once my novelty wears off

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

red tv

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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