14. Question...? (2020)

 (the playlist)

I remember. 

Your hurricane wasn't confined to the country, stemming from your parents' house in johor and sprouting towards the sky. Ivy around my house and the planes that would be your second home. Your rental unit in the neighbourhood I wanted to burn down. I finally wanted to settle for you but you had an underlying sadness. 

By then it had been five years of knowing you. Your handprints imprinted on my soul when you walked me home, singing the songs we played on our phone speakers. Even with the many abandonments and reconciliations it was enough time for you to paint me into the mosaic I was in 2018, that I would never be again. 

Two and a half years later, about a month after I turned 25. Chocolate ice-cream thrown, old friends texted, angmokio waiting. Conversations around a table dripping with condensation from our rounds of iced drinks, and he casually mentioned you. One thing led to another, and I was in the cab after midnight when you texted. 

It was about the money, for a computer whirring to life and a soul being put to death. Some back and forth until you relented when I said, I'm still bearing the emotional cost until today.

I thought it was the end of it but you asked about my family, something exes don't ask each other. You always agreed with your friends that I played victim, yet you always agreed with my writings that I was victim.

How's your grandma, your family scares me, I read your blogposts once in a while, you left an impact on me. And then a picture of your bunny and a video of it doing zoomies. 

I had years-old questions, from fears that fed on my imagination after you left the last time. I thought of all your friends cheering when you said you were single again. I thought of your marsiling girl coming over to your room after another night at the club. I thought of your feelings for a fellow flight attendant that overlapped with our relationship.

I couldn't ask any of them, so I never knew if my thoughts back then were ever true. I don't think it'd be wise to know. The same way your mother would never know the alcohol you serve and the girls you bring home and the sin waiting confused in heaven. Would you ever tell the truth or let your whole life remain a question...?

You'd know.