16. The great war (2020-2021)

(the playlist)

His knuckles were bruised, from the punches he blew all my life. I think the physical abuse stopped somewhere at age 17, but the emotional and mental continued on to my adulthood. 

The war started again the year I was turning 25, two years after finding someone I wanted to marry. The way my father agreed to marry us in front of my partner's parents, but looked down on me behind them. The things he said about me thinking I was so mature, that I'd gotten big-headed since being with this person. 

My mother insisted on a traditional process, which includes a merisik. Something from the olden days, the guy's family comes to the girl's home, knock knock, we'd like to have your daughter as our son's wife. 

My mother insisted on it, my father refused it, and I was caught in between. I didn't want it either, but when the day came, I still wished for him to be around instead of lying about having to work. 

Then circuit breaker happened and the battle was taken underground, behind closed doors. The torment continued, adding on to the migraines I had from screwed body clocks and niblings shouting in the house all day. My father banging things around when I walked into the room, getting up from the dining table when I sat at it, my engagement day when again, he 'had to work'.

Getting engaged was only the beginning, it was a big step forward but it was only getting harder. I know he always saw me as a burden, maybe from the fact that in Islam, as a father he was responsible for my deeds. If so I never understood why he was so angry seeing me change for the better. His words, Dia ingat dia dah ada matair dia dah besar, tattooed on my mind.

After trying to keep silent as long as I could, I finally tore his banners down when I started fighting back. Since he was treating me like an adult daughter not worth respecting, I thought I'd act that way. I was, after all, fighting for a future with someone who actually treated me like a person.

I turned 25 in September 2020 without a single acknowledgement from him. It wasn't my first birthday where he had ignored me, but it would be my last being his responsibility in the name of Islam. Tears on the mental letters I wrote him because deep down, I still felt a little bit sad about it.

The year I was turning 26, the year I was to be married, our father-daughter relationship still didn't improve. It was difficult not having that bond, seeing that as a father, he had to be heavily involved. He continued leaving the rooms I walked in and stopped acknowledging me completely. 

I eventually did the same, bombs coming closer, until Melonsoy happened. He finally remembered I existed, but for the wrong reasons. I turned chairs over and he yelled at me, I didn't know for certain if he would lay a finger on me one last time, but I left the house before I could find out.

I truly commend my partner for the way he helped me through things. Being the middleman between two hot-headed egos. Nobody else could plow through the situation like he did, so patient and firm. The way he drew up good faith treaties for two people adamant on drawing curtains closed instead.

24th of May, 2021, I told myself my parents still hated me nine years after my teenage angst. I walked from paya lebar mrt to my refuge, my grandmother's house, and I finally burst into tears. Tears that were held in from the past several months, the tears for 17yearold me who thought things between us would get better by this time.

19th of June, 2021, I left my house as my father's responsibility for the last time. To my wedding venue, where people braided my hair and put layers of makeup on my face. Masking the restless nights that precede what should have been every girl's happiest day. The flowers in my hands for the life I was about to start.

From the moment my partner said my name in full, from the handshake my father gives him to seal the deal of giving me away. That was the moment I as a burden was lifted off his shoulders, and he finally loved me again. As a wife, I gained a husband and in-laws who treated me like everything. As a daughter, I gained back my father but it was too late to ever be a priority to him anymore. Because in his eyes, I am finally my husband's problem first.

So I know now that in the great war between father and daughter, I never could've won. 

References: playing victim (2020) https://109blackaxesii.blogspot.com/2020/05/playing-victim.html?m=1 

melonsoylia (2021) https://109blackaxesii.blogspot.com/2022/11/melonsoylia.html 

green light of forgiveness (2022) https://109blackaxesii.blogspot.com/2022/09/green-light-of-forgiveness.html

15. Snow on the beach (2021)

(the playlist)

Early morning, with a long road ahead. It's a very particular time of day where I don't have to switch on any lights, but the entire house will be lit up with sun.

It does remind me of certain parts of my life, after long nights of terrors that make me wonder if I'll live to see sunrise each time. 

But the sunlight that comes in each morning; I couldn't have done it without the people who unknowingly opened the windows for me. 

It is the first friend I had in my new workplace, seven years older but a shared sense of humour. It is our similar complaints from our own partners to the common avenues we walk on. It is the way she has inspired me in religion and motherhood even before I embraced either. 

It is the one year older friend I laughed over crossword puzzles with, hiding behind acrylic displays. It is the way we suffered by the same hand, giggling on our knees amid the magazine stacks. It is the comrade I almost saw as a best friend despite the names she called me.

It is the gem of a friend I'd only discover when our departments were forced to merge. It is the way she laughs at my jokes and listens to my rants, it is the way we help each other out on the days it was just us two, and the way she appreciated me every single time. 

All these friends I unknowingly made after telling myself I wouldn't, the conversations in the pantry and hidden behind counters, handwritten letters and drawings of cats and my favourite pokemon that would be pinned onto my corkboard. I saw flecks of these when I first joined this job, but I told myself to ignore them and not to get too close.

But most of all, it is the group who asked if I would join them cycling. I remember standing by the back door of our workplace, punching in the passcode that would bring us to the shopfloor, when I was asked to join them. And that question, taking me by surprise, would change everything.

They gave me new memories on old routes, they took away the skepticism I had from cycling again after many years. The first time we went was at night, and cold bit into me but I was only feeling warmth from the friendship. 

Again, I reminded myself of the past colleagues I saw as sisters who didn't feel the same way about me. More new memories replacing old ones, balancing on train tracks and walking treacherous trails. More tremors that threatened to break the walls I'd built. 

We were playing by the beach on our second cycling trip when I felt that warmth again, seeing them on the swings and taking photos in the ocean breeze. 

Life was abusive, I'd had an awful flight getting there, but I started daring to call them my friends. They weren't just colleagues anymore, and I already knew I was falling. So soft and quiet, I was the only one who noticed the falling of the snow on the beach that blazing day.

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.

13. Lavender haze (2019)

(the playlist)

The first part of my new life already started 2018, with a new romance. At that point I was content with the still waters, the same routine of bus 21 and a dead mall on tanjong katong road. 

It was a job that kept me as happy as occupied, maybe from the familiarity. I was enjoying the mix of customer service and putting racks and shelves in order, even in the departments that weren't mine. I thought it was exactly where I was supposed to be.

But the year I was turning 24, things began to change. I'm not sure if it was my outlet's closing down that finally opened my eyes. I'd like to think it was my own indifference that led to its downfall, when I, the one person running things, finally stopped caring. 

I'd applied to my current workplace somewhere in February 2019, and four interviews and less than a month later I got it. I was a little bit proud to be told the position I'd applied for was only for minimum diploma holders, but that they valued my experience. 

People like me would usually be under scrutiny for our lack of education, but I really felt appreciated when mine was glossed over. Also when comparing bookstores, the company I was from is completely different, vibes and clientele. Alot more heartland and rugged. I was pretty sure of already being defined by these things.

I finally tendered somewhere in March, a few days after my grandfather's passing. My outlet was already having its closing sales, and I spent my fourth anniversary of the job overnight, packing products away to be given chances in other branches. 

It was surreal looking at the racks and years of effort stripped down like nothing. The glass windows were burning red from the company poster that stuck on the outside. The length of the entrance was already boarded up, and it was bittersweet seeing the inverted logo and name hanging lonely.

I still had a week left, so they assigned me temporarily in bedok. It did leave a bitter taste in my mouth, to know that I wouldn't 'finally be appreciated' because the colleagues at my old branch didn't have to work in my absence. After four years working so hard and being in love, I didn't even get the mandatory call from hr asking why I was leaving. 

I told myself from the start of my new job not to get too attached, not to get too close and to guard the old me. To stay in my own department and never see my new colleagues as family. I wanted to stay in the lavender haze of my meagre pay and humble position, no matter what people say, and never leave the bubble of the newness. I'd learned from the last time. 

12. Labyrinth (2018)

(the playlist)

From the moment we met, I hardly wrote about him. For the most part I was still hung up on the wrong things and did not believe in my own future, definitely not one with a good guy. But once I was helped out of the years-long tunnel, it was easier letting streetlights shine upon me.

There was where I sat waiting the first time, underneath the dim lights by a Domino's. The least romantic place you could think of, what more with the abundance of ghosts sitting right there, old friends and boys alike.

My bedroom window has view of his block, we'd taken the same feeder bus to school years back, his brother married one of my past best friends' sister. We met for the first time after texting for weeks and living opposite each other for years; and that was how he came to clean the taint that was my life.

I believed wholeheartedly in montages that would never last. I believed the neighbourhood I was living in deserved to burn to the ground for the bittersweet memories given by both family and peers. I believed that the strongest form of love was only for life when you have nothing.

The walk to the beach after sundown, skipping along kerbs and sitting by breakwaters. At the time I felt like it was just a crossover of my new and old lives, that we weren't alone and the ghosts of my past would always be surrounding and following me. 

But the good dominoes already fell into place when he showed up that night, and with it a brighter side of pasir ris. He brought me on a version of the expressway that was less lonely, out in the road with my clothes fluttering and with no choice but to hold on to him. It was the second time I stayed out late, but this time, there was no reason to doubt anything.

He gave me none to doubt or fear, and from the very first night he was always easily making me laugh. Just as well for the other way around, I still think it strange that he finds me funny. He brought me new friends who lifted the dark out of me in their own ways, and he still manages to remain the brightest one.

Of the many things I've said about him, both the bad and the good, this rings the truest: He's everything I never thought I deserved. There was no hesitation to trust him, and he jumped in with me instead of pushing me off first, and that was how I fell in love with someone new after years of hurricanes. 

I always knew my mind was a labyrinth, but it was only when I met him that I knew there was a way out after all.