Magic

Lost Things 

Do you know when you've lost something- like your favourite T-shirt or a set of keys - and while looking for it, you come across something else you once missed but have long since forgotten? 

Well whatever it was, there was a point where you decided to stop searching, maybe because it was no longer required or a new replacement was found. It is almost as if it never existed in the first place- until that moment of rediscovery, a flash of recognition. 

Everyone has one- 

an inventory of lost things waiting to be found. Yearning to be acknowledged for the worth they once held in your life. 

I think this is where I belong - 

among all your other lost things. 

A crumpled note at the bottom of a drawer or an old photograph pressed between the pages of a book. I hope someday you will find me and remember what I once meant to you. 

 L.L

I recall this was a poem that I was reading over and over again as if reading it a certain number of times would turn it into a spell, where it would suddenly make you realise that I was one of your lost things that time. Where you would suddenly come back to me and tell me everything that I wanted to hear. That you would find me, search for me and acknowledge what we had. 

I believe in magic, and perhaps with a bit of luck and coincidence- 

You found me among all your other lost things. 

We were something kept in tightly locked boxes covered in thick dust with everything to lose if they were to be pried open. 

But now, since you've come back into my life, you've been the little light that shines through the cracks in me and I feel as if we have nothing to lose anymore. 

Torn Out Pages From A Tumblr

i want to be somewhere we are happy. where you’ve made me tea without asking, where i am curled up by the fire with a novel i love and a dog at my feet. it doesn’t have to be fancy. our floors can be bare and our kitchen tiny. but i want to be somewhere that i feel free, where every corner is filled with good memories. 

- 

i think about you a lot and i think about you not thinking about me a lot and i think about how i don’t want to think about you but i think about it a lot and i don’t know i think too much i think too much and you exist somewhere that all these thoughts can’t even touch 

- 

there are people i am friends with who are fireworks. they move like thunder, this glorious graceful command of their space. i love them. i love them all so much. but i am a small flame in the middle of a wasteland and i feel myself flicker. i don’t know. against their music, my silence feels awful. 

- 

it won’t be like what you imagined. maybe you get the road trip to the beach with coffee in your hand and the radio playing, maybe you don’t. but happy shows up. it’s in a 2 AM game of jenga with your new college friends. it’s curling up for another marathon of netflix. it’s meeting the person who will be your best man at the wedding. it’s 4:45pm in the library when the girl in the study coral across from you quietly whispers “i’m going to set everything on fire” and then turns to you and asks if you wanna take a break for dinner (say yes, she’s very nice and you both need a moment away from the stress). it’s the mornings they have omelettes and in good books and in a puddle that looks cool. it’s sometimes picturesque, but more often it’s full-belly laughter at stupid things on the floor of your friend’s house while in the background someone is debating the best way to win settlers of catan. 

i know it gets dark early now and the tired is setting in and everything sort of feels blank and hazy and you want to spend ages staring at walls thinking of nothing but happiness will find a way in. it will be small moments. look for them.

-

I have been reading http://inkskinned.tumblr.com/ for the whole evening and I forgot how poetry can romanticse love and tragedy all at once. 

Your "Sorry"s Were All I Needed

"I'm sorry"
You got the wrong person,
I'm not the one you're talking to right now.

-

"I'm sorry"
Remind me again,
tell me what you're sorry for.

-

"I'm so sorry"
You hurt me
when I gave you my whole heart.

-

"I'm so so sorry, it is my fault"
It is your fault.

-

"I'm sorry Rachel,"


...... it's okay.
That was all that I needed -
your apology.


-


"I have always loved you."





(and I have always loved you, too.)

History

Everything moved too quickly. The same person that hurt me so much came back into my life and in just a split second, over liquid courage and stumbling movements, she apologized and told me she loved me. She always had. 

And in those moments when she said those words that I never thought would come out of her mouth, the wounds that she had left me with 3 years ago felt like it got stitched back up and everything was okay again. 

The dangerous thing is, when reconciling with someone you had history with, is that you so easily forget that during the last 3 years of being separated from them, they had their own space to grow into someone that you kind of know but at the same time kind of don't know anymore, they had people that they committed to and they had lovers that were not you. 

If I scroll down long enough on Instagram, I'll hit the sweet spot of seeing photos of past lovers and moments shared between them that are not mine to keep. I forgive and forget so easily, call it ignorant, selfish or delusional, but it stings a little bit to know that those 3 years we lost can never be reclaimed as ours, but instead, it was our time spent apart. 

Very often I get caught up with just my own thoughts and feelings, the epitome of narcissism, clearly obsessed with how everything seems to revolve around myself. But today, while accidentally stumbling across old photos of you and her, and other photos of you and your countless girls by your side (side chicks, you call them), I recalled that you have loved other girls, kissed other girls and touched them perhaps the same way you do to me. Suddenly, I don't feel special anymore. But also at the same time, I know that second chances are terribly hard to come by, and we are so so lucky to have found each other again. 

I love you so much, but I am afraid of so many things. If at 17, we were so afraid of what was in store for us, at 20, these fears seemed to have manifested in itself and grown into this huge ferocious monster. She's scared too, I know because she told me. 

But I read somewhere this week, "if you can't beat fear, then just do it scared." 

We've had history and I don't wish for it to repeat. 3 years was too long and I don't think another 3 years would do us justice. 

Old Habits Die Hard

Last night when you told me you loved me over and over again, after profusely apologising for everything that you did 3 years ago - I couldn't be any happier. Never in my wildest dreams would I think that you will ever open up this conversation and this box of memories we both swept under the rug and kept in tightly locked boxes. 

It felt like a closure that I knew I needed but never dared to think I deserved it, and it also felt like it was the beginning of something. Coming back to you is something so familiar and comfortable. Texting you again is something I'm trying to get accustomed to because ever since we ended things 3 years ago I've never really continuously texted anyone before. Hanging out and talking about anything feels like walls that we both cautiously put up has been broken down and today really felt like I was meeting you for the first time again after 3 years of being friends who keep large distances. 

The last 2 weeks were tiring, both physically and mentally. But I've never imagined that I would face you again and have you tell me you've loved me all this while. I am so comforted and relieved about things that have clogged up my mind the last 3 years. I'm just waiting to see what's in store for us. 

You were an old habit and I guess like what they always say-
old habits die hard. 

A Mother's Embrace

Forgotten how a mother's embrace can tear you apart and piece you back all at the same time, with her steady breathing and soothing pats. 

She looked at me with those eyes surrounded by wrinkles, her aged face showing an expression of helplessness as I crumbled in front of her. Suddenly I felt like I was 10 again, apologizing profusely for being naughty and getting all of us scolded by father, "Sorry, sorry, I am so sorry...." 

I could only muster these words, but she knew everything that my heart wanted to say. 

Her hands stretched out to me - like how she has always done so my entire life, "come here." And I did. She hugged me against her chest and told me that everything was okay, that I will be okay and I don't have to feel bad about anything. My guilt was engulfing me whole the last few days/weeks/hours and I couldn't stop bawling my eyes out into my mother's arms. 

Her embrace took out all the guilt that I've been bestowing upon myself the last few weeks, and her pats on my back almost felt like her shooing the guilt out of my system. 

"Mummy will go. It's going to be okay. Don't feel bad anymore." 

I've forgotten how it was like to hug my mother and have her tell me things are going to be okay. Tonight I realized how therapeutic it was, and her embrace stitched back my wounds that were caused by people that were not family. It was infected with hurt, betrayal and disappointment with a tinge of anger. Mother's hugs were like medicine - morphine, almost. It numbed the pain and I felt alright again. 

In her arms, I found my safe place. Oh, how I have missed your warm chest and soothing back rubs, mother.

Choices.

I tremble at the thoughts of almosts
with you,
it was like the after-rain smell in December
here in Singapore,
warm and fuzzy,
and almost like a warm embrace

we spent afternoons curled up watching movies
and rolled around talking about our futures together
if we were to fight,
you promised to always
be the first to talk to me
"we would never fight",
you convinced me with such ease
I believed you.

we never fought.

we just grew apart
in silence and passiveness
and the last 3 years,
while I was trying to pick up all the pieces
you had left me with,
for the first time last night
in my wildest dreams,
intoxicated by
liquid courage and
motivated by
things I never told you and
things you never told me -
our lips met.

From being so far apart
and having you draw me into you last night
felt all so familiar
but terribly sad,
all at once
everything felt like it was falling apart
again
but being pieced back together
almost

Usually, I would force myself to recall these things
and ingrain it into my long term memory
just to make sure I never forget
Last night was too much of a blur
with not much recollection
but,
with waves of emotions that I had to sit with today

I tremble at the thoughts of almosts 
with you
because you remind me that
my vulnerability
is something that you can
turn around and make it repeatedly stab me
right in the chest
and down in my stomach

Last night was a drunken choice,
but it was a choice
made by the both of us
so a little part of me hopes that somewhere between the kisses,
your heart strings were lightly pulled,
only lightly -
because I know you still love her,
and you remembered our
lazy September mornings and afternoons
at your house,
when we were only seventeen

where I felt
so unbelievably happy
and unbreakable
with you

Temporary II

Temporary I

I'm still struggling with the repercussions from last night. I wish I was able to brush it off so effortlessly like how I do with the others. This morning when I woke, still tasting the alcohol in my mouth, I blinked and remembered that what happened last night wasn't a dream. Neither was it my imagination. 

Never have I thought that 3 years later after everything that has happened, I would find myself there with you last night, in the middle of the dance floor, kissing. It was all quite a blur to me and I'm kind of grateful for that. There wasn't any form of clarity and the loud booming music makes drowning anything out easier. You see, till this day, I have only ever really kissed someone that I really liked once.

You.

The past 2 years I have been making conscious efforts to stay away, guard up and be void of any emotions and attachments to you. It slowly got better and recently I was even proud about the fact that I don't feel anything anymore about the whole situation. It was just like a distant memory, just like how we distanced ourselves from one another the last 3 years, caught up with our own lives that were suddenly turned into very separate ones.

Then last night happened, I don't know how and I don't know why, but it happened. And now I'm just disappointed with myself for feeling some sort of emotion after this, and I can't sit with it. I spoke to K about it and she told me: 

I think you need to step back and realize that it's unrealistic to believe that there's an end point to how you feel about someone like you are upset now because you thought you were completely done with X, that you've reached the finished line on your feelings towards X. But that's not how human beings actually are, there's ebb and there's flow. You don't always feel something for someone just as you don't always forget about someone completely. Don't think of it as "you wasted all your progress" cause I don't think that's it at all, you can be over someone but still have moments when you feel for that person. 

So I am okay now. I was just contemplating the choices of either refusing to let myself feel anything or letting myself go limp and wallow for a bit. To be honest, a little part of me thought that last night almost felt like a closure for me, after 3 years. I don't know how to describe it, but it sort of did feel like it. Thinking back, last night wasn't something that I regretted doing. It caused a bit of a stir up in my head, feeling things that I didn't realise were still intact. But all in all, the realisation that I had (which I didn't want to have at the same time) is that -

I miss you.

I miss you in so many ways that I didn't even know. We were SO CLOSE then SO FAR for a few years and then suddenly last night we were SO CLOSE again, I guess it felt like coming back to a little bit of familiarity. There was still warmth in your embrace, and even though I know that I am over you, I don't think I have ever not felt for you. If anything, it was suppressing those feelings because I didn't want to appear weak.

I have decided to let myself feel all these things and then I'll be okay again. Today, I'm letting myself miss you.

Before I met you I always thought that I'd kiss someone that was already mine, someone that I'd be together with, but I guess I was wrong. But I want to kiss you. I would, no matter how many times I try to convince myself that I shouldn't, that it would lead me to feel more. I want to kiss you. So when the time comes, I will close my eyes and at that moment when our lips meet, I will believe that we are permanent.

Last night,
for just those few minutes,
I believed that
we were temporarily permanent.

The Feeling That Lingers / Goodbye Sean

 Mourning over the loss of someone is such a weird feeling that I still can't get a grasp of. Regardless of how close we were, or how often we met, or how the some of the only memories we shared were something we couldn't even remember ourselves and had to have our parents remind us - like the time we showered together as kids in the same bathtub, causing the both of us to be embarrassed when we met again when we were 17 and 21. The feeling of loss is still something that I can feel moving through every corner of my soul and the only words I could muster out was, "my condolences", regardless of how rarely we met.

The closer we were, the longer the feeling of loss lingers around in me, that's all. 

I'll miss you. And I know you'll be remembered because your mother dedicated her whole life to taking care of you. What will she do now? She was always worrying over you, hovering and watching your every step. Your father never really got himself involved, but I guess his way of taking care of you was by providing for the whole family financially. Your brother used to act like he didn't give a shit, probably because he never got the attention he wanted because you were sick for a very long time, but he grew older and understood the painful situation that the whole family was going through so he started to love you more each day. 

They all say that it was about time you go because you've really been fighting a long battle that not a lot of people can imagine going through at such a young age. The surgeries, the medication, the pain... the loss of youth. You are only 25 after all. 

I'm glad that we got to share that Thailand trip with you and your mum back in 2012. We had great fun and I'll always remember that night where Josh and I screamed and ran around in circles in our room because there was a frog in the toilet, and you rushed over asking us if we were okay and laughed when you saw our flustered expressions after realising that it was only because of a frog. 

You caught the frog for us and let it go. 

I will also remember the look of determination on your face when we were playing archery that afternoon. When you saw Josh try it, my dad egged you on, "Have a shot, Sean. You've got nothing to lose!" Your mum, as usual, worriedly rejected the idea of having you pick up a bow because your left hand has been shaking ever since your last op. She said that it was something that you were really self-conscious about in front of people. 

Your mum's words didn't stop you that afternoon. My dad managed to convince you to pick the bow up and have a shot. Your hands shook uncontrollably while all of us tried to ignore it like you know, how we sometimes notice a clear difference in how someone acts/behaves/looks but we try to ignore that and treat them all the same? I know I did it that afternoon.

Despite being self-conscious about your shaking hand, the look on your face showed none of that and only seriousness. Probably only sighs of frustration could be heard when you couldn't get the arrow to rest properly on the bow, though that didn't stop you at all that day. You were focused on getting that bow to work the way you wanted it to, and after a couple of tries, you finally managed to shoot one. Into the pond. Every one of us cheered the loudest we could. 

These were the best memories but sadly the only ones that I shared with you. The last time we visited Thailand, your mother said that you were too sick in bed to get out of the house anymore. We didn't even get the chance to visit you then. 

Rest in peace, Sean. Thank you for showing me what fearlessness and positivity meant from your perspective. I know that now you'll be able to walk with your own legs, eat and speak without your mother worrying about you and you'll be able to pick up that heavy archery bow without your left arm shaking.



Your soul has left this sickened body and now, you are free. You are a courageous young soul, and I hope that you're enjoying yourself up there in heaven.

We'll miss you, Sean.