H. M.

It's now the 20th of April, 2017 and this post has been scheduled to be published on the 10th of June, 2017.

At this point I've watched 6 episodes of Thirteen Reasons Why and already starting to see a little of myself in Hannah Baker. You'd think we would kill ourselves without telling everyone what had been done to us first? Grab a snack, as she would say, because you'll be here on this post for a while. I am writing this in one shot and I hope whoever you are you'll read it in one too.

By the time you are able to read this I should be long gone. I've slit my arm from my semi-colon tattoo all the way to my inner elbow, cutting through all the tinier cuts that go across my wrist. These words are the blood that came dripping out, after all these years of being clogged up in my system.

Where do we start this story? Is the starting point of our life truly the day we were born? I don't believe we deserve to mix our innocence with our mistakes and havoc--I've always seen a line cutting through my life somewhere, I'm just not sure of its exact location.

Does my life start from the day I left my best friends in 2012? Or the first day of school, the day I met them all, way back in 2008?
Does this story start from the day I lost her? Or maybe the day I found out I had her?
Does it start from the day I last kissed the wind? Or the day we had our first kiss, back in 2013?
Does it start all the way back to the day my parents were making me?

Let's go to the day her parents were making her.

The 31st of January, 2015.

The idea was mine. This whole mess started with me. You were working the night shift at Ibis hotel, and I'd gone to fetch you. It's weird to think that I have a vlog from that very day, when we'd visited the cat cafe above Burger King. The calm before the storm, wasn't it?

The place we went to was called Mayo Inn, and there was a Cheers opposite. We got sandwiches there, remember? They weren't doing hourly charges, and we paid a hundred for a night; they didn't accept nets, and I waited for you at their lobby while you went to withdraw money.

My heart still quickens when I think about that day; when I think about any of the days we'd gone to a hotel. You know the truth of how I got pregnant, right? You took yourself out before you came, but you went back in after for some reason. I was so in love with you I didn't take notice or think there was anything wrong about that. We were stupidly in love, joined together again after one year of being absent from each other's lives.

Maybe I still am, but I need to force myself to write every single thing I've missed out. I have diary entries from the year, but when I read them back anyone could see how badly I was trying to cover up for you. My own way of protecting you. Maybe not anymore, right?

I already wrote the whole story of my pregnancy, but this shall be a clearer one.
My previous post titled "Unborn" was written in late 2015, but just only published a few days ago. That wasn't the whole truth either.

We went to Universal Studios on the 4th of March, 2015. At the time I was living at my Paya Lebar house, my granny's place. The day after my mom came over and we went back to our Pasir Ris house together, took a cab all the way on the Pan Island Expressway and Tampines Expressway.

When we were passing by Ikea I already felt like throwing up. I felt that wetness in my mouth, you know, right before you're about to throw up. That's when I furiously tapped my mom on her knee and somehow she understood, but she was too late. I'd thrown up all fucking over. It was funny though, because my mom actually took out a piece of tissue to pass to me. Like that pathetic piece of tissue could hold in all my vomit?

Do you remember my nephew? On 10th March, I was following my mom to her regular bakery supplies shop when she received a phone call. I heard her saying the prayer that a good Muslim says upon the news of someone's passing. It was my cousin and his wife's first child, a son. He passed away a day after birth.

I couldn't stop crying, even though I'm not that close with this cousin. Just bawling, endless tears. Maybe it was the life that was starting to form inside me at that time. Maybe it was already giving me a motherly instinct. Nobody will ever know.

A few days later we had a wedding to attend to, all the way in Kuala Lumpur. My grandmother is from Malaysia so my mom has lots of cousins and relatives from there. Everyone mistook my vomiting episode as fever, even me. From young, I will always throw up whenever I was sick. It was nothing to be worried about at all. Still, they got me those asam things to suckle on if I felt like throwing up.

At the time I had this favourite shirt, the one that's grey in the front and checkered green down the back and the sleeves. I was wearing it on that road trip to Kuala Lumpur. We had our lunch at a pit stop, the one with Baskin Robbins opposite the toilets, I'm sure you know that one.

I didn't have appetite to eat rice, and my mom got me porridge. I threw it up when we were walking to the car. If you brought me to that pit stop again, I could show you exactly where I'd stood, hunched over with my granny rubbing my back.

One of the relatives got us a villa to stay in, my family and the others who came from Johore. That night upon reaching I had dreams of that house, I dreamed of a family of three, a little daughter sleeping in a crib in that very room I was sleeping in. They weren't white per se but their skin was so, so pale. I told my cousin about it, when she arrived with her husband; I'm not sure if she remembers.

The day of the wedding my mom and I got into an argument. It was so stupid and insignificant; she was mad at me for not waking up on time and kept yelling at me. I called her a bitch when I was walking to the bathroom, and she gave me one hard hit on my back. Such a tiny detail, but how would she feel if she'd known I was pregnant at the time?

On the trip back to Johore we made a stop at the place with a bridge, the one with A&W on it, I think. Or was it Marrybrown? I can't recall for some reason. But I can remember using the Wifi there and seeing lots of messages from you; the way you said you couldn't stop thinking of me and you couldn't sleep from missing me and "I really can't live without you".

When we got back to Singapore my mother brought me to a clinic for my rashes. I'd developed some on my legs at the time, and after explaining about them to the doctor, she mentioned my nausea to him as well. He said they weren't related to each other, and then asked me, Could you be pregnant by chance? And I said no.

I made a video called Document Your Life for March 2015; I made it on my brother's 15th birthday, and when I went to dinner with the family I texted you: Do you think I might be pregnant? My period didn't come for the whole of February and it's not coming for March either.

You were so scared, you panicked. You begged me not to ever mention such a possibility. It was clear from then that you never wanted her. That you never had the intention to stay whether or not I gave you what you wished for.

My sister-in-law got me the test kit thing, and when it showed up positive I was deadly calm. I called you, and I lied to you, saying it was negative. You were so relieved, you said Thank God, and I was already holding back my tears.  I really wanted to protect you, you know. I was planning to keep it secret from you until I aborted it.

Half of the reason why I didn't want to keep her was because of my parents. They already had a granddaughter outside of marriage, and I didn't want them to think there was something wrong with the way they raised their children.

You were still most of the reason. I loved you so much, I still do and I always will even if the whole world tells me not to. I wanted you to be happy, more than anything. I honestly daydreamed about keeping it from you, but I couldn't. I was a terrible liar and you were already suspicious of me, you were almost accusing me of cheating on you. You called me the worst girl you ever met, do you remember?

I cracked, and I told you a week after I took the test. You were terrified, and I regretted telling you immediately after. I hated the things you were saying to me but I hated seeing you so scared. I wanted to protect you from it, so so so fucking bad but I failed at it, like I always do.

Remember the few days when I was badly craving for pancakes? You brought me to the Gelare at One Km Mall, where I got banana pancakes. I'd worn my maroon shirt tucked into my black skinnies and had my hair in a ponytail, and you told me I looked like a minah from behind.

You stared at me while I ate my pancakes, with that in-love look on your face, and you told me, "I'm just gonna stare at you right now."

You sent me a song that you were obsessed with at the time; it couldn't have been more perfect. If all we have is time then we'll be alright / it's not much but it's better than nothing / We're running on fumes but we'll make it through the night / it's not love but it's better than dreaming.

You went to meet your friends that night, one of them coming back from Australia after two years. You confided in them about your situation, and one of them, the one who never really liked me the most, asked you "How sure are you that it's yours?"

And you came to ask me. You came to fucking ask me, "Are you sure it's mine?"
We argued again that night. I couldn't fucking believe you asked me that.
That question started everything. It started all my fucked up thoughts and all the feelings I had for my fucking baby.

We talked about getting jobs--you'd just ended your internship at Ibis hotel, and we were both just freeloading at home and not having much income. Talked about the abortion and realised how badly we needed money at the time.

I contacted an agency on the 30th of March, 2015 and they told me to come down to their office the next day. That night I'd gone to visit my grandfather at hospital with my mom, and we slept overnight. I slept on the cold hard fucking floor; such a tiny detail but to have done so while pregnant. It actually hurts to think about; I never cared much about her didn't I?

At that time I was reading a book called My Heart And Other Black Holes. It revolved around a website where people meet to make plans for suicide together. The protagonist meets someone who wants to do it on April 7th. What an eerie coincidence, wasn't it? I'd already had ideas then: I daydreamed about dying together with the life inside me. Maybe I was already starting to fall into depression then, but we'll never know.

The next day I went to the agency at Bishan. I got a job at Popular One KM, starting on the 1st of April, 2015. I was terrified, but little did we know it turned out to be my second home. But that shall maybe be a story for another day.

Here's another part where I need to rewrite my story.
I never mentioned much of this in my diary entries or blog posts.

There was a night when I listened to this one song repeatedly: Breathe, by Taylor Swift. It's such an old song, I'd listened to it on a CD player back in sec two. It was way past midnight, and I mentioned keeping it to you. I didn't want to do it, I didn't want to abort it, I wanted so badly to keep it.

And you said "Sure, you can keep it. But just know that you won't have me around anymore if you do."

Do you remember?

I also vaguely remember you mentioning that you would give me money every month as financial support. But you made it clear that if I kept it, you would leave my life. You made it clear that it was a choice between a life with you, and a life without you.

And you wonder why I always asked you to choose me over your friends.

There's nothing else to blame but my stupidity, the love I had for you. I loved you so much and I was so, so, so willing to do anything to make you happy. There was never anyone else to blame but myself. I should have seen by then that you never had any intention to keep me.

You promised me that you would give me another baby in the future. You kept telling me that you did want to keep it too, 'trust me I want it just as much as you do', but that 'it just isn't the right time'. And when I brought up the topic of adoption, you got angry, you told me "I'll never let anyone else have what's mine, ever. I'd rather let God have it than someone else."

I cried almost every night, and when I told you, you said my tears were like tap-water to you, 'so common and meaningless'.

Do you remember? Because I do. So clearly.

I started work at the place which turned out to be my most favourite place in the world. During my lunch break I called you, you were at home, and you told me not to carry heavy things. I said okay, but unfortunately I had to, because it was my job. I didn't want to complain about anything when my colleagues told me to do this, or carry that, I didn't protest. I was doing my job.

On my first day, one of my best friends now taught me how to do Housekeeping duty. You know what that's about, right? Whoever's on duty has to open and close the doors when the time is right, and throw the rubbish down at Basement.

Maybe it's nothing much to you. But imagine being four months pregnant and pushing a trolley filled with cartons and carrying bags of rubbish. Lifting that huge metal divider that goes between the shutters and using all my energy to slot it into that fucking gap at the top of the store. You won't know how annoying that thing is unless you work here. And I did it until I was four months in. I could do anything you know?

In early May there was World Book Day and we had to hang the posters on these metal bars that are suspended from the ceiling. They made us part-timers do it, and I climbed up right to the top of the ladder to hang those stupid posters; at the time I was three and a half months pregnant.

I didn't complain, not once. But I was scared. At the time I'd grown over-attached to it, and I was grateful that it wasn't showing much because it was easy to hide. But I was scared if there was anything wrong with it because it was so unusually small. I was never a healthy person to begin with and I started thinking of my every little action because I know everything I do will affect it.

Remember the day I'd fainted at work? During morning briefing when my vision started to blur and my knees went weak and my hearing slowly disappeared. When I realised what was happening my Chinese Department colleague and manager were carrying me to the office.

I was

so

fucking

scared.

And where were you? You were at home, sleeping. We were arguing that day, I remember. I tweeted that I'd collapsed at work and a girl from your secondary school replied to it, asking if I was alright. It's funny how I remember the smallest details, but I always do.

I brought myself to the polyclinic when I came to. My best friend from secondary school, the one with a gem for her name: she had to take an injection for a trip she was taking too, so we'd gone together. We had to wait for more than an hour, so we got donuts and bubble tea and sat at the community centre in the meantime.

And I told her. It was difficult too, but way easier than if I'd told any of the other girls in the clique. All of them were so pure at the time, never having boyfriends and never knowing the feeling of giving a boy your everything. I've always been sickly involved with boys back in school, and I knew deep down that if I'd told any of them about it, they would have secretly thought I deserved it.

That day at the polyclinic was my first time talking to a doctor on my own, without my mother even waiting for me outside. So insignificant, but it was a sign of my growing up, wasn't it? They made me pee into a stupid little tube, and when the doctor confirmed again that I was pregnant, he asked: "Are you keen on this pregnancy?"

I shook my head because what else was there to do, right? And so he referred me to KKH Women's Hospital.

Life wasn't very nice to me during my pregnancy. I had to hear the news of my nephew passing away a day after birth. I had to go through Mother's Day with my sister-in-law telling me I have a baby and that I am a mother too. I had to let my niece come near me and smile at me and then later hearing my sis-in-law saying that babies can sense when you're pregnant.

And I never told you this but there was a time when my mother walked into the room and asked me if my period was here. She knows whenever I get mine, because I would have soaked and hung my underwear in the toilet, something I hadn't done for a long time. She told me that my granny asked her to ask me, and then she told me to stand up. She said I looked fatter, and I was so fucking terrified that day and I don't remember what lie I'd said to get her off my back.

I hated the nausea. Everytime I had my lunch at work, I would lean over the toilet, waiting for whatever to come spilling out of my mouth. Most of the time it refused to come out despite the nauseous feeling in my stomach being so damn fucking strong. I developed a habit of poking my finger down my throat to force myself to puke, I just couldn't stand it.

Imagine not being able to talk to your own best friends about it. We once all met for dinner, where I stuffed my face with lots of ice-cream, and my stomach was bloated afterwards; they started joking that I was pregnant, and pretended to talk to my stomach. Only the girl with a gem for a name knew there was something growing in me for real. The way the life inside me was being talked to, but as a joke. "I may be a mother but I sure am a cruel one." a line from my diary entry that day.

You didn't make it any better. We hung out around Pasir Ris one time in May, bought ourselves hotdogs from the 7-11 at Downtown East and sat at the stairs between the escalators. You wanted to make out, asked if we could go to the toilet in the middle of Pasir Ris Park. Your exact words being "You're already pregnant, what's the worst that could happen?" And whenever we argued, I'd ask you to remember what I'm doing for you; you'd say "What are you even doing for me?"

I remember the day we went out and watched Child 44 at Jem, how I tried to tell you again that I wanted to keep it. You told me, I will always remember, "We can't have it, not right now. Trust me I want it just as much as you do, but now is not the right time. I promise I'll give you another one in the future." You, the wind, the hurricane, will always be cruel. I never wanted 'another one'; just my first. But of course I listened to you, I loved you too much, me and my stupidity.

That one day, when you knew how much I wanted to keep her and you were so scared that I would do that; your words: "I keep wishing you will fall and have a miscarriage," but at least you apologised for that, right? The word 'sorry' solves everything doesn't it?

This one time, when I was on the way to work on the train; this Indian woman had boarded the train with her son, and she took the empty seat beside me. Her son started to squeeze between her and me, and that day I was honestly not feeling well at all, I think I was past three months at the time. I really needed that fucking seat; but of course everyone stared at me, waiting for me to get up and offer my seat to her fucking son. So I did.

And I so badly wanted to scream: I'M

FUCKING

PREGNANT.

This post is getting so hard for me to write right now.

When did I start falling in love with my child?

Imagine being a worthless person your whole life, beaten by your elder brother as a kid and by your father as a teenager. Being disliked by all the kids in your secondary school, not belonging with the people at polytechnic, being the girl who makes her boyfriend's friends say "Aamir you deserve someone way better."/"Aamir why did you go back to her, why are you licking back what you've spat out?"

I'll never forget 8th April, 2015. The way I'd cried like an idiot on the bus going home from work. I started tearing up at the bus stop, and one of the other part timers was passing by and saw me cry. He's long gone from Popular now, but I'll always remember him as the one person who knew then that something was wrong with me.

A song that goes: Turn off the lights when you leave / 'Cause we've got everything we're gonna need / We're gonna run we're gonna run we're gonna run child / We're on the run we're on the run we're on the run child giving me ideas, making me daydream about running away with my second soul but making me cry, knowing it was more than impossible.

I wanted it so, so, so, much. And I kept it to myself because I didn't want you to say things that would hurt me. I had to pretend that I thought keeping it was never an option. But I never stopped daydreaming about disappearing from your life and bringing it along with me.

I fell sick in mid-May, exactly on the day I was supposed to go KKH for my scan. I really wanted to see my baby, but tried as I could I didn't have the strength to get out of bed. I cried the whole day, I refused to eat and I ignored all the texts and calls from you. I hated that I loved you so much, I wanted my child so damn fucking much.

I called KKH and made a new appointment for the 2nd of June, 2015. My heart expanded and shattered at the same time that day, seeing that monochromatic screen. The past twenty years of my life, I'd been so useless, not worth shit in this ever-moving world. So tiny and insignificant on earth and the afterlife--and then being blessed with a life growing inside me.

Do you know how it felt?

You wouldn't, unless you've been pregnant yourself. Unless you've been shunned by society and ignored or hated by everyone around you yourself.

I was stunned, looking at that screen. I started tearing up, definitely, and then I hesitantly asked the nurse: "Is it possible to tell if it's a girl or a boy?" She said she'd try to see, and while watching her pinch and zoom in the screen here and there, I held my breath.

I always thought having a girl first is perfect. I grew up believing elder brothers are pieces of shit, and I didn't want my first to be a boy.

And then she said the one word that shattered me in all ways: girl. It was more than enough to make me so excited and at the same time deflated because I can't fucking keep her. But she moved, I saw her move, and I didn't know whether I'd wanted to laugh or cry at that moment.

I also wished you'd been there to see her for yourself too. Maybe you wouldn't have moved on so quickly then. It was amazing, she was amazing, I was amazing.

The nurse asked if I wanted to keep a picture of it, which of course I wanted to, more than anything. Just one shot of her, the life growing inside me, the heart beating next to mine. A mere piece of paper already curling at the sides that I carried with me wherever.

I had my last counselling session afterwards. I was constantly asked Where is your boyfriend? I told the counsellor you couldn't make it because you lived in Johore. She said there was no excuse, but I tried to defend you by telling her that you'd be there during the procedure. Then she said the sentence that rang in my head constantly after it was all over: "The guy can be there throughout everything but at the end of the day it's only the girl who suffers."

Again, she tried to talk me out of the abortion. I didn't cry throughout all the counselling sessions I'd had thus far, would you believe it? I kept composure and just smiled through all the talks with the people of the hospital.

Only one exchange cracked me, when I said I was doing it for my mother, remembered up until now:
"Would you rather hurt your mother or hurt your baby?"
"My mom is more important."
My first tears shed after all the interactions with counsellors, nurses, doctors.

My last room for the day: a doctor who gave me the final appointment. I was told to report to Admissions at noon, the 8th of June, 2015, and expected to stay for at least two days.  And that for 19 weeks, it could not be by vacuum anymore, but a 'slightly more painful method'.

I took the North East Line back to Outram Park, and then all the way to Pasir Ris. I went to Ikea on bus 58, bought myself a corkboard. How normal life seemed to be, huh?

I informed my manager that I was going to take MC for two days, on the 8th and 9th June. I was a part timer then, and I told her I was supposed to get some sort of bullshit surgery for my spine. I didn't know what the fuck else I was supposed to say.

And then I told my parents that my best friend, the one with a gem for her name, was going to be alone at home for a few days because the rest of her family was on holiday. I told them that she didn't go along with them because she had school and assignments to finish, and could I accompany her with a sleepover?

You'd informed your mom that you were sleeping over at your best friend's place, the best friend that we weren't even talking to at the time, but that shall be a story for another time too.

All was set.

The remaining days between my last appointment and my admission, I slept on my left side, so I wouldn't be lying down on her head. I listened to Two Of Us On The Run and Fumes on repeat and cried myself to sleep whenever I could and I kept it all from you. I didn't want you to tell me again, "Your tears are like tap-water to me, so common and meaningless."

And on the day itself, the 8th of June, 2015; I was calm. Taking the train to Bugis, walking to the bus stop with the shuttle bus to KKH, it was all becoming a norm. I didn't really feel any fear, it'd felt like any other day. Maybe it was just me surrendering the one thing that mattered. Maybe it was like how an old man would be calm on his deathbed.

Lucky for us it was the day of my salary, so we managed to make a payment of 800 bucks. Just a complete sweep of my bank account, but it was all we could do to make sure no letters were sent to my house. They mentioned sending a bill over to my address if I still owe the hospital anything.

I was brought to Ward 42, Bed 10. A bed by the window, how perfect huh? I was a mother, but also still the girl who loved looking out windows and sitting on windowsills.

They made me change into a red-brown garb that hung to my ankles, and you probably said I looked cute in it. Then two nurses tried to hook me up to that machine thing, but they couldn't find any veins big enough for it or something, so they started hitting my hands. In the end they hooked me from my right hand, rendering me completely useless and not being able to feed myself or sign all the stupid documents they made me sign afterwards.

One last counsellor came over to my bed, still trying to get me to change my mind. It did me more hurt than anything, because of course I wanted to run from that hospital and run from the country and maybe from the world, anything at all as long as I could keep her. And she told me: "Don't ever feel like you have no choice."

Of course I had a choice. And now, thinking back, I made the choice between my daughter and a boy who never had any intention to stay. My stupidity, my love for someone who would leave in two years' time over someone who would have spent her whole life believing I was beautiful.

A doctor explained to me that she will be putting in pills into me from down below, one pill every five hours for five times. Before she started, she told me: "Are you sure you want to do this? It's still not too late for you to change your mind, at this point of time. But once I put in the first one we can't go back."

And I just wanted to die.

It would have been so much easier.

But I nodded.

And she drew the curtains over my bed, told me to lift my knees and spread my legs, and then she placed a pill inside me. And it hurt like hell and when she left, I looked at you and at my best friend with a gem for her name, you both looked at me, and then I started to cry. Was it from the pain, was it from the fear, was it from the longing to keep her?

We never expected it to be a slow, painful process. I guess the pills part wasn't so bad, because we were just waiting for it to slide out. They told me I'd just have the normal discomfort of wanting to pass motion, but they really underestimated that one. I kept walking to the toilet in my bare feet, sitting on the toilet bowl but having nothing come out at all. One of the nurses also mentioned that it would be exactly like giving birth.

The only difference? I wouldn't be getting my baby.

You left for a while to eat at Mac, but then you couldn't come back in because visiting hours were over. And I was so miserable, wanting you around but at the same time not being able to care if I was alone or not. You told me you walked around Bugis, that it was a walking distance from KKH.

I didn't have much appetite by the second day. The makcik who gave us patients our food came over, asked me to choose what did I want to eat, or something right? And I didn't pay attention to anything and you answered for me, but I hated you and everyone and everything so much. I just remember having the strength to say thank you to whoever aided me, that much I know.

It was the day the new Mockingjay Part 2 trailer came out. I watched that and then went to watch the music video for Safe And Sound, and for the whole day afterwards that song was stuck in my head. You sat next to my bed the whole time, stroking my hair and occasionally falling asleep with your head touching mine, both of us jolted awake when nurses came to check my blood pressure.

They were constantly changing the doctor's nameplate that hung above my bed, and you told me Look, there are so many people here looking after you. And I said yeah, but none of them are my parents. Remember?

By that evening the five pills were already inserted but nothing was happening. The doctor came and told me they had to start a new procedure, a much more painful one. And I thought the five pills was the most painful it could get???

I couldn't even pay attention to what was happening anymore, I was so tired. But I remember the doctor putting a stick-like object into me from below, and this one hurt like hell and I even tried to pry her hands away. It was needed to hold my womb open so the fetus could slide out easier.

I thought the pills were bad enough, but this one was a million times more slow and painful. Time didn't seem to move at all, and I couldn't bring myself to eat or talk, and I kept making these whimpering sounds because it was all I could muster. My stomach was as hard as stone, and you were resting your hand on it and agreeing, that's when you moved your hand up and did what you'd always liked to do.

Don't you remember? In midst of all my misery, you slid your hand under the hospital dress and groped me, fondled my breasts and fingered my nipples. You never learned, did you, oh, Aamir Bin Kamsari. I should have known then that you would never go to the right path no matter what I wore or what I did or how I became. And we both just constantly blamed me for it. The harder I tried to bring you away the angrier you got for bringing you there in the first place.

I am drinking all the coffee I can in order to stay awake and write this in one shot, even though it's getting difficult. I would never have the composure to record tapes like Hannah did, and you would never have the balls to listen to my voice saying all that I have written here. You're afraid of me, my voice and my words, just the same as how I am afraid of you, your hands and your actions.

You left shortly after visiting hours that day. You told me you missed your mom, and while you were going home to her, I was texting my father, telling him I was staying over my friend's house for one more night. Of course he got mad, so I turned off my data and threw my phone to the side and curled into a ball beneath the blanket.

I opted for the lowest class ward, and there were just these weak fans turning round and round above our beds, but it was still freezing, even after I turned mine off. The painkillers they gave me earlier were fading and the pain was coming back. Imagine feeling like all of your organs might slide out of you anytime soon, that's how it felt, but a million times more.

Again, I kept walking back and forth to the toilet. But nothing came out. It hurt like hell, and they gave me more painkillers but I threw them all up.

I don't know what time the extreme pain started. The time just crawled by when I felt it starting to slide out, and my whimpers turned to groans, which later turned to screams. I looked for the emergency button, desperately pressing it to call for the nurses or whoever the fuck could help me, even if it was a fucking angel coming or God himself coming personally to take me the fuck away. Anyone, anything, anyhow, just make it fucking stop make it fucking stop I'm so so so sorry I didn't want to do this I want her I want her I want her.

Just close your eyes, the sun is going down. You'll be alright, no one can hurt you now. Come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound. 

I woke the whole ward up with my screaming. I'd really gone through it all at that point of time. You could split me in half with an axe or run a chainsaw through me or twist my head until it snapped off my neck and it would all be nothing to me. It was nothing compared to going through hours-long labour and getting an undeveloped, bloody body between my legs instead of a breathing, living baby girl, and knowing it was my choice.

I looked at my phone shortly after, I don't know why. But I saw the time and I'll always remember it: 5:32 in the morning. The last thing I saw was that, and the last thing I heard was 'Muslim cemetery', before I closed my eyes and finally fell dead to the world of slumber.

Later on, a few months after, we both found out together what was verse 5:32 in the Qur'an. I'm sure you remember, but I don't know how you could continue living after reading that.

When the sun started rising, patients started waking up and nurses started bustling out and about. I woke up too, but not fully as I watched one of them checking my blood pressure again. The narrow tube that ran from my hand to the drip was all red, my blood running from my veins and through the tube. I don't know what the fuck happened there but it was a sight I would never forget.

I used the last of my energy to text my manager that I was still at the hospital and couldn't make it to work that day.

The doctor came and talked to me but I just wasn't hearing anything. I was slipping in and out of sleep, or oblivion, or my dreams, or anything that sits between this reality and the next. I heard her voice saying, "I think she's very tired." and that again was the last thing I heard.

You came a few hours later, and they transferred me to a stretcher-like bed, brought me to the operations theater or whatever it was called. You later told me that my bed was all bloody and there were bits of meat, probably remnants of the umbilical cord.

I was injected at near the base of my spine, and I couldn't feel my legs afterwards. They had to vacuum my down below, to clean it and rid it of whatever's left from the fetus or whatever shit, I couldn't be bothered to listen. They wheeled me back to my bed hours later, and told me I can't go home until the anaesthetic is completely gone.

They told me not to get up and to call them if I needed to pee, and my passing urine would be the indication that the anaesthetic is faded. Never in my life have I tried so hard to pee, you remember that don't you? We drew the curtains over my bed and you helped me up, carried me against you and pretended we were dancing. We got scolded for that, and also for carrying me to the toilet to pee.

I kept asking the nurses to let me go home that night. They told me I had to stay for another day at least, but I wasn't having it. The doctor tried to talk to me again and that's when I told her, My parents don't even know I'm here, I really need to go right now.

They made me sign more documents, or more like scribbled on because my right hand was still useless, gave me medicine, gave me brochures about post-abortion care and all the things which I couldn't bring myself to give a shit about. We finally left the hospital about half an hour before midnight.

I got back to work a day later, with my first period after 5 months. Actually I'm not sure if it was technically my period, because I started bleeding below when she came out, and it never completely stopped.

All my life, I have been rude to my parents, yelling at my mother and fighting with my father, making them both cry, running away from home, disappearing overnight and feeling no remorse looking at my own grandmother cry for me, I have been a flame, letting you fuck me in handicap toilets and going down on you in staircase alleys, walking past donation boxes for mosques and people needing my help and beggars needing money for their meals. I've done so much sin, and the only one that I will ever ask for forgiveness for is when I made the choice to throw her.

My biggest mistake in life was not having her. It was losing her.

And I'm so sorry.

She would have been so beautiful, despite having such an ugly mother you know? Even til today, I would do anything to hear her cry again. Just cry, I'm not scared anymore, I just want to hear her again. It's been two weeks since I lost you, Aamir, but everyone knows getting over you is the easy part. It's getting over her that's difficult, even after two years. I never stopped the habit of protectively placing a hand over my stomach. A heart beating next to mine; my only purpose in life, after twenty years of being useless and never belonging anywhere.

I already felt a bit of the depression even before I lost her. It worsened afterwards, even though I was so deadly calm to you all the time. I couldn't look at people the same way again. I couldn't hear my niece cry or see her laugh without feeling a million knifes stabbing into me. I always disliked children my whole life, but after the whole episode I couldn't help staring at little Malay girls in public, wishing I had mine.

We'd built the lies so damn carefully and intricately during the whole hospital stay. But one time in mid or late June, when I was sleeping over at my grandmother's place, she received a call from my mom. She hung up and asked me, "Kak, surat apa tu kak?" KKH had sent a letter to my address, because I forgot that technically I'd overshot my stay and owed them for it. I tried to shut her out, I didn't answer her and ignored her until I fell asleep.

The next day I was going off to Popular Headquarters to sign my contract because I was converting to full-time. My bank account was completely gone, and I think you'd just started working at Domino's around that time, right?

I was living on two dollars a day and constantly worrying about our finances to the extent of you saying: "If you're so worried about money why don't you just sell yourself on Geylang then?" Why did I get so hurt over that? I'd gone through so much worse, it shouldn't have fazed me. But of course I added it to my collection of things that made me want to die.

When I was taking the bus back to Jurong East MRT from Popular HQ, my father texted me, about the damn letter. I tried to ignore it, I get my anger from him so you could only imagine the things he was saying to me. And you, where were you? Sitting at home with your mother, the mother that still thought her middle child was so perfect, not knowing about the potential granddaughter she'd almost had.

You were there a few days or weeks later, when my father texted me again, being so angry and accusing me of exactly what I'd stayed at the hospital for. You read his texts together with me, your head leaning against mine, while waiting for 168 at the old Woodlands interchange.

I cried in front of you, but you never felt the pain. Your parents didn't know, and I think they still don't even until today. I cried on buses 168 and 88 home, wiping my eyes and nose on the sleeves of my stupid black cardigan. I cried myself to sleep, woke up the next day with swollen eyes. I kept wondering why they couldn't understand that I did it for them.

My father never talked to me after that, never did all the way to Hari Raya 2016. And you realise, despite knowing about it all, he accepted you when you came over to my open house last year. My grandmother, the one who's cried so many times for me, accepting you whole-heartedly and constantly asking about you even though it hurt her a million times more than you can imagine. Don't you feel any remorse at all?

When you enlisted in August 2015, I felt so alone. Being on my own in the outside world with the loss still fresh on my mind and body. I can just remember 31st of August, 2015, when I bought some pathetic bottles of alcohol, drank while watching If I Stay and cried and cried and cried. And then I went out and got my first tattoo, listening to Habits (Stay High) on repeat the whole time.

I got her initials and the date I lost her. I gave her a name, you know, but of course giving her a name is nothing because I didn't even give her a chance to live. You tried persuading me that we saved her, that it was better letting her go heaven an innocent soul than be born in a cruel world. Your sweet tongue, and I thought I was the one with the gift of words.

A memory from a lifetime ago: one of my best friends from work coming over to me while I was doing my stocks and somehow the conversation floated to superstitions and futures and the like. She took my hand and squeezed it, did the thing that would apparently tell you how many children you will have in the future. She told me my hands indicate that I would have only one child: a girl.

Here's something you wouldn't believe: I tried to cheat on you once in December, while you were in camp. I tried to cheat on you with death himself. I had lots of leftover medicine from post-abortion, and maybe I did it wrong or something because after swallowing about eight random pills, I fell asleep and woke back up, not dead but with a weird stomachache. How the fuck did I even survive that, I don't fucking know, or maybe I am a failure at dying like I am at everything else.

If a woman ever died during childbirth, she would be deemed beautiful. She would be granted a place in heaven. I kept wishing I'd died during my own version of labour; how beautiful for a woman to die giving life to another. It only seemed fitting for me to die taking the life of another.

Everytime I told you I missed her, you snapped at me: Then what the fuck do you want me to do? / You want a baby so fucking much? Get another guy to fuck you and give you a fucking baby.

I ruined your 19th birthday, by crying endless tears the whole time. I lost my secondary school best friends the previous night; add that to the mix of my believing I was ugly, my missing her, my feeling worthless to you. I felt so ugly all the time with my short hair, with my scars, my empty womb, my lack of friends, my blood, my blood, my blood.

Earlier on I couldn't decide where to start this story from but now where does it end? I started this off not knowing how you could move on so easily from it, from her; now after I've written it all down, I can see why. I finally understand how you feel about it all.

You weren't the one who carried her, that much is easy to see.
You weren't the one who saw her move during the scan.
You weren't the one whose organs threatened to slide out.
You weren't the one who was given silent treatment from your father for a year for doing something you thought was a sacrifice for him.
You weren't the one who dreamed of little girls and woke up looking for someone who was long gone.
You weren't the one with a growing niece whose smile always made you think of your own girl.
You weren't the one who listened to love songs and suddenly thought they were for daughters, not lovers.
You weren't the one who had to live knowing that your biggest mistake was your own choice.
You weren't the one being told What sacrifice? You call that a sacrifice?
You weren't the one whose parents can't look at the same way anymore.
You weren't the one who felt so, so, so worthless to the world and society and even to your supposed other half.
You weren't the one who lost friends time and again and only having the life inside you as your purpose.
You weren't the one who so badly wanted to die from both physical and emotional pain.

Even until today, I always feel a gap in my arms but not from missing the way I would wrap them around your neck. It's from wanting so badly to hold her. My elder brother recently got a new baby boy and while I was so scared from holding my niece when she was just born herself, I'm now a million times more terrified to hold my nephew, because I miss mine so much. There will always be that gap in my body, my heart, my life, and there's never anyone I could talk about it with, not my colleagues, not my family, not my flower. Because they weren't the ones who brought me here.

And you know something? Thinking about it, seeing my elder brother rocking his newborn son back and forth, I realise that this person I've hated more than anything is better than you, the person I've loved more than anything. Because at least he was responsible, at least he loved his daughter enough to keep her. And you? You supposedly pray five times a day but you wanted so much to get rid of her. An 'it' to you, because you once told me, your exact words being: "Right now there's nothing it's just meat." You think I would ever forget?

Maybe you don't remember, and you will say I am lying, making up words. Of course you would think that, and I don't blame you for it because you weren't the one on the sharp side of the knife.

Of course there are thirteen sides to every story; their Hannah had the thirteen people who treated her in different ways that led to her suicide. And here, now, your E'indah has her thirteen reasons too, thirteen things you've said in the year 2015 alone that have made her want to die.

Your tears are like tap water to me, so common and meaningless.

Why can't you be more decent?

You're the worst girl I ever met.

Are you sure it's mine?

I keep wishing you would fall and have a miscarriage.

Right now it's nothing it's just meat.

Sure you can keep it, but just know that you won't have me in your life anymore if you do.

What are you even doing for me? What sacrifice, you call that a sacrifice?

If it weren't for me you'd be fucking a lot of guys right now... Probably selling yourself on Geylang or something. 

If you're so worried about money why don't you sell yourself on Geylang?

Nampak baby kat advertisement pun nak nangis.

You want a baby so much? Get another guy to fuck you and give you a fucking baby.

Depression is just a passing cloud, get over it.

This post is one step towards my closure for 2015. These words are my blood, and I'm not sure if I would survive again or die finally or lie comatose, but wherever I go, I hope your love, or whatever feelings you'd had for me is completely gone so you wouldn't be affected by it at all. I hope you don't look for me the way you did when you first left three years ago. I hope I am just a stranger to you by the time you see me on the news, be it as a successful local writer or as a body of 22-year-old found.

And if you ask me; of course I've forgiven you. I've forgiven you for all your sharp words, for the times you would drag me to staircases and toilets, for the time you persuaded me to go a hotel with you and then tell me right afterwards "I wonder what it's like to date someone who can bring me to the right path." And as long as you were with me, you would always blame me for it.

I'm sorry I wasn't enough to bring you back, but I've learned that no matter who I am you'll always blame me for bringing you off, you'll always use me however way you want and even getting me pregnant wasn't enough to teach you a lesson; the only way I could have stopped it was by letting someone else have you.

And I'm sorry I never had the courage to leave you, but you've done that for us and you'll I'll be safe now and you deserve another bird who is just as tiny and shallow as you, not a flame, a sun who will always be swimming in the galaxy and its infinity. I'm much too powerful for you, I am the universe and you, the wind, do not take much of it at all.

I just wish I'd realised it all sooner.

I don't want to carry any grudge against you wherever I go; the weight of the guilt, the loss, is more than heavy enough. And maybe if God is kind enough to let me see her when I die, I hope to Him that you will never set eyes on her yourself. But you know, however old you live to be, there will always be the two girls that you once gave life to; the two girls whose lives you ripped out just the same. 

Love versus love versus love

A year ago I thought I'd lost my flair for writing. I would open the new post page and stare at it without anything coming to mind. I was convinced I didn't have the love for it anymore, the passion, the hunger to be a recognised writer.

I once thought it always had to be a choice between an other half and a passion; that you could never have both. I wrote a lot when he first left me--now I am writing just as much after he's gone again. Even planning to invest in a full Microsoft Word and already contacting publishing houses. I believe the heartbreak is what pushed me to it.

If you are like me, then you really can't have both. Your writing would only be fueled by loneliness, and you could leak your universe either to the person you love or the natural instincts you have with a pen and paper/fingers and keyboard. Hint: the person is the one who would throw your feelings into the trash or into your face.

Thinking of alternate universes made by differing decisions: if I'd chosen to have her, the wind would have left because he didn't want her, as he'd clearly said at the time. In this universe, I chose him, so of course I wouldn't have the one that would have been mine forever.

Another alternate universe possibility: I kept her, but not him, and am too busy taking care of a child that I put my dreams on hold. Pushing them back and back and back until I could no longer fulfil them or even try to, boundaries made by my daughter, or lack of youth, or just the simple fact that the love for writing has died.

I guess thinking about it I could never have all three. I've lost her forever and had him and writing left; now he's gone and all I have is my gift with words. And swear to god I will never lose this, I will never lose you and I will be working hard to achieve this.

You were on fire

Was told a story by an old friend today, but I am a terrible person who triggered the emotions he'd been trying to forget, so I decided not to write about it anymore. I'd just spent the last half an hour flipping through my diary from 2015 again; because you know, self-torture.

All my entries stood out, shocking myself right now at the thought that my almost-20-year-old self had written all these.

An entry from the 6th of October, 2015. Word for word, except names are exchanged for initials.

Hm, I am getting back on track with this writing thing. I don't have anything deep or emotional to let out, unless you count the dream I just had about a week ago...

The entire dream was insane just the way it is. There were ghosts, a woman who would breathe on everyone's necks but not reveal herself. Most of all, there were the love of my life and his best friend.
...There is always the two of them. 

Exit A and I from the motorbike that we'd obtained from the previous scene, a warehouse with the invisible woman. Enter us into an MRT station that somewhat has a resemblance to Pasir Ris. I spot L, looking so much taller than I remember. I call out, and he smiles when he sees me but A is emotionless. 

I don't think A was as invested in our conversation as L and I were... I so believe at this point of time my dreamself has forgotten her other half.

The MRT station is fairly crowded, like it would be during peak hours. Though I have the slight feeling it wasn't due to people returning home from work and all... I believe it was a sort of apocalypse. You are lucky if you are caught in a life-or-death situation with the love of your life. 

Or are you?

The minute all 3 of us have gotten to the platform level, this huge, muscular guy comes into view, looking really threatening. He opens his mouth and his voice thunders, "Everyone has 6 minutes to get out of this station before I blow this place up."

And there is mass panic. There is a wall of death as people run all over the place, squashing others in the midst. Plenty of people are pushed down... stepped on... squashed like a bug... organs and bones going everywhere. 

Seeing things like these aren't new to me. But I still get traumatised every dawn when I awake.

More importantly, where is the love of my life? L is right there, he is holding my hand but where is A???

Here comes the plothole: while I am leaning down from the tracks, a soft wind pushes me over. I do not feel scared even though there are bodies on the ground below me, the many who'd tried to jump. I remember feeling myself floating down to the ground, landing on my feet amidst those who landed on the last seconds of their lives. 

And then L falls on me, and I am able to catch him.
But... where is A???

I look back up to the platform level, and there I finally see the love of my life. He is emotionless, and I want to cry out for him but I don't find my voice. I look at him helplessly, and then the huge, muscular guy comes into view again, blocking my other half from my line of sight.

He says, voice booming again, "6 minutes is up." and smiles a big yellow menacing smile.

And he guns away at everyone who is left on the MRT platform.
The bullets in his gun explode upon piercing someone's skin, and the victim is set on fire.

I watch him aim his gun, I hear the bullet hitting someone and exploding, I watch the love of my life burn. And I am doing nothing but screaming while his best friend has his arms around me. 

L and I made it out but you didn't. You were on fire.

That last line, on a sticky note next to my wall, from the time I regularly wrote down the first thing that came to my mind every morning. L and I made it out but you didn't. You were on fire. 

You never know when something matters

I haven't read a book in forever. Even the weeks leading up to his leaving, I'd already lost the mood for reading. I jumped from book to book and all of them just didn't seem to work. When all was lost, I jumped back into my favourite for the 4th time since 2014. I went into it still with an other half; I finished it without.

A few days ago my friend from 3 years ago asked if I was okay; he was the river, and now back to the block of ice as I'd known him as before I made a dent in him. I told him about my favourite book, and I felt that magical weird feeling when he said he remembered me, at his school, holding it the very first time I'd read it.

I'd read half of that book at NYP, his school, and half at mine. To think of that moment again, having held the book that would turn out to be my favourite. To think that at the time, there'd been a knife hidden among the pages, and I hadn't known about it. Hadn't known about the potential this novel had to break my heart into smithereens.

It's the same magical weird feeling when I once scrolled back through old pictures, ones which I'd had her right there but I hadn't known yet. Pictures of me and my cousin at a wedding in Kuala Lumpur, me smiling sheepishly next to a Minion statue at Universal Studios. She had been right there during those moments, and we all didn't know.

On Saturday I'd gone to my old school, taking a route I was once so familiar with. I caught sight of bus 87, going towards Sengkang, and felt that strangeness again. I see this bus regularly now on my routes to and fro work; I imagined back 3 years ago when I was going to school and caught sight of this bus and thought nothing of it, never knowing it would be my everyday during my working life.

I can't really describe it and I know nobody else would get it. Quite a disturbing feeling sometimes, but it's also strangely beautiful. We never keep receipts of the books we grew to love, conversations with people who would turn out to be the loves of our lives. It's only when we look back at a photograph or a memory do we realise that something was right there all along. It just never seemed important at the time.

Maybe this time

She was a flame and the mess, her idea
Head in the clouds, a need to go higher
And he was the wind and the storm, his wake
Made a masterpiece but wanted a clean slate.

Somewhere along the lines, roles reversed
A heart gone silent, a brain in self converse
He, a dying passion for the remaining girl
She, burning desire to let go of the world.

He with enough courage to take his leave
She wishing her memories was instead a sieve
With no idea what's in his throbbing head
Except a glimpse of his happiness at her dead.

Her head and his heart, now made of stone
Surrounded by people and still so alone
She, standing firm with company of her words
He, already swept away with the brain-dead herd.

Maybe this time, she would not be the one to suffer
In this tiny country with year-round summer
Maybe someday she'd be the remembered one
He just needs to recall how much she loved the sun.

I never really wrote about you

Missing the year 2014 a little, when I'd handled the first break-up fairly well. I did it better after a 1-year relationship than a foolish 2-months fling in secondary school, and I'm not sure if that could be labeled as strength, as growing up.

When you find an other half, you really do want to spill everything out to them. If you couldn't tell them everything that's bothering you, then who else could there be? It's me to blame, it's you to blame, and yet there's both to blame and no one to blame and everyone to blame.

It's a bigger gap this time compared to 3 years ago; back then I only had him to lose but how does one move on from a soulmate and a daughter? All the books in the world, and none that could teach me. This break-up might be a blessing because missing him is distracting me from missing her.

A few weeks, or was it days, before he left I was already missing 2013, when everything was all fun and games between the both of us. We loved each other without thinking of our pasts and futures, and I thought that was just perfect. We were infinitely young, and it was us against everyone else.

I missed it so much that I made a playlist for the songs I'd been listening to, songs that I heard on the radio at the bakery I'd worked at. Songs that a poly classmate blasted on his laptop, songs that played overhead when I'd gone playing pool with them.

I guess halfway through the past 2 years it became me against him, him against me. Third parties came between us: insecurity, overthinking, jealousy, an unplanned life, a mental illness. I built the walls blocking him out, and he just got tired of trying to break them down each time. He thought he wasn't the one for me, and I, not the one for him.

I keep wishing I was beautiful and normal, then maybe things would have been different. 6 months after our first break-up he'd seen me change for the better and returned, and I accepted him wholeheartedly. I don't have anything great to do this time for that to happen again, and I think all is lost.

But I'm just gonna do it. Or die trying. 4 months into the new year, and I'm just starting to think of resolutions. Once I get my salary, I will invest in a full MS Word package and start writing, start typing away like a maniac on my laptop every single day. It's okay if I don't get published; they said a collection of rejection letters is good for an aspiring writer's soul.

On my side, he is the villain, a hurricane ripping through my heart; on his side, I am the bad guy, the rampant fire that burned everything of his to dust. We are alone yet side by side, both single-handedly rebuilding our worlds that we had destroyed together.

Maybe he's already found other girls to talk to, maybe one of them is already able to make his heart skip and already putting in effort for him. It stings to think about, but on the bright side, I am able to stop thinking of her for a moment. I really can't tell yet if this break-up is truly a blessing, but it's a slap and cold water poured to my face.

I'm sorry to the people who are reading this, the ones who are on my side: but I'm still waiting for him. I don't want anyone else, and if none of the girls he talks to works out, I hope he knows he can always come back to me and that I've forgiven everything that he's said and done.

When he came back in July 2014, he mentioned how he had stayed faithful while I was going off with so many boys in trying to move on. I think this time it's my turn to stay; fuck it I don't have anywhere to go anyway, and I'll be here sitting, always.

My heart is still in the same three spots as it was two years ago: Popular at OneKM; in heaven, wherever she is and however state she is in; and with him, traveling through customs every morning and every night. And it's okay, because I'm just certain I want to keep it at these places, even if they don't want it.

Not as young as before

After the first break-up in 2014 I learnt that sometimes the only way to move on is to go back to where you came from. I'd gone back to my Pasir Ris house, shoved down my ego for the father who never once put away his for me. This time round, I don't have a house to return to, but I have people.

Spent the last week texting a handful of old friends, people I haven't talked to in a long time, girls I've always wanted to talk with but was too shy to. I don't really have the balls to go further than 2013, so I haven't texted the girls from secondary school, and I don't plan on it. Maybe if fate calls for it.

Today I'd spontaneously decided to visit my old school, Ngee Ann. It's not my first time coming here during the holidays or weekends, just to waste time like young people. I did it a lot after the first bad break-up three years ago, and how time has passed.

I only managed to stay in school until January/February 2015, not even two years after I'd started. Even then, it's not like I made it up with the very first classmates, because I had to repeat modules again and again. I don't think I'd have made it to graduation even if I'd tried to continue studying. It just wasn't for me, and I just wasn't made for it.

Imagine feeling sad just from seeing the Downtown Line stations in operation already. The last time I'd passed by, they were all just construction sites, with banners exclaiming they've all been accident-free for more than 100 days.

Upon reaching the opposite bus stop I was already lost, not being able to find the overhead bridge because everything was constructing. The atrium, my favourite solitary spot, was completely different. Toastbox was gone.

But it felt bittersweet to see the stupid sandwich shop at the corner still exactly the same. To see the door to the classrooms at level 3 still broken. The button for level 1 in the lift still not lighting up when you press it. The tiny little things, still the same after all these years.

Went to the Grandstand, where I'd once sat with 3 new friends whom I doubt even remember me. Walked to the end and felt like I was standing at the edge of the world.

Walked to a new block behind the poolside, where there was a tennis court on the rooftop. There was slight drizzle as I was wandering around so I couldn't do much; neither could these 3 boys who were bouncing tennis balls below the shelter on that rooftop.

Went to a level below to check out these studying rooms from the outside, because they were locked. A tennis ball dropped from the roof level, and I'd gone over to pick it up and silently toss it back upstairs, an unsung hero.

I watched a few students walking around, loitering and taking pictures, and somehow they all looked so young. To think that some of them might be my younger brother's age, not even categorised as the infamous 90's kids anymore. It still feels weird whenever a 2000 kid applies for a job at my workplace.

I imagined if I walked there during regular schooltime; I would be at least 4 years older than these kids, and I'd feel so old, so tall, sticking out like a sore thumb somehow, as if the year I was born is plastered on my forehead.

To think that 4 years went by just like that. I thought I would always be young, but that can't be because my first day of tertiary was that long ago. Time is crawling by and also going too quickly that I didn't even have time to find out what I'm really worth.

A butterfly with sad eyes

When a day has been good, I feel like I can do anything. Today is one of those days, and maybe--just maybe--I might possibly stay in this world just a little bit longer.

My cousin dragged me to what they would call a staycation, and there I sat at the lobby while she did the checking in stuff. Bored out of my wits, when I spotted a butterfly on the other side of the doors.

It tried to fly and only kept crashing into the glass ahead, and I watched it do so for a while before deciding that okay, I can wander off for a while, nobody will notice. I need to help this beautiful but kinda dumb insect.

At first she didn't trust me that much, refusing to climb onto my finger and just flapping her wings like crazy, only to crash into the glass again. In the end I just forced my finger under her legs and that's when she decided to go with me, just a bit reluctantly. (I swear I could see it on her face)

I was a girl who kneeled down beside those large bell thingy they use to carry luggage, just to pick up an insect. Little thing eventually didn't even protest, obediently staying on my index finger, while I walked towards the outside garden. One of the bellboys exclaimed, "You've got a butterfly!"

In the end, she didn't want to get off my finger. Her face was tilted towards me, and I swear she was looking at me with some kind of sadness and gratitude, all at once. So now I'm a butterfly whisperer aren't I?

Finally she lifted herself off my hand, continued to fly around me for a bit. And I giggled like a fucking Disney princess with her stupid animals, before she finally flew away and I walked back to the sad old boring lobby.

But honestly, meeting that butterfly melted my head a little. I live in a world where an insect thugs at my heart more than a human would. I think I'm gonna stay in here for a little while more, but just for the butterflies.

Caught in my own bell jar

Found a song last night called Don't Believe In Stars by some Trent Dabbs. Its background gives me an indescribable energy like some songs from my favourite band, The Naked and Famous. It's hard to find words for them, but some songs give me the illusion that this world is prettier than it seems.

When people tell me to love myself, I have no idea how. All I have is my gift with words, and in the past, all I knew to do when trying to find my self-worth was to write about how I view this world. It may not be easy to see what's beautiful about me, but honestly, sometimes I can't help but love the way this world looks through my eyes.

I love how I remember the smallest things, even though it may be torture when they come back in dreams. I love how I avoid the news because I am so scared of seeing something I've dreamt of. I love how I notice a broken signboard on the highway, seen from bus 88 when entering Punggol Road. I love the strange sad I feel when I see an old woman with her back hunched 40 degrees, and I love how I miss my grandma whenever I see the old woman from Food Junction.

I love how I'm never bind down by time, at the same time never losing my daily routine. When I was in sec 5 I didn't have a smartphone with an app to check what time my regular bus comes; I knew I will catch it whenever I saw this woman with long hair and always in a black skirt, who took the same bus as me every morning. I saw her again some time ago and never forgot how she was once part of my everyday.

I love how I see a leaf fall from a tree and think the world of it. I love how I mishear song lyrics and write an entire poem from that mistaken line. I love how the wind blew through my hair and I would think about it even 4 years later. I love when I catch a glimpse of a Grace calling the man in front of me and wondering who this woman could be and what bus is she on and where is she going.

I have a universe for a brain, I am suicidal, and the only way I knew how to show my love was to give whatever I had, including my anger. And there is nothing, nothing, nothing beautiful about me from the outside, but through my eyes this world is so dim yet that is what I find so pretty about it, and I love the magic of words yet I can never seem to find the right ones for it--and it's all okay because the world in my head is mine and mine alone, caught in a bell jar.

Tornado

Asked a best friend a past acquaintance what would be his perfect way of dying. Dying doing something good for others, he says. He's not that amazing in "doing good for others" but he made me think, like he always does.

Is it better to have died doing something good for people, and devastating them with such a significant loss? Or to die invisible, without anyone noticing or caring, except for the very few who matters?

I remember in 2010, having dinner with one of my secondary school girls, at Elias Mall mac, before it moved to the unit behind the bus stop. She told me how she'd asked her then-boyfriend "if you knew you only had one month left to live, what would you do?"

He said to her "I'll treat you like shit and make you hate me so when I go, you will not be affected." Different people, different thoughts.

Last night I found another way he is the tornado that he always was. 3 years back I watched a disaster movie called Tornado, and I remember who I watched it with but those people are among the accounts I've now blocked from my Twitter.

There was a scene in the film where the characters hid in a tunnel-like thing and were caught in the tornado--when suddenly, silence. Why? They realised they were right in the middle of it: the eye of the storm.

In 2012, my lonely year. It was a struggle before I met him, and it was chaos getting to the heart of the wind, the center of the storm. I spent years in that peaceful spot, protected by the trouble that is this being itself. And it was beautiful in there, in the heart.

I may have forgotten that there will be the same chaos as the tornado takes his leave.

I can imagine him laughing if I told him this. A part of me is sad that he will never understand. A part of me wants to hear that laughter again because sometimes I feel our differences make us, and I want to be the reason for that laugh everyday. Unfortunately for him I am not enough and too much at once.

Unborn

Week 1 - 31st January.
I won a race today. I was the first among so many, hundreds, thousands, I think maybe even millions. All I knew was I reached the finish line before all of them! Sadly neither of my parents seemed to care. They didn't praise me, pat me on the shoulder, or even look at me. I think they don't even realise I exist.

Week 5 - 4th March.
I followed my parents to Universal Studios today. They didn't hold my hand, or buy me snacks to eat. I was a shadow, sticking to them like glue, without them realising. My mother didn't protect me during the scary rides either, didn't put her hand over me and assured my safety.

5th March.
I decided to give my mother some signs that I'm here. I made her threw up in a taxi, all the food she ate that day; her breakfast, dinner, all the snacks. I didn't like her stuffing her face like that anyway. It was unhealthy, and she didn't know it was affecting me as well. I couldn't take it. I hope she knows I'm here now, and that I care about her well-being more than she even realises I exist.

Week 6 - 15th March.
My mother has been on a road trip the past few days. She doesn't know she's not in the state to move around so much... Everything I do affects her, and everything she does affects me. I made her throw up so much of her food, and I imagine the retching itself was so uncomfortable for her. She wouldn't stop sticking her finger down her throat to force the vomit out; I couldn't see her suffering like that, so I tried to behave myself, but I failed. Maybe it's better I don't exist after all.

She fought with her mom, who hit her. Please don't hit her, I'm right here.

Week 7 - 17th March.
My aunt, my mother's sister-in-law, told her that I might possibly exist. My mother looked at me for the first time, but only for a second. She didn't believe it. My aunt gave her a bag with Watson's on it, and I wondered what it was... It must be really important, because my mother quickly hides it whenever someone walks into her bedroom.

18th March.
Whatever it was in that bag, it helped shine light for my mother. She now knows I exist. But my father calls her, and I hear her saying, It's negative. I see her choking back her tears while he says a prayer of gratitude, obviously happy to hear the lie that I am not existent.

Week 8 - 25th March.
My parents have been fighting a lot lately. I hate my father for saying all these mean things to my mother, not knowing the burden she has to carry. I'm glad I'm growing alongside her instead of him; I'm glad he doesn't know I'm real, I can't imagine what he'd do to me. It upsets me to see my mother going through this alone, but I know she's strong enough for it.

26th March.
She couldn't take it anymore, all his mean words and oblivion to her feelings and burden. She dropped the bombshell that is my existence on him. I don't understand why they both get scared after knowing I am here... Nonetheless, he holds me too, the few times I get to see him. He shows more kindness to her. He is scared on the inside but so brave on the outside; I am proud to call these two my mother and father.

Week 9.
My mother has been working really hard for me. She holds me more often than she used to, stroking my head and covering me with warmth whenever her hands are free. She works in a bookstore and one time I see her sneakily reading a book about how to raise someone like me. I can't wait for her to spend all her hard-earned money on me, all the sweets and toys I can have in the future, like a proper child.

Week 10 - April 8th.
She wouldn't stop crying, even on the bus with people looking at her. I could hear her sobs from here, but they disappeared like magic when she unlocked the gate to her home.
She has two houses, but none of them with him in it. Do they not live together? Aren't mothers and fathers supposed to?

Week 11 - April 19th.
Look at me... we can't have this baby. We don't have the money and we're not in the right place either. Trust me I want it as much as you do, but we just can't, not right now. We'll have another one in the future. I hear this, while he holds her and me at the same time.

Week 13 - April 27th.
She fainted at work, thanks to me... I followed her to the polyclinic, where she asked the doctor to confirm again whether she was pregnant. Of course she was. I'm right here.
Are you keen on this pregnancy?
A smile on her face, a shake of her head.

Week 14.
She's been showing her belly off to her colleagues and friends, but they all laugh at her. They take me as a joke, even say they're pregnant too, when they're obviously not. They ask her, How many months? and she answers truthfully, 3 months. and they laugh. I have no voice but I wish I can call out to them and prove I am really here.

Week 15.
She wants to keep me, I know it. The way she looks at children outside, the way her heart beats when her niece smiles at her.
But I also know her love for my father and grandparents are stronger. She would do anything for them, including raising the money for something she doesn't want; abandoning me. But I hope she doesn't.

I see her watching my grandparents cuddle my cousin, and I wish they'd hold me like that too. I know my mother also wishes they could love her child the same way as they love her brother's.

She has to carry plenty of heavy stuff at work. She has to carry this long heavy metal divider for the shutters. Doesn't anyone know she's having me right now?

Week 16.
They were supposed to see me today, my mother and father. But she fell sick, and try as she might she couldn't gather enough strength to bring herself to the hospital. Her best friend who has a gem for a name keeps telling her that it's dangerous to be sick while having me. It didn't faze her. She didn't want to eat, and she was too uncomfortable to sleep, and she keeps crying.

Week 18 - 2nd June.
She had to see nurses and doctors and counsellors, all constantly telling her to change her mind. Change her mind about what??? She's already working hard to raise me. They keep asking her where is her boyfriend, my father, why isn't he here today?

She goes to a dark room where a nurse rubs jelly on her tummy and moves a probe along it. On the screen above her is a monochrome shot of me; the nurse tells her where my head is. "Can you tell if it's a girl or a boy?", she asks so shyly.

I'm a girl. I feel my mother's happiness, which makes me bounce, and I hear the nurse telling her: "The baby is moving, it's moving!" And I think she wants to laugh or cry, I can't really tell.

Week 19 - 8th June - 1pm.
I feel her fear. She's in a hospital bed, surrounded by many other women. But not all the other women are pregnant: some already had their babies, some had lost them. She doesn't belong to either category and I can't imagine why she's here, is she okay?

- 3pm.
  The nurses keep hitting her hands and trying to poke a needle in her. Her hands look so fragile to me, and bruises start to show but she doesn’t resist. Finally they hook her up to a machine from her right hand and leave; the curtains are drawn and my father and the girl with a gem for a name show their faces. My mother starts crying and I can feel that something is wrong.

- 9th June - 2am.
They keep putting in pills at where I am. What are they doing? My mother has difficulty walking, but still she forces herself to the toilet because she keeps feeling a pain in her stomach, at where I am. She thinks it's her faeces wanting to come out, but I think it's me she's trying to get rid of.

- 3am.
  She keeps walking to and fro the toilet and her hospital bed by the window. Her bare feet on the cold floors, her brown-red gown hanging to her ankles and her hair falling out of the bun her best friend had tied for her. Is it strange that I still think she’s possibly the most beautiful woman in the universe?

- 3pm.
There's a stick like object holding her womb open.
Why?
It hurts.

- 8pm.
She doesn't want to eat anything and she just vomits out the painkillers. She keeps singing a song that goes "just close your eyes... the sun is going down... you'll be alright... no one can hurt you now... come morning light... you and I'll be safe and sound."

Doctors and nurses keep attending to her and my father says Look, there are so many people here taking care of you. I hear her say, just loud enough for him to hear, None of them are my parents.

When my father asks her to rank the pain she's feeling on a scale of 1 to 10, she constantly says 6. But in her mind, it's more than a 10. She wants to be strong for him, although her stomach is as hard as stone and she feels like all her organs might slide out of her anytime. Along with me.

- 9pm.
Visiting hours are over and my father leaves. I heard him telling her that he misses his mum. She doesn't want him to go at all but her hands are too weak to hold on to him anymore. She misses her own parents but she will never have them as visitors unlike the rest of the women in the ward; her own parents think she is at her best friend’s place, having a sleepover like a normal 20-year-old girl.

10th June - 2am.
The painkillers have lost their effects and she's woken up. She keeps clawing for the emergency button. The nurses tell her that pain is a good sign, that the fetus is starting to slide out. They're referring to me.

- 5am.
I feel it.
She screams like an animal getting slaughtered.

- 5.32 am.
I'm between her ankles. She doesn't want to look at me. Slippery, bloody, I am. Gone, I am. I hear something about burying it in a Muslim cemetery. I thought she was working hard to raise me. We all thought wrong.

Lightbulbs and tiny pieces of heart

Never really understood having to love yourself before you can love other people. Or finding yourself before getting lost in someone else. I think a person who has difficulty finding self-worth is completely capable of loving.

I hate blogging about love and I hate the existence of the word itself sometimes. But it doesn't mean I don't feel it. When you're alone, it feels like the world has gone darker and you don't know if your heart is even worth every beat.

Imagine feeling like you're worth nothing, constant headaches and the desire to slit your wrist or slice your head open. And then imagine having somebody who changes all that when they're with you. No, when you're with them.

Imagine someone whose smile lights up the whole fucking world that you think somehow got dim over the years. Someone whose face you can't help kissing all over because they're so fluffy... Someone who pulls all your pieces together when you wrap your arms around them.

Imagine a job where the people love you more than your friends from high school. You love their snide remarks, their bounce, their ridiculous dances that make you feel more at home than the house you've grown up in for years.

Imagine your whole world crashing back down again the moment that somebody boards his bus; the moment you punch out of work and say goodbye. Maybe I don't know self-worth, or the need to nurture myself first. But I know love... it's when their existence is the only source of light in your life.

When she slid out of me 2 years ago, the light that represented my self-worth blew out. I'd had a purpose sheltering a second life, and it was all gone in 2 days, slowly seeping out of me. And it would definitely take me more than two years to fix that bulb, but who said it was gonna be easy? And why lie about me never going to be alone again?

A few days ago, the second light, the biggest light of all, blew out. I thought wrong about a lot of things, one of them being that you would always stay. Whenever you said what the fuck do you want me to do, I wish you'd known that all you had to do was stay. But even my own father didn't want me once; what right did I have to think you always would?

My heart isn't capable of self-worth but it knows love. And however tiny it is, there's a piece of it in heaven, a piece at a quiet mall at Paya Lebar, and a piece with a boy who crosses the border everyday. And I hope to god that the light hovering over Paya Lebar doesn't go out, or it would be dark, dark, dark.

A universe dies with us

I've never been very good at studies and my brain overworks on everything other than academia. I can remember things that happened 7 years ago today, or what anyone had worn the first time I saw them, but never anything that could save my ass in a final year exam.

We are always lost in our own worlds, head in the clouds, caught in daydreams. Maybe we do it subconsciously, for a moment, like how we'd suddenly feel like there's something wrong with the way we walk, or if there's a tuft of hair sticking up at the side of our heads.

Sometimes I get reverse claustrophobic, if that's the right way to describe it. I think about how huge this world is, and how tiny I am in comparison. And I want to say I'm insignificant, but I can't. I have a whole entire universe in my own head. We all do.

Your thoughts, the dreams you have at night, your memories, the song lyrics that randomly pop into your head, the scenarios you create that you know would never happen. Gosh they make you, you. They make me, me. And I have a best friend an acquaintance who likes to say we are all insignificant, but truth be told, I think we are the opposite.

When somebody dies, a whole universe dies with them. Outside your body life goes on as it always does but everything in your head is gone. When you think about jumping off a ledge, a whole world is crushed together with your head. When you think about shooting your brains out, there goes a universe, splattered on the wall behind you.

And you could have written diary entries and blog posts every day of your life, taking down the things that happened and the theories you came up with, but it would never even begin to cover the universe that is in your head.

Truth be told right now, I can't really tell if the world in my head is great, or toxic. What happened to just hating my physical being, just wishing I had a different body and face? I became a girl who wishes she has a whole entirely different brain instead.

There is nothing beautiful about being sick, and this world has become dimmer over the years and I can't bring myself to care about the other humans suffering out there because I have my own head to take care of. And it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, and I can't tell if I'd been too stupid or too intelligent for school my whole life. There is a universe in my head, just the same as a life growing in a womb.

The weight of the sun on his back

What if you're used to waiting 30 minutes for a bus
And you lose 300 dollars for littering your cigarette butts
And what if the songs you find on Spotify aren't enough
To help you through this life so rough, rough, rough.

What if you're constantly reaching work an hour late
Even though 4 hours ago you were already out of bed
And what if crossing the border everyday is a struggle
And your family of more than nine is nothing but trouble.

What if you have no ambitions and you always feel lost
Unsure of your future and unfazed by your thoughts
And what if you're not sure if the one you've always loved
Would ever stop pining for the child above?

What if your battle scars are the blisters on your palms
The constant arguing between your father and both mums
And the one person who's supposed to make it all better
Couldn't even pull the pieces of her own life together.

What if you don't feel at home in your own skin
And the world is just an ocean you're drowning in
And what if your other half is the weight of the sun
Making you lethargic all the time except to run, run, run.

Dear wind

10th November 2014.

A new beginning with an old flame, once again.

Spent the whole of yesterday with A, and I'd deemed it one of the best days of the year, another reason for me to be grateful for my being alive.

Following up my apology for the bad attitude during our last conversation, he had asked me to come along with him to Orchard to collect his pay. I thought why not, since we hadn't met for some time already anyway. And have I mentioned about how he'd straightout admitted that I'd been on his mind lately, that he didn't like D after all.

It was nice seeing him again. It felt exactly like going home to Pasir Ris after 2 years; the memory of every outline intertwined with the hope for something new. It would have been awkward, but it wasn't probably because we were together for so long.

Everything just fell into place. The way I'd babble on about useless things, the way he'd comment on my flaws and we'd laugh at me together, the way he'd hold me by the waist in the crowds or across the roads. It just happened all too naturally.

"I don't know why it's so hard to forget," he said at one point. "You just can't easily forget someone you spent so long with."

If I'd followed my instinct, my survival instinct, I would have taken off the moment he'd said that. He'd used such words on me the last time, convinced me he'd had such feelings, but it turned out to be lies.

But this time, I actually believe him.

A very good friend of mine from sem 1 told me about a rooftop that had a 360 degrees view of Singapore. If you knew me you'd understand I was thrilled to check the place out myself. I told A about it, and he didn't hesitate to tag along with me wherever I'd liked to go.

We entered a dark, empty lift that only has 2 storey buttons: the 4th, and the 55th. He pressed the latter, next to an embossed Ion Sky logo. "Why is it so dark!?" he kept crying, because it was pitch black albeit for the bit of lights dotted here and there on the ceiling. After a while, the effects of air pressure started kicking in.

We finally reached the 55th storey, and it was just amazing. There were poems about clouds stuck on the windows, sky all around, and if there'd been natural wind instead of blasting air-con, it was a perfect place to be with none other than A.

And I loved how comfortable he still is with me. The way he laughed to himself and made excited faces as he was playing with the binoculars; I couldn't help staring at him the whole time, taking in how handsome he is.

We headed off to Scape soon after, talking about all kinds of things, updates on our lives, people we'd been acquainted with. He watched me slowly pick out stickers for my laptop, rushing me and annoying me and laughing at my embarrassing moments. We checked girls out together, I taught him how to walk with confidence and he imitated poorly; we tried to walk the same way as a cute girl, trying to catch glimpses of her face. We laughed til our bellies ached, and that's just exactly what makes it so easy to fall in love again.

I'd missed waiting outside the mosque while waiting for him to pray. I got a kick of nostalgia because he'd gone to do his prayers at the mosque behind Abercrombie and Fitch. I waited on a bench, legs dangling and cars driving by.

In return, he followed me to Kinokuniya, my all-time favourite bookstore. It was crowded, and I was amazed to find out that I still got butterflies in my tummy when he grabbed my hand, locking his fingers with mine. I'd gone to that very bookstore so many times just this year, with so many different dates including a solitary one, but... being with A in there was a different kind of bliss.

It seemed all too gullible of me... But I'd like to trust myself on this one. I'd like to trust myself in making the right decision this time.

We took the underground tunnel and then the bus to Bugis, where we both had our buses home--me to Paya Lebar, and him to Johore. Before that, he showed me the hotel he's currently working at. He's an intern at Ibis Hotel, which I thought was pretty cool.

I told him about how proud I've been for him, how I'd practically watched him 'grow up', from that skinny boy during post-high school days, to a very tall ITE student in a shirt and tie, to the man he is now, an intern at a hotel.

Feels overwhelming somehow, sparks this desire in me to continue nurturing this same boy until his NS days, his work days, and beyond. There's nothing I'd like more than that now.

Upon seeing the biggest 7-11 ever, we decided to get some instant meals and have early dinners there. More silly things happened that caused me to erupt into laughter, spilling my giggles all over the place. I told him, "I have such a horrible laugh, I'm sorry!" (even though he's heard enough of it the past nearly 2 years) and he said with a laugh: "So? It's cute!"

When we sat down to settle our meals, that's when things got serious. We talked about the mutual friends we have, the friends from tertiary, how we couldn't really trust or rely on anyone anymore. I'd long learnt that, but it was a little saddening to say it out loud and have someone else feeling the same way.

I wish it would turn out this way: two of us, against the world. Here I am taking the same risk for the third time; if I fall flat on my face again I'll deal with it because I'm just asking for it now. But I trust everything will be okay.

17th December 2014.

I think I'm a really blessed person, and I think I've found the one I'm gonna marry. On Monday, I'd gone on a 'date' with none other than the wind. Okay, so we called it a date for just a second before correcting it to 'a meeting', but nonetheless, it was still a nice time spent with him.

We'd worn button shirts, and that's enough for me to consider it a date, heh. So we met at Bugis where he was playing Lan, and again, things between us just fell into place easily like they always do. Teasing and laughing and hands around the other's waist, isn't it so damn easy?

We watched Mockingjay P1, which was practically a wish come true for me, if you remember how I said I wanted to watch that with him. While buying our popcorn and nachos and walking down to the cinema, we had a load of laughs that I will always remember about for a long time. We're always making a fool of ourselves and that's why it's so fun to be with him.

We got Best Fries Forever, after which we dropped his wallet in the middle of the empty space in front of it, aka in plain view of everyone, and his coins spilled everywhere. I couldn't stop laughing but I still had to help him gather them.

Again, we sat at Scape and had a bunch of random topics to converse about. At one point I rambled on about blame, went on about how you can't blame just one party when something happens. Blah yadda whatever, we're not here to talk about that now.

We talked alot about our relationship too, of course. About his feelings, mine, the things that have happened and that might happen. When I removed my Passion tag from beneath my collar and asked "Do you remember this?" to which he said, "I bought that for you, of course I remember."

And when we went up the escalator, he declared: "You know what, fuck everyone and let's just be together."

____

Fuck everyone and let's just be together. I will always remember you saying this.

Everyone keeps telling me that I deserve better and that you're the one who's lost something great, not me. They keep reminding me that I lost the person who wasn't there for me at my lowest, and that you're the one who's lost the gem, the one who would have stayed with you always.

Maybe I'll never forget how you blamed me for not being decent, for always tempting you to sin just by being a girl. How you told me to sell myself on Geylang when I was so worried about our finances. How you admitted to me you kept wishing I would fall and have a miscarriage when I had her.

Maybe I'll never forget and maybe they'd always be brought up in times of anger. But I've already forgiven you, and although it hurts, I would do it all over again for you. I would do so much for you again because it's my purpose, it's probably my instincts.

And I can't bring myself to care about the people on my side, the people who tell me that I deserve someone better. All that's left is for you not to care about the people on your side too, the white rose who is secretly a Venus flytrap.

They are not the ones who will marry you, and maybe they won't even stay to the end of the year. But if you choose me, I will always.

And I know I am sick, but it disappears whenever I'm with you. You keep telling me to love myself, but I've spent all that on you and the girls at my workplace, I forget my thoughts on this world whenever I'm with any of the 6 of you. I am sick but I still remember how to love.

If it never works out with others, if you're lonely, you can always come back to me. I'll always be here. My brain is a universe and the wind still takes up the most of it. And even if the whole world tells me a tornado is coming and to run for my sweet, precious life, I will always let it take me. Maybe I was made for it.