it like rocks in pockets.

Split, unsure the number of pieces. But if we meet halfway won't we form the best of the original, with your endure and my derange? You with the parallel feet, am I envious or disdained? 

Your travels, the solo airplane rides and desire to unbox yourself. The stamina, with your feet always dirtied by nature and the marvel of actual clouds. A difference in our hearts, one quickened by treks and the other by public speaking. Run, run, run. Stop, stop, stop.

Just one of my many parallels, in the universe next door and also beside me in a repositioned bed. Run, stop, run, stop, run, stop, our hearts in and out of sync. Maybe you think of me the way I do you, thoughts of settling and a way with imagination instead of adrenaline.

Meet me back here and we will take turns to drive, the same roads this time.

heaven odour

I wonder which of my strangers was the first to know, and to look at her belly in a different light. Who was the next to kiss her, secretly hoping for a smaller, sweeter version of her? Drugged days and trippy nights to come, hands both gentle on the swell and violent in the throat.

Unbreakable plate bordered blue with alphabets and soy sauce smothering every grain of rice. Five years old, too soon to know of the defects. Too soon to notice the wall standing in between the kindergartner and newborn, neither yet changed by the blood flowing through them.

Her first prayers were the absent nods to my chatter, water and soap running down my body along with her hand. Nagging to brush my teeth properly, after noticing the way I only bite down on the toothbrush in pretense. My words deposited down the drain from her ear, a tradition that remains alive.

Whose were the ballet dreams? Whose were the admiring of the long legs in pink stockings and hair forced into tight buns? The answer came eighteen years later, where the same dreams are now being put on a new granddaughter's head, while the daughter has grown into black jeans and uncombed, tangled hair.

Written letters, typed entries, none shown or spoken to her. Some effort, but reminiscent of the empty nods in the bathroom nearly two decades before. Down the same drain, with the innocence and blood shed from the womanhood and the wrists. 

But in the spotlight at sixteen, she noticed me for a while. Fumbling with the ribbon on my uniform with only a speech, the first words of mine she heeded. Maybe not a single one understood, maybe just the acknowledgement of her expectations I never reached. I know I'm not ladylike, but will you still accept me? She laughed, in tears, a hug that will not come again until the next Raya.

The kindergardener turned out to be defected, the newborn became damaged. We were comrades in the carvings on his guitar and the drawings inside my wardrobe. We had the father's beatings and the mother's disappointment in common, and that's where it stopped. 

For suddenly, he had her pride after a week in National Service. He has changed for the better, I'm so proud of him, but all I see in him are the trails of shit he leaves for her to clean. Then years later my maturity is cockiness to the same couple, You think you're so mature, buying a desk yourself? after a few months of my own full-time paycheck.

We used to share our shoes when I was a teenager, our feet the same size. But you know that has stopped, for she continues walking on in her flats and heels while I prance about in sneakers, sometimes barefoot. The one thing we had in common, and hers remain heaven to three while mine are in blisters and holey socks.

I've learned from your firstborn, dumping my plates by the sink and keeping my salaries to myself. If he can grow to be your favourite with his kingly behaviour and handicap, I will follow suit. I ignore the cold shoulders you give me for being like him, but I will deposit them into my safebox.

Continue treating him like a prince and my carbon copy your new princess. I will remember these pictures when you are old and begging for room in my own shelter. Where is your son, the one you treat like king? I'm sorry, my heaven is in somebody else's feet now.

Grudges, the word itself is sludge, sticking to my throat and hindering my windpipe. Horsehair lodged in my fucking throat, yet I keep it there like a pet. I feed it, ignoring the shape of a snake it is taking, putting its diet on hold so it can consume me whole. Now you have become the person I want to find me blossomed by hope or bloated by noose.

my tears ricochet

0:23 An island not big enough to hold both of us, where people show off sun-kissed skin while complaining about the heat. Laughing at the politics and weeping for the wars in other countries. Borders with no difficulty holding me in, while you floated seamlessly to and fro for years.

0:29 Here I am on fire all along and never realising it. You did not deny anything so there was always somewhere to put the blame for your ashen state. But even with the hell that I already was, even with the smoke and the holes in your wings I found home in, did I deserve more fire?

0:53 Your footprints pointing the opposite way, something I had grown used to yet still lost myself over. Acceptance was difficult, even when I still had enough sanity to realise how wrong you were. I writhed forward, not knowing it was a better place than the way you were going, tripping over my own feet.

1:01 So there you go in the meantime, newborn wings and everyone's admiration. Don't pretend the insecurity in my last moments weren't true, knowing I was the victim of a hundred secret tongues. No matter what I wrote, I had hidden intentions. No matter how far along I've gone and how far apart we are already, I am still a perpetrator to new strangers.

1:08 Only the god you weren't loyal to knows how often your phone screen ends up on my pages, and that is something neither of us understood. So quick to burn me out, so quick to drop me countless times to take higher flight. But you came to my funerals so often for someone who repeatedly claimed I was nothing to him, preaching the reasons for my nine and a half deaths.

1:28 Do you think we're made for each other? I just don't love you anymore. Let's not care what others think and just be together. I want to experience dating at this age. I don't want to lose you again. My mum will never approve of you. Which of your words are to be thrown against you, which ones to reminisce on future milestones? 

1:42 Your own swirl of thoughts became mine to drown in while my metaphors that you always laughed at became your reason to leave. And until now, you own the wings that you always denied from me, charred and dysfunctional as they are. 

1:59 The pain she endured because of you became things you never asked for. The long-term bravery turned into something you just had to endure, at least until someone else swooped in, at least until she lost her grip on you along with her mind. At least until she played Victim on her out of tune piano again.

2:28 We both know the simplicity of running through burned down towns, though your route above the smoke is the sign of cowardice. I leave with burns and scars, mouth open in ugly laughs. My fire is brought to the next exit on the expressway, only this time bringing warmth more than destruction. Anywhere but the first of the green line, for the rest of my life.

2:35 Maybe your many last words ring in your mind, where there is no space for remorse or apology. A tongue that knows worse brutality than the hands, as terrible they already are. You continue kissing other women with that mouth, but it is the freedom that knocks your teeth out with pebbles of the past. 

2:43 I still associate the endless blue with you. Tell myself it's fine, for I never had intention to spend much time in the planes, love for sun or not. And your insomnia is opportunity for larger stones breaking your glass house, the cries of the unborn and the plot of the unfinished.

3:05 The grass will always burn in my wake, my skin reeking of battles I've fought. Bloody and wet with salt. The water was neither of our affinity, but stubbornness was, countless dives of regret. A bird and a flame in constant battle with no victor, five years eaten up alive and vomited out again and again.

3:43 With the power of words, my tears from more than two years ago turn into bullets. But they bounce off your remorseless back and slice through my neck instead.

could have

My first mistake was not knowing who you were. He was the best man at your brother's wedding, and still your existence slipped my mind. A photograph, quickly buried by the unnecessary shots of our work lunches and the cats we meet everyday.

My second mistake was not remembering you. My first concern when I stepped into your house was the rabbit stumbling around behind the cages. I unknowingly trampled around the crime scenes that changed everyday, maybe screaming matches or "you don't understand"s or lonely, still nights. And for the whole year after, I only recalled the unit for the rabbit and the takoyaki your parents bought us.

My third mistake was not prodding. There I was in the kitchen with his mother, helping with the hotdogs and fish cakes. His father and him, casual conversation about a cousin I couldn't picture. No name, no face, no recollection. Just the very word that binds me and you. I did not prod further, turning my attention back to the pan when he snapped his fingers.

Only yesterday the bells rang again, your brother and your house and the two things we have in common. The floor we live on and the state of our mind. Had, because you are gone now. A soul I could have known, a smile I could have turned into a laugh. A life I could have made better, even if you didn't go to sleep smiling.

the junes before you

Once in a while I share my diary entries from months or even years ago. I'm always amazed at how I could physically write so much in the past, how I even chose the traditional method of writing in a notebook when there's so many other ways to convey my emotions.

05/06/14

Honestly I've never realised we've already hit June. Feels like I'd completely lost track of time. I've lost track of how I'm growing up, of how often I'd fallen in love.

My precious diary, I'm crazy. You knew all along but you never told me. I'm...

I can't say it...

I am my own asylum. In me, there are mental patients, each with her own need, each with her own desires, selfish desires. A part of me denies my insanity, a part of me wants out, is screaming to be free, rattling the bars she's locked behind. Another cries all day, uncontrollable sobbing each time she looks out the window. Another, the loudest of them all apparently, or for now maybe, laughs at the slightest things.

A part of me wants to be loved.
Another wants to die.

Why does he make me seem like the villain? He was the one who left me because "I just don't love you anymore". He was the one who stopped trying, sat back and relaxed while I did all the hard work for us. The times he'd had to comfort me; it was simply because I'd crumbled from the exhaustion of doing my best.

Sure, I'd made some fatal mistakes here and there, but I've never been short of true with him. I felt neglected, I said so. Lonely, I said so. Angry, showed it. Appreciated him, said it.

...I don't even know why I came to reminisce.

Point is,... Don't bother doing your best, don't give anyone your all, because it'd all end up in flames, up in smoke in their hands. I don't know why I had to go through all the bullshits in life TWICE before I learn my lesson. Just like stupid engineering Maths.

20/06/15

So far, so good. I've got my strength back, my appetite - the only thing I haven't gotten back is all that money spent on medical bills. I don't think I'll get it back anytime soon though, because we still have some remaining fees to settle, seeing as I'd stayed a day and a half longer than intended.

It's horrifying, my bank account balance. I haven't had less than 100 for a really long time, let alone 30... Yes. I have a grand total of 20 in my bank account, thanks to the 3 days in hospital.

At the same time I wish the whole episode hadn't happened, I'm glad it did because it's brought my other half and I closer. I really appreciated him being there the entire time, even though I hadn't felt like talking much. Or doing anything for that matter.

When we met last Friday for Jurassic World, he'd told me he was feeling the guilt. Perhaps even more so than me, but either way I am trying to put up a good show, trying to look okay for his sake. I'd let him be upset about it, even if it means sacrificing the truth of my own feelings. He hates it when I lie to him, but it's for his sake.

I cannot stop thinking of 3 things right now.
1. Having to give out flyers later
2. Money
3. Her.

These 3 things have been bothering the shit out of me. At least a few weeks now, with the exception of #1. I hate how nobody understands the word FEAR. My manager's more than about FORCING me to do it. Can't sue me if I come back crying and about suicidal.

But whatever. My ego is definitely eons stronger than my fear. I'll do it even with tears in my eyes and quivering lips.

I keep daydreaming about the day I earn back all the money gone. From here on out, I need to have a minimum of $1000 in my bank account at all times. I'm glad it's Ramadan, because I'd get to skip a few meals without upsetting anyone.

Perhaps I moved back to Paya Lebar solely for this. I'd save transport fees if I do go home there instead of Pasir Ris. It's really selfish of me, but I really need to think twice before spending a single cent now. Bus fares included. And we still haven't settled the hospital bills, and my phone bills have accumulated to $200. Oh god I need all the money I could save/earn right now.

Lastly but definitely not the least: her.
I miss her to bits.
She was definitely in bits, the day I pushed her out. Hours later, when I'd left for surgery, ***** said he'd seen not only loads of blood on my hospital bed, but also bits of meat.

I am 100% more cruel than the wind. May she forgive us.

18/06/16

Wouldn't it be nice to earn money on the side while working a full-time job? My passion since forever is to write. I have been writing my whole life but it's been for nothing since I don't get anything out of it. It's just not fair.

What I would do to get a few dollars out of every blog post or book review I write. It is the best thing because I don't need to face customers for it. I don't need to have looks for it. Just read my books, say what I thought about them, and I'll have money. Wouldn't it be nice...

In the meantime, I can't stop thinking of the possibility of other jobs. I'm not happy in ******* anymore, because I just hate being unappreciated. Maybe it's partly why I don't have the balls to do what I truly want, I'm so afraid of being disappointed.

What's a girl to do? Everything requires looks. I loved writing, making videos but they're for nothing if I'm not pretty. It's why I've resorted to thinking of other jobs, of 'real' jobs. Receptionists, office jobs, a factory worker. I don't know what to do.

I want to have fifty thousand dollars in my bank so fucking bad. And I can't do anything to get that.

16/06/17

Falling, but there's nobody to catch you. Maybe the ones who are there below you with their hands out for you aren't the ones you were expecting. While you fell for a hurricane, you didn't notice the rose growing at your feet. After four years you finally see it, but maybe it's just a little too late. It's been taken by the wind.

But somehow it doesn't faze me. To be brought out of my shell and then shoved over the edge without that protective layer; I've done so too many times before and it feels like nothing. Maybe the heart is a little chipped yet again and now it's back to being me against the world, after thinking it'd been a flame and a flower against all else. I am broken, but I'm golden.

I am more than determined to finish my book, be it the poetry compilation or the diary entries from 2015 and beyond. And while my tendency to be a daydreamer is my biggest weakness sometimes, it may be the one thing right now that is pushing me to this lifelong desire. My head in the clouds, but a need to go higher.

The rose is right when he says I could go on all day with my metaphors. However dumb they may get, and however hard they clash with his theories, they make me who I am. They are my fractions that make me whole, the things that I love and the words I say and the memories I remember, the heartbreaks and the euphoria and the laughter and tears.

I know how weird and cruel god could get. When I hated life so much, I tried to get rid of myself but of course perhaps it hadn't been my fate yet. Maybe when my days are finally brighter and I've finally got myself together will He try to take my life away for good.

At least, despite his yet another sudden leaving, I have made it clear enough to him that if I wake up to die today, or tomorrow, I would have died loving this world because he's in it.

It has been a blissful sixteen days this June, and the past 4 years with him has been the best, despite my having been with someone else the entire time, floating through time and space and everywhere except anchored to him.

smaller lives

I've always known I adore trains, but I've never understood why. Sometimes in the middle of admiring them, this feeling starts weighing on me. The uncertainty, the questioning, wait what's so amazing about these carriages, why did god make me like this?

Two years ago I met someone who had a theory. That I love trains for the way they stay on track, unlike me with the plans that fall flat and unfulfilled dreams. That the admiring of railway came from the obsession with having things gone my way. A theory, but still something more than my blaming on our creator. 

But what about the desire to cuddle a cat-sized caterpillar? What of the stray beetle or moth that flies into the house and my first instinct is to say hello? What about the rainy days when I watch my step only for snails and not to ensure my own safe, dry path?

When did insects start appearing on me more often? The moth crawling for its life on the train floor. The butterfly that kept crashing into a glass window at the hotel I stayed at with my cousin. The caterpillar whose green colour made it almost luminescent, like it's glowing in the dark.

Sometimes a moth on my t-shirt, sometimes a caterpillar hanging from my hair. A bee stopping on my finger to say hello as I waited outside Masjid Wak Tanjong. Even a praying mantis, somehow ending up on our ninth floor flat. 

I have few positive memories of my father that have made me who I am today. I know he raised my older brother and I on his loud voice and kicks, but he was the one who taught me to treasure spiders. That a spider helped our prophet into hiding, something like that. He wasn't a very good teacher or story-teller.

He was the one who protested when my mother and I started smacking our hands on ants in the kitchen. Jangan bunuh lah, kesian, and he would mindlessly blow around the counter until he walked away, satisfied. Oblivious to the ants' immediate return.

On rainy days from a family gathering, or dinner at a random restaurant, he was the one who told us to look out for snails. I've always watched him pick one up from the middle of the path and plop it at the side, so it wouldn't be stepped on by other people. 

My mother would always groan in disgust, and she would always ask him, How would you know that's where the snail wants to go?

As time went on I tried to make this into my habit. I didn't want to accept something so good being my father's. I didn't want an affection for snails and insects to be inherited from someone whose abuse is the only thing my older brother and I have in common.

There is a memory of me at 20, walking in the drizzle with my colleagues. A mound of brown by the entrance to the mall, accompanied by other tiny mounds. I stop, fearing them squashed on by the unsuspecting, or the nonchalant. 

But even with my colleagues encouraging me, I couldn't do it. I had a paranoia of pulling too hard and plucking their shells right off their backs. And as much as I loved the little creatures, I didn't know anything about them. I didn't know what would hurt them.

The year I was turning 23, walking home with a boy training to be a steward. We met a huge snail, slowly gliding smack-dab in the middle of the pathway. It was half a cycling path, and I just could not leave it to a messy fate. But of course my inability to pluck and plop it to the side was a problem.

Solution? I stood there, shielding it from humans. I stayed rooted for more than half an hour, ignoring the annoyed looks from cyclists when the snail and I start entering their side of the path. The boy I was with didn't protest much and just waited patiently, one of the things I appreciated about him.

My father made it look so easy, but I just couldn't do the same. In that one way he was better than me, saving the lives of countless snails.

I didn't have to be raised vegetarian to treasure the smaller lives. I just had to be raised the way I am, feeling so insignificant and minuscule. Maybe it is the way I am treated like an insect that makes me emphasise with them. We are small, but I know we're worth so much more. It's just sad I had to learn this from a figure who treats ants like treasures, and a daughter like a bug.

playing victim

I know empty pages will always be there for me. Even if the words that I spill out onto them are invitations for misinterpretation and misunderstandings. Sometimes a simple diary entry is enough to prove abuse or an assault.

The three older people in my family will never understand my words, because their English is not good. This is the truth, but if they ever hear me say this they will get defensive and accusations of me calling them stupid will rise. It might even end with a broken plate, or a thrown chair, or a bruised face.

Perhaps that is where our miscommunication lie. I have the ability to twist the words in this language around, making them either powerful or ugly with truth while they can barely form full sentences. While they can barely understand me without tripping over themselves.

I am not ashamed of sharing the truth, which is why I have written a lot about them in here over the years. They are only triggered because their tendons are exposed. God, the one they don't pray to, forbid that anyone sees the dysfunctional family that they are.

My dad is right, I have been giving an attitude. If that is what he calls standing up for myself or taking the knives pointed at me to fight back, he is right. Only because I have never wanted anything as much as I want to get married. Not even the dreams of being a writer since I was seven.

So I have been fighting for a new life with someone who treats me well. When I was a child, simply commenting a dog was cute warranted a scolding from my parents. You can't say that, it's wrong because dogs are wrong! Just as well, it would be a ticket to hell saying someone else treats me better than my parents. You can't say that, it is wrong to speak ill of the people who gave birth to you! Even if they have abused you your whole life!

Here I am at twenty-five, finally speaking up for what I want: a wedding with the person who doesn't lay a finger on me. It is ironic that I have to seek permission from the very man who has beaten and kicked me since my childhood. Apparently because this is my test from God, of course this man and his wife are the ones who make it impossible. Him with his ego and her with her moneyface. My partner has his own tests, of course, but those are his stories to tell.

I've known for a long time that speaking to my parents is difficult. Not because of miscommunication yet, but because they immediately lash out when I'm just enquiring. What do you want a fifteen thousand dowry for? Because you are the only girl Eindah, and I am your mother! Why do you want it to be at a CC when we found a nicer and cheaper place? No I don't care, I say CC means CC!!!

With a snap of my finger I turn these simple enquiries into straight demands. No, I am doing it on this day and this place, no, I will not postpone it, no, I don't see you taking this seriously. And I know I have shocked poor old daddy by not taking his shit anymore, so predictably he retaliates. Don't you dare say I am not taking it seriously, don't accuse me of not doing anything when it's your fault for wanting to get married on short notice!

(It wasn't short notice. I had brought up the topic since mid last year and they both brushed me off because it was too soon and because my grandfather just passed away and we are all supposed to be in mourning.)

That came from the same person who was smiling to my future parents-in-law just a few days before. Giving beauty pageant worthy answers, encouraging us to marry soonest to escape accusations. No, I could not tolerate his deception and the taking back of his words, so I fought. And that is what he has called 'lawan', in the sobbing rants to my paternal grandmother.

These little conversations are what led from one thing to another. While my mother was planning the meals for the unnecessary merisik she insisted on, my father was reading the news of the first local Covid-19 deaths and told her to cancel. Rarely do my mother and I agree, but we both decided to ignore him and went on with it. He reacted by running away, and although I'm still unsure whether he did go to work, I give him the benefit of the doubt.

I believe that is the point the cold shoulder started. Ignoring me, refusing to be in the same space or dining table as me. My younger brother and I on our sahur, and he blatantly addresses only him with reminders that time is almost up. Even after I overheard him complaining that his backpack had torn and I'd secretly bought him a new one online. A forced thanks over text, and back to the cold shoulder.

Being forced to be home for two months is a fight for my life. Little things make me fear for myself, from the lightbulb buzzing that eventually merges into my head to the screaming of children outside my bedroom door. Little things like half empty cartons of milk and abandoned chocolate bars in the refrigerator. I did not need immaturity from a fifty six year old couple to add to the mix.

So I run away to the second roof over my head, somewhere in Mountbatten. In the past it was always a comfort, six cats and dreamless sleep. What more could I ask for? A question that turns into doubt and suspicions of just me being ungrateful.

I never had a problem with the hoarding, but of course the junk piling up is symbol of the little things accumulating inside me. A room where the only free space is the T shape on the floor that my grandmother and I sleep in. The lack of a mat to dry our feet outside the toilet door because the cats will pee on it, making dirt stick to the soles of my feet wherever I walk.

Waking up at four in the morning to sahur, and hearing scutter sounds when you turn on the kitchen light. The sight of huge roaches scurrying back to their hiding places behind containers of milo and bottles of soya sauce. By the time I wake my grandmother up out of fear, none of the pests are in sight, and she comes the conclusion that they're gone and won't come back. A cockroach lays 40 more eggs every time she says this sentence.

It has messed me up to the point where I could not remove a tube of toothpaste from its box without fearing there is something hiding inside. Where I could not sleep from the thought that a roach is crawling towards me, hiding among the junk all around me. Well, why don't you just clean? I admit I'm too unstable to clear these mountains without fear and paranoia clutching me with everything I touch.

The two people living there don't want to clean either. I know they are old and tired, so I want to help. But it is so discouraging to hear one say Eh, sayang about paper bags and food containers, and to see the other keeping used masks and apple covers to make crafts with. I am torn between staying there and not, but whenever I'm away I tear up thinking of that junkyard being the last place either of them rests in.

With that knowing of cockroaches scurrying around and the cats vomiting in places we can't see, comes the lack of appetite. You know how grandmothers will force you to eat, even when you don't feel like it looking at the state of the house. It makes you want to cry to her about it, but your family has a history of rolling their eyes and laughing when they see your tears.

So what do you do when the two places you sleep in and eat suddenly stop being safe? The fact that you don't have an answer builds more walls around you, driving you to dark corners where fear resides. That's the answer: you don't know. Your safest place was work, but it's closed because of the virus, and not even reading takes your mind off of it.

Yesterday I woke up from the strong fear of the house I live in becoming like my grandmother's place. No wait that was a lie, I woke up from my nephew screaming and one of the kids banging the scooter against my bedroom door. The anger was already there the moment I woke up and looked around my bedroom, from the baby mattress to the old televisions they chuck in. I wanted to spring out of bed to clean, but I couldn't do that without the light and my brother whom I share the room with was still sleeping.

From there the anger manifested, even playing stupid restaurant games and streaming reality television. The kids' voices were getting louder, the throat was getting dryer and the bedroom was getting more ominous. It did not help when I finally stepped out to find the accursed scooter right at my doorstep, waiting for me to trip on it.

Of course I hadn't, but watching my older brother and his family sitting there without any regard for the mess made it look worse. I wish I had lifted up the scooter and placed it in front of the television instead of the other side of the door. A subtle yet dangerous move, knowing the lack of anger management my older brother has.

Later on in the evening is where this fire of his comes into play. I started cleaning the dining table, so suffocated by the mess on it. It's hard to admit that it's my fault for doing this with a frown and an attitude, because I know the older people in my family will take this as the conclusion. They have a fear of being told their little rebel isn't the only one to blame.

Along comes a cake. What I saw was a cake in a huge plastic bag and two more cakes with the same packaging, so I decided to put them together. My mum says Hey, papa punya cake. I told her Rimas lah, and my dad snatches the plastic bag up with his own attitude and mumbles loud enough for me to hear, If rimas just get the hell out of here lah.

The next few minutes is a blur. I'm not sure which order they happened.

My dad mentions something about besar kepala.
I throw a piece of dirt somewhere between my mother and younger brother and she gasps.
My dad says, Sejak dia ada matair ni dia fikir dia dah besar.
I swipe  a basket of apples off the table and they scatter onto the floor.
I slam my first onto the table and shout Nothing to do with him lah!
My older brother shouts from the living room Eh kau asal?
He gets up and stomps over to me, repeating Eh kau asal? KAU ASAL?

I have seen that view of him coming closer and closer to me so many times, I didn't react. My childhood at home is flashes of my grandmother stirring me iced milo, my mother bringing home snacks and my older brother beating me while I lay crying. I was so used to being beaten, I hardly flinched as he came closer, but it was my mother's shout that shocked me.

My older brother stopped short, and being so close to me didn't make him stop shouting. I could clearly hear him speak, but he yelled Kalau bukan pasal anak aku, aku dah lama lah rembat kau! I've heard him say 'Rembat kau sampai mati' so many times, right now I can't remember if he had said this yesterday as well.

Behind him I saw his daughter peeking out at me, and I remembered how she once witnessed him throwing a chair at my mother. She actually recalled it, even though she wasn't even three yet. The irony was flashing in my mind, but not quick enough before I saw my father had stood by my older brother.

For a second, I honestly thought my father was trying to stand between us. But he stood next to my older brother while they both stared down at me. And my father said Eh memang dah lama lah nak rembat dia ni.

The two older men whom I was supposed to trust, the mythical creatures I was taught to believe would protect me. Instilling such fear in me in my own home since childhood. I always ignored it, seeing how other daughters and sisters have had it worse. Raped by their trusted men. It took so much effort to convince myself that my older men are just as horrible, and I am allowed to feel hurt.

All this happened minutes before Maghrib, but I was losing more and more tears without breaking my fast. The first person I thought of was my only girl cousin from my mother's side, who lived across the road. Almost ten years older than me, I know she already has most of her life together. And I always thought she was the best person to speak family drama with.

But after a while it was clear she wasn't for me. I went to her for comfort, but the conversation suddenly turned to me. I'm not saying it's your fault or I'm taking sides, but here please hold this blame for a while as I lecture you about your behaviour, oh and here's a lecture about your behaviour during the merisik too.

It was the last thing I needed, in bed and tired and scared. Two other faces flashed in my mind, the person I want to spend my life with, and the person who is difficult to make plans with. Even with unfulfilled plans and unread texts, the latter's home is my home again. We probably wouldn't be friends if we weren't cousins the exact same age, we are so different. But it is so easy to find refuge in her clean and quiet home.

So here I am now, having cried my eyes dry. It doesn't matter if my parents or older brother has made it this far, because they wouldn't understand much. It is why I am undeterred by being labelled 'playing the victim', because I am used to getting my words taken out of context.

I believe it is a vast improvement for me to find a solution in marriage and less so in suicide. Hearing my father accuse me of being big-headed initially made me angry, but maybe I can make it come true by following the good example of the person I spend most time with.

My father was right, I am different after getting this boyfriend because he treats me well, him and family and friends all. There is a reason why I am always laughing in their company and then I get home and everything falls apart again. There is a reason why my niece whispered to my mother, Uh, I don't like aunty's boyfriend because when he is around, aunty like action.

Months ago I told myself to endure my parents just so they could cooperate with me for my big day. But as quiet as I have been, only expressing myself through cryptic posts and blurry montages, I have my limits too. I've had enough of the physical abuse that I endured up to 17, and I will not allow anymore mental abuse past 25.

alone in a crowded car

I am a different person outside this room with the dusty books and scribbled notebooks. I am another different person outside this entire house, with either the company of music or another person.

Anyone outside my own blood.

Years of being chased by the discipline master for my hair. I've hidden behind it for as long as I remember, and the only proof I once didn't care are the photos of my bangs at six, the centre partings at the age of nine.

After twenty-four years I finally found myself. I believe this is me, with these easy conversations at work and in another person's extended family. I believe this is me, with the kindness to strangers and a distant memory of social anxiety.

But with all the changes that came with a better relationship, I remain the same in some ways. I still turn my head to stare at trains and I still climb on the sides of moving escalators. I still get my hair caught in car doors and water bottles, and trip over the tip of my own sandals.

With a year and three months to go, I wonder if I will adapt well. It took my entire life to find the person I have become, with all the clumsiness and unnecessary depth. I doubt I can continue being this very person after marriage. I have to reflect wisdom and maturity. I have to turn up for family gatherings in a headscarf no matter how ugly I feel, with a smile on my face no matter how much I want to die at the moment.

And even after a day with your family, sitting between your sisters-in law with your nephew on my lap. Sharing a cup of mocha with your father and choosing my engagement ring with your mother.

I return home and everything falls back down. And I am doubting things will get better once I am part of your family. In fact I'm fearing it will be worse because I made this choice of becoming someone's wife, somebody else's someone. I will not be my own person anymore, and I can't stay in my bed crying because that's me being selfish.

So gone are the days of spinning around you or kneeling down to greet a cat or laughing hard with your friends. I will have to find another version of myself to live with, after spending my whole life finding the person I am today.

These are the things I tried telling you in the car today, but they went ignored with your eyes on the rearview mirrors and hands on the steering wheel. And then the car door opened and your mum asked me to squeeze behind instead, where I spent the better part clutching on to your nephew for another part of my life. Another part of me that I have yet to find and accept.

'afraid of time'

I am discovering new fears everyday. 

All the scribbles in my diaries from three years ago, all the cries of being 'afraid of time'. I get it now. Time is my captor, I'm scared of getting heavier with fear as I grow. I'm scared no amount of my kindness can erase all I've done.

The farther I run the quicker the past catches up with me. No ghosts by my bedside, or abnormal heartbeat rates, or past loves calling again. Nothing is chasing me but I am weighed down by everything.

What do I do when I'm thirty and my life revolves around the one person I want to see everyday? When I have a breathing child with him, looking at me with curious eyes that turn angry down the road. 

What do I do at fifty when my child starts coming home late? Or learns to answer back to her father and I have to watch the two loves of my life fighting? What do I do when she wishes someone else was her mother instead? 

What do I do at sixty when I am tired but I have to watch a new set of kids come into the world and grow again? 

Seventy, when the words on my books are suddenly too small for me to read. When my favourite songs from decades ago start to fade out and become white noise... when you start to forget what year we are in or where we live or who I am...?

What do I do at eighty when you are gone? You say I will have our kids, our grandkids, which just bred more fears; what if they don't like me? What if they don't want to hold my hand or even sit next to me because I smell of oil or I mumble too much? 

What do I do if I'm still alive at ninety and I've only spent my whole life wishing I was dead? 

After twenty-four years of dark, I admit my fear of my past. It will catch up to me one day. So what do I do when I am under a roof with the only person who knows how to calm me down, but I still awake to accelerated heartbeats and voices screaming in my head and fire on my skin?

I'm scared, Faruq, and I'm scared having you with me every day doesn't help. The world is still too loud for me and no wedding band will change that.

Can't.

'Love' doesn't change anything. It gives a different perspective in the day, but come night and it is the ugliest thing. My love for trains and insects and a human to call mine? Without sunlight they're just strips of my raw skin hanging from my face.

A book that I wrote isn't supposed to exist. Songs I'd listened to shouldn't be familiar to me today. Truth is, I should have been dead three years ago, in the month of April. Or even from way before, June of 2015. I shouldn't be having these panic attacks on my single bed because I should've died on one, four and a half years ago.

What do you blame when everything is fine and you're still feeling like this? I can't breathe I can't breathe I can't breathe

Sel

I tend to turn conversations around. Too many musings and theories in my head that threaten to explode. Sometimes I can't help but want to expose them all, with whichever lucky person talking to me.

With a passing colleague, with a chatty customer, with one of my many aunts, I think twice before saying anything. I replay a question over and over, making sure it's understandable. I rethink the details of the story I want to tell, whether something is considered oversharing.

But with the right people, once I start talking I can't stop. Background information. Context. Unnecessary detail. The right people have been with me long enough to know the gun that is my mouth. They may have blank faces until I say something that doesn't quite make sense.

I don't know if my words hurt anyone. Maybe if I save all the bullets for myself they won't. The tendency to talk worlds about myself is justified by the aspiring writer in me. But snap myself out of it and it's just called self-centered.

Do I turn these conversations to be about me? Or do I nod in rhythm until they are so far into their story that there is nothing to add from either of us?

When she is telling me her reading interests, do I ask about the books she has read or do I tell her Ah, my taste is the opposite, blah blah blah me?

Weeks ago, I did neither. I smiled and nodded, and we fell into silence. I looked down to start plucking my nails. By the time I thought of what to say, she had started talking to someone closer, and I drifted off.

For a while I thought I'm doing better than I ever was, throwing Morning!s to every colleague I pass and talking to Pezzo cashiers until they give me a discount. But here I am on my second full-time job still bad with people. Lost as ever between my enthusiasm and selflessness.

I saw her stumbling around the back on her own today. Not too worried to run to her then, but concerned enough to blurt out Are you okay? when she entered my peripheral.

Cramps, which I didn't have the antidote to. Cold sweat, which for me could only be cured with a blanket. Again, I fell into silence with her. My hands are so cold, she continued, and she reached out to hold my hand in hers.

I noticed for the first time how small her hands were.
But apart from that, I didn't know what to do and I'd been silent enough with her.
I just gaped at her wedding ring, which I hadn't noticed before.

She helped me out by saying she was going home, taking half the day off. All I could say was okay, even when I had branches of words to tell her.

I made a mistake

This always happens. I want something so much that it unhinges me. I hold on to it so tightly it breaks, from its solidity to fragments. From my sturdiness to doubt. So, so much doubt.

Did I fuck up for leaving my work hanging from last year? The already-little confidence that dwindled when a local publishing company finally replied my e-mail, only to reject me.

Maybe the mistake started from the moment I decided to center my first novel around Wind, Rose, Flame. A story that has now long expired, a useless friendship tattooed on my back years ago.

Maybe it was the coloured-paper storybooks I made in primary school, or the diary entries from secondary school. Maybe it was the blog posts I furiously typed out in year one in place of overdue assignments. Or the poems I scribbled in my notebook on the morning bus rides to work.

I have fallen in love so deeply that I am now unsure. The happiness scares me sometimes, I think it's me at my most vulnerable. Anything can happen. Anything can break. Flames die out, except the ones sparked from anger. Nothing has changed, yet everything is different. I am high, but I am in the best place to fall to my death.

Once upon a time I thought a better man and a better job would bring me out this pit.  A better man brings tiny nephews and a better job brings colleagues exactly twenty weeks pregnant. A better me brings silent cries and carefully hidden pain. Who do I blame when everything is okay?

Now it's dawning on me that the higher I am, the deeper my trough.

fifteen thousand

When I was still with my ex-boyfriend, my mum already had her sights on my future with him.
Our wedding, to be exact.
Fifteen thousand, to be exact.
I thought it was ridiculous; I also thought she was joking.

I got to know that she was serious, from how she would not stop mentioning it. I reassured my ex and myself she was asking for such a high amount because of the trouble we had conjured. By that time, he had already gotten a job as a steward and I thought she was just trying to take advantage of the money he'd be getting.

Almost two years later, she is still hung up on a fifteen thousand dowry only now she is expecting it of someone else. Over time, as ridiculous it really is, I realise it isn't funny anymore. Something simple is being made difficult by my own mother.

As a result of how small this country is, I got to know that my boyfriend's brother is married to a friend from secondary school's sister. We spent a better half of secondary school as best friends, but as adults we drifted further and further until we just stopped caring.

But her sister remembered me from the one time I'd come over, almost ten years before. And just like that, I had an old friend back. The last time we met was the last day of August: the birth of her and my boyfriend's second nephew. Both their families were there, including her new sister-in-law.

Somehow I was still in the mindset that anyone who is married should be older than me, right? Her obviously pregnant belly assured me of it. When I first greeted her I'd taken her hand and put it to my nose; she didn't question it, maybe thinking I was younger than her.

Later when I started talking to my friend, I got to know her sister-in-law was 24, just like us. Somehow it slipped my mind that we were way past a marriageable age. That was when I noticed more engagements and weddings among my Instagram following. Some of whom are younger than me.

I can't help but to feel envious. Sometimes sitting on the couch with my love and his parents, one of them would suddenly bring up an upcoming wedding. Some way or another the conversation would wind its way back to our own plans for marriage.

I've listened to their reasons why they just can't give in to my mother's desired amount, even if they can afford it. And wouldn't I be a laughing stock? Not even a diploma, zero sense of religion, not very household-oriented.

Even if the dowry is out of the picture: knowing how my mother is, no daughter of hers will have an ordinary wedding. Not even an ordinary engagement. No, there must be an elaborate ceremony, with her colleagues and friends, more than her daughter's. There must be a five-star hotel, with a famous eighteen-year-old violinist from Malaysia that she is obsessed with.

That is the complete opposite of what I dare to envision.

weakness

This person was always someone to look out for, so they say. If there is even a sign that you'll get a good one, lucky you. On the contrary, if they take one glance at you and decide you aren't worth shit, then you aren't worth shit. They're a mother-in-law, already eyeing your every move, already blaming you for every wrong her own child does.

In the past, this figure I had didn't think so highly of me. I dare say she was probably the only other person who thought lower of myself than I do. All for the lack of a headscarf, not even saved by my long sleeves and jeans everyday. She even overlooked her hurricane of a child, not the slightest suspicious that he served alcohol on his flights and did the forbidden in the room he rented in Singapore.

I grew up sheltered, with a mum that allowed me to wear sneakers with my baju kurungs and supported me in every awkward phase I went through. I had an aunt who took me in when my parents didn't know what to do anymore, and my dad's many sisters and sisters-in-law loved me throughout my childhood and youth. You couldn't blame me for being wary, despite the many motherly figures I've had my whole life.

He told me his father was easy to go through because they were closer. That his mother was the one who so blatantly asked when he introduced his ex to her, "Betul, ni yang kau nak?" It didn't matter how much he really liked her; his mother accepted that, but it didn't stop her remarks and constant asking if he was serious. Not a good thing to hear when it was just about the same things my own ex-boyfriend's mother said.

She was the first of his parents I'd met, at a bus interchange I so loved and detested. I shyly asked how was she, before watching her kiss his cheeks and vice versa. Barely a month since we got together, I thought it was the purest thing I'd ever seen. Gone from my mind was the times my own mother kissed my forehead when she or I left for work.

I saw how fair she was standing next to her son. Got how the people in his stories were surprised to know he was her youngest child. My heart melted, and that day I replayed the tiny interaction over and over, unsure if my smile and shy "How are you?" were good enough. I was still falling for him, but I couldn't comprehend feeling the same way towards his mother. I didn't understand why my heart skipped a beat when he said she thought I was pretty.

I only got a taste of how talkative she was at our first dinner together. A contrast to the silence his dad sat in, she laughed and brought out memory after memory. I still didn't know what to say, or even where to put my hands. I just sat there with a dumb smile, wondering why his parents weren't interviewing me like they had joked they would. It seemed like there was always a gap in his family that was made for me and I'd simply just filled it.

Eleven months later, she too can't escape the random comments and musings that spill out my mouth. Sometimes she was the one who asked about my job or my plans or simply where her son and I went on our dates. Other times when it was just me being my own version of talkative, she simply nodded. She would make a face when it was clearly something she didn't care about, but that's the thing. I didn't take it to heart. She just reminded me of my love, with his straight face while I rambled on and on.

You're lucky enough to find a good person after a bad relationship. Imagine finding a motherly figure who only speaks well of you, even with your uncombed hair and ripped jeans, even after seeing you drool in her son's bed. I'd gone over with holes in my knees twice, but instead of reprimanding me or making snide remarks behind my back, her invitations kept coming, until my ripped jeans remained untouched at the back of my wardrobe.

She remembers my off days and my schedules, constant asking him if I would be coming over. She saved my favourite chicken part for me, and she refrained from cooking beef when I casually mentioned cutting it off completely to save the earth.

"Kenapa tak makan daging lagi?"

"Beef ada big environmental impact on the earth."

"Abih chicken tak impact the earth?"

She'd asked with a hint of sarcasm, but her giggles washed off the discomfort I would have felt if my own mother had said it. I thought of my own mum, telling me off for being 'picky' when I never really liked beef in the first place.

She was the reason why I went home one day and just decided to eat without cutlery for the first time. How I told her so sadly that my own family members laughed at me for my mistakes, thus why I only ate with my hand in secret afterwards.

Five new cardigans, a mix of my usual black and two shades darker, after a trip to Kuala Lumpur. "I didn't think twice, I just took the kind of jackets you always wear," she had laughed in Malay, tossing me bag after bag of cardigans.

Me, cutting hotdogs in her kitchen while she worked on the rest of the magic. How she had time to stop and correct me, while giggling at the mistakes I was making out of something so simple.

Now I am in tears, thinking of how much she loves me and I, her.

I've always wanted to ask her where she and her husband had gone dating in their days. What age she started donning the headscarf, whether it was her own will or out of love for anyone. I wanted to ask what comes into her mind when she looks at her youngest son, a split image of the love of her life.

I wanted to talk to her about my mother, about how she never took me seriously. About my father who beat me senseless and always let his anger speak first. I wanted to tell her about how my parents only used religion in their favour, the reason why I could never head down that path.

I want to tell her that she has changed me, with the way she brushed my boyfriend's hair and touched his face. The way she leaned against her husband and called him Abang... so adoringly. The way she laughed in the backseat when I talked mindlessly in shotgun.

With her teasing and giggling and remembering the little things about me, I chose the only other woman who is your weakness.

man

I saw you first, from posts on his Instagram. He has your eyebrows, though yours are more faded and sprinkled with age. You saw me later through photographs he kept in his phone. I looked younger than I was, making you tease him for courting a kid.

Two days before his graduation we finally met, though there was not much more from your subtle nod and my shy smile. You reminded me of my own dad, from how you spoke quietly to the way you brought your head back to look at your phone screen.

You were always the subject of our conversations at the marble table. He respected you, he was weary of you, he kept secrets from you. Your discipline was just as tough, but he never hated his father the way my older brother and I did ours.

Years ago I thought if our father was shorter than us, it was our turn to stand before and protect them. I long had the honour of being taller than mine, but it is nothing compared to how he towered above you. I had to watch the way he cared about you in a way my heart couldn't comprehend.

Maybe it is the way your face lights up whenever I visit, and my father's frown whenever he sees me. Maybe it is your longing to teach me about religion, compared to my father's usage of god's name in anger and pride. Maybe it is the way you take our relationship seriously instead of shrugging my feelings off like a phase.

It was him showing you pictures of me that tugged at my heart. It was looking at the old photographs where you looked exactly like the love of my life today. It was being told how much you'd wanted a daughter, that made me cry before him for the first time.

At first I envied him for that ability to love a man for his harshness. Through your impatience with your three sons and love for your two daughters-in-law, your gentleness with your nephew's autistic child; eventually I understood.

It was your family that welcomed me, from your mother who only stops grumbling about everything when I visit; your niece who insists I don't have to kiss her hand despite the age difference; your nephew who got me to try durian for the first time in my life.

Sadly that meant the fatherly love I felt came from somebody else's instead of mine. Against all odds, I chose the man who was the spitting image of my love. For now I can only smile at him in greeting, until the day I am allowed to hold and kiss his hand in respect.

// foreshadowing

28 02 19 // 16:27

This wouldn't be the first time I tried this writing thing again. Only two years ago I was painfully loyal, checking boxes after each successful day having written a diary entry. Getting bruises and ink all over my fingers, rough and callused skin at the edge of my middle fingernail. 

I write numbers everyday. Invoice numbers, purchase orders, customers' contact numbers. I'm not a numbers person; I can barely multiply single digits without losing my head. But words are always mine, and until now I believe I do not have blood but ink in my veins. 

Two years ago I was in an entirely different state. I mean, I'm stuck in the same country with no means or intention to ever leave; but my mental state was different back then. I was unsure. I was a child despite being on the way to 22. 

Maybe now I am still scared, but of better things. Back then I was afraid of disturbance in my own space. Of buses crashing into me when I was just standing at the sidewalk. Of lunatics attacking me while I'm minding my own business. Tiny ripples that I'd remember forever, even after they've long dispersed.

Now I am afraid of bigger things. Of crashing into stone instead of a soft bed designed to inhale my shape. Now I am afraid of cars swerving suddenly to the lane I'm on. But the fear could only come from the fact that I was out there in the first place. On a parachute, on pillion behind a new man.

I found a better man last year, albeit one who abused my affinity in the worst way a love could. He smokes, but it is the smell of cigarettes sticking to his skin and lips that I grew to love. Sometimes I think about the past, about a boy whose affection I grew to hate. I was the reason that he started smoking, during his days at Outram Park. He is why I wish I am the reason for somebody else to stop.

Next month would make it the ninth since we got together, since I found him. He found a best friend in me, as empty as I am, a void to fill his pent up emotions into. He had been lonely for the previous four years, left behind without explanations and missing thrice as many almosts. While there I was, chasing the same two impossibilities.

Somehow we found each other, even when we are completely different. Maybe the other sides of the spectrum, with his logic and my imagination. Different from whom we loved, five years ago for him and five years long for me. Even with our differing tastes in music and faith, we found comfort in the same marble table, the same lullaby that is his thirteenth floor flat, the same longing during hard days at work. Most of all, the same person: each other.

I got unbelievably lucky there. Maybe next I would find a better job, with better things to love. I would love colleagues who did their part instead of relying on me for every enquiry. I would love friends who spoke in English first and would never leave me out. I would love as an equal and not a superior.

In a way my relationships would correlate with my careers. Here I am now, with a man I treat as an equal. In no way have I belittled him or felt neglected, even after more than eight months. I've never been happier and healthier. For now I am not only content but genuinely happy.

At least, until I clock in tomorrow and remind myself of my newfound indifference for my job.

heights

There was absolutely nothing special about roads up until my second year in poly. Before that, they were just long, winding snakes that cars and buses used to get places. Nothing great about that, right? Somehow, it was that ordinariness that took my wonder.

Leaning my head against the window always felt like home, both warm or fogged up glass. There was intimacy even in the vastness of highways, with earphones shutting your thoughts and music in. Anticipation for trains to run across the overhead tracks, like not knowing where a boy's hands would go next.

I went so far as to calling it home and seeking comfort, crying as 88 took me down TPE the way one would only dare cry in solitude. I thought nobody else would love them the way I did, even if I didn't know the way around that much. Another obsession for something so mundane, like loving the sun amidst the crowd complaining of the heat.

It was so for the next four years, until I met somebody who used and knew the roads better. He went on different routes, more than I certainly did on the same two bus services. He couldn't give a shit about how the roads made him feel. He didn't even care about listening to music on the move, which was absurd to me.

Still, hearing the expressway's acronym from his mouth felt as intimate as someone you liked whispering your name. Even if there's nothing romantic about my favourite songs competing with the wind for my ears, or the little heart attacks I get when a car suddenly swerves to our lane.

From the top of a double decker to pillion, it's a downgrade from the highest point I could get. I can barely hear the lyrics in my earphones, or sit in peace with the constant panic. I am vulnerable, but safe enough to tilt my head back and expose my neck. Home enough to choose the old expressway's newfound heights, even with someone who never thought twice.