10:34

 I think my water just broke.

But those weren't my words. After the December scares of threatened miscarriages, the stitches deep inside me worked too well. Even after untying my cervix again in March, my April thirteenth baby showed no signs of coming out.

I was all too familiar with the cold gel smothered on my belly, the straps around me and the posters pasted on the walls by the bed. The same way my husband might be familiar with the chairs and sounds in the waiting room.

Somehow the both of us were very calm at triage, even when another couple walked in and told the nurse that she thought her water just broke. We exchanged subtle wide-eyed glances, while the nurse cheerfully told her to wait because she was attending to us. As if I was more important than this woman who actually had signs of labour.

I was even able to walk back out to have a late dinner before being admitted. That I did, good-naturedly rolling my eyes when my mother called my husband crying. Bilang dia kita semua sayang dia tau, while I continued munching on fries. 

When I get back into limbo it was already time to be admitted. I was told the process of induced labour, parts of which sounded very similar to what had to be done seven years prior. But I truly did not have any fear, not with the amount of trust in the person sitting next to me this time.

My contractions started out so strong at the hospital, after weeks of unsure tightness when I was home alone. It was late afternoon of the fifteenth, my organs getting twisted. I thought I could handle it, I'd been through so much pain and was the strongest person I knew after all. The nurses kept asking, do you want to take epidural now?, and I kept saying no, eventually through tears and desperate head-shaking, still with the belief that I could plow through like I did everything.

But soon the twisting went to the point of blinding, shrieking pain, my body writhing on the hospital bed. My mother and husband took turns abandoning their buka to comfort me in all my monstrosity. The girl she tried to raise sweet but grew with so much rebellion, the girl who was so negative when he met her but now laughs at everything he does.

Through the pain I was still conscious enough to realise, to have everyday things running through my mind. I still had it in me to think of scenes from possession movies, very aware my body was resembling the victims in them. I grasped onto anything, any railing or unfortunate hand I could find. I asked myself if this was my karma for every drop of alcohol I'd consumed, every word I'd yelled at my parents.

I was lucky to already have been hospitalised during contractions, it was a struggle from level to level. I held on to my glasses for life, of all things, while I was being wheeled to the delivery suite. I wasn't exactly ready for labour, but I'd neared the desperation for epidural, anything to get this pain off me, I'm not very strong after all.

My mother had to go because visiting hours were over, as much as she fought to stay, and secretly, I'd wanted her to stay too. I continued moaning for my life on a different bed while random hands changed me out of my hospital gown into a backless garb. 

At this point my eyes were shut tight from so much pain, but I still heard the voices around me and in my head very clearly. Husband can't be here for now, we'll call you later. Calm down, turn around and stick out your back for me, do you have scoliosis?, just hold still for a minute and it'll be over. 

But it wasn't over. I felt a cold, hard needle whispering against my skin and I pulled myself away again, this time crying. I was about to say I wanted to poop, but just in time, a voice in my head said that wasn't what I wanted to tell them. I want to pu.... sh.... and I collapsed back into bed, and that was when panicked voices arise. 

For I was suddenly dilated to four, when the last time they checked it was barely one. I was clutching things so tightly that the drip in my right hand was stabbing me so hard from under my skin. Something that I didn't even realise until later, a large bruise and dull pain with every movement.

Through my closed eyes I knew they'd called my husband back up, and then suddenly I was seven. I knew he had walked across the room to stand on my right, instinctively I reached out, knew it was his hand that was holding mine back.

By then it was too late for an epidural shot, so I had to dive in with no painkiller. I know I had little to no fear, knowing it was exactly what I'd expected, and maybe because I'd gone through worse for lesser. I'd fought so hard meeting the first love of my life standing in this very room, I'd do the same for the second. 

I knew my actual fight was less than two hours, having my mother chased away sometime after visiting hours at eight, being wheeled down and not having an epidural shot after all, and then him being born at 10:34 pm. 

All the pivotal moments I've had in my life, from being on the red line for the first time to having all eyes on me when I walked in wearing a white dress. Washed away by the moment I heard him cry for the first time, shaking his clenched fists, eyes tightly closed and mouth wide open. The moment he instinctively stopped to suckle on me during our first skin contact. 

I started trembling myself before bursting into a fit of giggles. At the same time my husband lost his balance and had to be escorted to sit down from all the giddiness. Our own ways of breathing in relief, after which he was given hot Milo while I had to have my perineum stitched. 

I remember thanking the random doctor before she left, a very happy congratulations from someone who has to stitch up privates for a living. For a while it was just the three of us in the room, almost midnight, the two loves of my life and I. After some deep breaths and some sips of Milo there was only one who was still capable of bustling about on his two feet. He jumped to and fro the tiny incubator and the horror site where I winced in pain with every movement.

The first thing that stood out when I first met my husband was his caterpillar eyebrows, imagine my pleasant surprise when my baby came out with eyebrows just as bold. The top half of his face resembled my husband when he was younger, while his chin and sulk were reminiscent of mine. And I hope he grows with our height, with a father's logical and a mother's creative. 

I forgot about crying so hard when we found out we were having a boy, I forgot about all my troubles and mistakes, I forgot all my imperfections looking at the perfection I'd had a hand in creating. Only now I understand why parents say the best moment of their lives was the birth of a child. The usually weak is at their strongest and the strongest exterior goes weak in the knees with so much relief.

It took me a while to recover physically, with the amount of vaginal activity I've had since December. Since 2015, if you want to count from there. But I was lucky not to have any postpartum depression despite it all, despite my history. I could sleep relatively well even though I began waking up startled again, with panic until I saw the gentle risings of his chest. I couldn't handle babies until I had my own, it comes so naturally. I still fear thunderstorms, but I now cover his ears instead of mine. And I can't wait for the years to go by, to see how much more I can change and grow with him. 

pain for pain

As if my dreams haven't already been vivid enough, they get better in definition and worse in aftertaste during my third trimester. It's nothing that I'm not used to, but not with the the twenty-four hour discomfort that comes with a life growing inside you.

Usually I ignore these dreams, occasionally story-telling them to my husband, peppered with laughs and 'the fuck's. But this time, the words "I" said still ring in my head long after I awake, after getting pulled so violently by an elderly man trying to sell insurance. I don't like getting pulled, especially to handicap toilets.

I haven't gone to work since mid-December, my last Afternoon shift before I was rushed to the hospital for breach. My calmness that night doesn't surprise me, not when I'd been in the same place for worse before.

The first term they used: threatened miscarriage. I was still calm, even with my red-soaked underwear on the floor and even more blood getting on the doctor's gloves. That night I curled myself up in a strange new bed, separated from my husband for the first time since we were married. To make it worse, it had started raining, and occasional lightning lit up the room. 

A nurse came to my bed to ask, This is your second pregnancy right? I answered with the truth that anyone who is reading this should know, and she patted my hip, a comfort. Another nurse came with the things that my husband had driven home and back for, and the first thing I took out was the giant polar bear. I slept with my face buried in it. 

There were familiar things scattered over those eight December days. Walking barefoot to the toilet, drips being shoved into my right hand, reciting my name and number again and again. But the lack of tears was new, the husband constantly by the bedside, kissing my forehead before leaving, the mother crying before I was wheeled away to surgery were new. How I would do anything to keep this one safe was new.

There's nothing much to do when your legs are numb while your phone is rooms and levels away. Nothing much to do when your legs are spread for pain and with the urgency to save child. Staring at those lights in the surgery theatre, I both remembered and realised things. 

That this was my karma, knowing one of the causes of breach was exactly what I did years ago. And why should I give him the privilege of forgiveness when I had never and will never give that to myself? Even with the overdue money finally paid back years after, even with the happiness and safety that I finally found with someone else. 

Only now I've learned that coercion is not consent. Deep down I do not forgive both the partner and the friends who cry playing victim. It had to take another trauma in the same place of the previous trauma to realise such a simple thing. And today I awoke from a dream that reminded me of my unusual fear of unisex toilets. Not sure if I'll ever get over that, what more the initials tattooed on my stomach.

from reds to greyscale

I'd left the house with the kitchen and laundry room in disarray, telling myself I would continue after my afternoon appointment. What made me think I would be in the right state to return home with cleaning on my mind? Who was I to think so positively, someone with so much bad luck her whole life?

November didn't go down without a fight, from screaming familiar lyrics in the car to holding back tears about to blur a sonogram. November went from the ups and downs of shades of red to shaky greyscale screens. And now while I was supposed to start December with ocean hues and my husband's favourite colour, I am starting it with disbelief and grief in baby blues.

I believe the blue is my karma. I grasped onto too much hope that the reds will mix with the white of this new slate to form ribbons and braids. How could I have forgotten everything I've done before this better half of the year? Who was I to think the colours of my twenty wouldn't haunt me again?

My friends say it can't be karma when this one is already the product of two better people: a man who has never laid a finger on her and a woman who doesn't live with the ones who did anymore. Time is supposed to be the medicine but I don't understand it now when I had to feel everything at once in the moment I saw a protrude between its legs.

And here I am now trapped in this nightmare, baby clothes and room walls don't matter anymore yet still hurt me to the very core. I have to hear the desperate pleas to be grateful, he still has a beating heart and he has his ten fingers. He has his feet which I've looked at with so much love but whose pictures I can't bear to look at anymore.

Nobody has died and here I am grieving, ungrateful. December is off to a grey and blurry start and I don't understand anymore the ways of the clock. I was prepared to feel pain again but that was supposed to be in the far future, when you grow up to skip school behind my back or ignore my calls or get into arguments with your father.

I was not prepared to have my heart sink shortly after seeing yours beating so strongly. I was not prepared to cry curled up in bed again for a long time, tears too fast for me to bother covering my face. I was not prepared for this excitement to die out short of meeting you. I'm supposed to love you, and here I am once again a terrible mother. How would you feel eighteen years down the road if you were told how much your mother cried to know what you were?

once my novelty wears off

A certain brilliance with talent for words and voice taught me about hidden messages. I hid confessions in the first letters of the poems I wrote and truths in two-second clips of the videos I edit. The novel I wrote and never submitted had tons of these Easter eggs, from the dates to the stations each character spent a certain amount of time in.

I'm not as brilliant as the songwriter who taught me this. Every single line she writes is studied meticulously for hints or foreshadows. But mine are skipped or scrolled through without a second thought. Maybe I'll get there one day, maybe my secrets will be decoded, or they will continue being overlooked, just like me. Maybe I'll even stop writing one day.

But I came here to talk about my newfound form of hidden messages: the little things we write on our profiles, product descriptions. Everyone already knows I'm made of trains and books, the occasional insects and the things I've been through. But nobody here knows the depth of my feelings right now, so I thought I would use lyrics from songs that currently resonated with me.

How can a person know everything at 18 but nothing at 22?

You may think at first glance I am referring to age. I truly did knew everything at eighteen when I was living without my parents and in a relationship both serious and immature. And I truly knew nothing again at twenty-two when I was left behind by the same person. But as much as those years have molded part of me, they aren't my everything anymore. 

The truth is, even with this new peace and happiness, I still have my underlying fear. It is after all one of my many pieces, and with so many changes from living in a house overlooking the expressway I once felt so small in to having another soul to take care of on top of mine, I am secretly scared. 

And with that, in 2018 I knew everything. I knew confusion when I begged to be with somebody I didn't love and I knew freedom when I walked beneath train tracks with someone new. I knew depth when we talked about worries and shallowness when we laughed over things on the Internet. I knew worry when he was taking too long to reach his destination on his motorcycle and I knew love when we watched television with his parents.

But in 2022 I will be back to knowing nothing. I will not know the concept of time with your unscheduled cries. I will not know leisure with my two hands occupied by you. I will be back to not knowing the simple things like heartbreak or disappointment, both of which you could only give me when you're older. And I can try, I could soldier on or reminisce on the times I survived all these things by men and women, but nothing would prepare me for getting the same treatment from my own child.

Even with everything I've done and heard, I know I will not be unfazed by the things you throw me, for it is different coming from someone who is half of me. Am I looking forward to it? Am I looking forward to the years when you dismiss me and find someone else whom you think more of as your half? 

She's right, how can a person know everything at twenty-three but nothing at twenty-seven? 

red tv

Years ago I wrote about my solitude, more of in pain despite it being my own choice. I was seventeen, and at that age it was normal to have thought the world against you, but I didn't know both better and worse were intertwined in the path to come.

At times I look at the words I once wrote and there grows a bitterness. Of how my alleged wisdom then makes me groan with embarrassment now. Or the amount of youth and hope in somebody made of stupid decisions. And when there were no words, the pictures of a girl who somehow exhumed humour out of her loneliness.

I could not call any music mine, for I was using somebody else's favourite songs as company to get over the heartbreak. I try to listen to this band today but it's now the opposite of both the music I like and the person I have grown to be. Why the shame back then? The sadness wouldn't give in to upbeat tunes the way the morsel of individuality to a sameness with the crowd.

But I look in the rear view mirror now and as blind as I can get sometimes, I can see the distance I've come. I now see no shame in loving a pop artist who is ashamed for ordinary things but whose lyrics are so hauntingly twisted. Today she is the main inspiration behind my twists of words, yet I never grew alongside the majority of her work. 

At seventeen, I'd referred to a now meaningless shell as Red. It was merely his favourite colour and I had gotten to the point of hurt by his name. Months later a renowned American singer released her fourth work with the same name; I just didn't realise it until years later. 

The destination changes with every switch of the tracks, memories scattered with every song that passes. There is one for the evening on the expressway, another for the walk towards the blue line, one for the night in the hospital. And all these happened years after the album was let out into the world.

And though I was a few years late, I was shown harshly how the colour red is never always love. Red is knives into your heart in the form of words. Red is the rash that slowly develops on your skin over five years without you realising. Red is the blood staining the hospital bed, red is the block you grew up screaming and crying in.

Today at twenty-six I am red, the train line where I learned laughter and tears, one of whose stations is now my second home. I am red, the laundry detergent we are trying in hopes of a stronger scent. I am red, the prayer mat I lay my head upon in his shadow. I am red, traffic light reflected on my husband's face in the car he drives us home in. 

I don't want to write about anything or anyone new. I want to stay in the bubble that is me, made of past likes and dislikes, stations that changed and construction sites that finished without my knowing, people long gone. For I am not me without the hardship of the past nine years. 

But at the same time I want to revel in the new things, from friends staying over until two in the morning to snoozing two sets of alarms to resume sleep in each other's arms. It is these little things, the scattered flashbacks and awry train tracks that formed my kaleidoscopic view. There is still heartbreak and loss somewhere deep within me, but I won't let either go for it is both the negativity and newfound happiness that formed the mosaic standing in my place today. 

That I have learned is red, and it's time to listen with someone new alongside, with a new mind and new perspective of myself.

what won words

 The key was pain.

The kind that came with the usual sadness, sometimes anger. Even some forms of happiness come packaged with pain. The way new opportunities bring goodbyes to old colleagues. The way births of nephews come with the deaths of uncles. The way heaven shifts to a man you have known only three years from a mother who put up with you for twenty-six.

With the three years of a better partner and two years of a better workplace, the three months away from blood relations was the last piece of the puzzle. While tears were shed and severed ties clumsily mended, I am not shy to say their absence is one of the reasons to my newfound happiness.

I've gotten to the highest I could, now taking the lift double the floors than before. Now my bedroom window goes from curtains that are never drawn to a view down an expressway to my old neighbourhood. Now there is no hoarding or bedroom lights buzzing, things getting fixed quickly. 

But this form of happiness comes with its own underlying pain. There is silence outside the bedroom door when midnight strikes. There is silence outside the windows, no background noise to lull me to sleep or crying of roosters to shock me awake. There is silence under my blanket instead of my throaty tears, and silence in my head instead of words, words, words.

I don't have many words when I'm coming home to someone who treats me well everyday. When my things in the fridge and money on the dresser are left alone. All the pent up anger and nighttime sadness were fuel for my writing, and it's hard to have either when you live with someone who only makes you laugh.

So with this separation from the ones who have hurt me comes formalities, the kissing of hands, niceties, the odd question of how I've been. With this new life comes goodbye to an old comfort. I think it's time to lock up this eccentricity the way the train tracks have been boarded up. Now I am learning to occasionally bleed ordinary red instead of dark ink everyday.

Until next time, when I find a new fear or lose someone else that may as well be myself.

[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.