I Cry Too.

It’s easier to say that I do not care than to tell you all the reasons why I do.

This week is the auditions round. I sit beside the panel of directors and writers. I’m not meant to be here. Yet I am here. I miss this, I thought. But maybe I don’t. There is a difference. Teeth no longer gnashing pens. Mouth no longer cupped around hands, hiding grimaces. The guys were decent. The girls were better. Frankly? I don’t have to care anymore.

Have you ever given your heart away? Carve a sliver with tentative hands, slice them up into an original sentence and hope that its meaning will remain true.  It’s never about what’s good enough for everyone else. It wasn’t good enough for me. Writing that play was cathartic. Perhaps it’s all to do with the subject, allowing me to draw parallels to your death. I had to pick away at old scars to find something true, nothing overdone and nothing contrived. It had to be honest. I don’t want to be her, emotionally extorting people with her sob story. One death will not define me.

When you want to create something with heart, you have to sacrifice a little of your own blood. In a Heartbeat took more of me with it: the corny jokes, the whines and the tears. It was selfish. I was stubborn. I didn’t want anyone else to touch it. Maybe if I cared a little less, it would have been easier but I wouldn’t want to have it any other way. I couldn’t. It wasn’t a choice. I had to care. I had to throw every thing into it.

My heart was broken 10 to 15 times this year. I ripped it out of ribcage for them to feast on it. I cried, lost hours of sleep and shaved several years off my life expectancy. Pathetic huh? I have never felt more alone. I have never felt so small. I really needed you to be there but I let you go. You have your own lives. This is the moment when I realised solitude is a constant.

I walked out of the theatre on the last day, before they cleared up the stage. I couldn’t keep it up. I can’t put up a mask of smiles and thankyousomuchforcomingireallyappreciateithopeyouenjoyedtheshow. I sound like a broken tape recorder. I meant every word and I hated it. The tears were spilling out. I took the stairs so no one would see me. Suta was walking up and he saw the reddened eyes but he was on the phone. “Are you okay?”, he mimed. I flashed a smile. I’m okay, really. I’m fine. No one likes to see girls cry. I’m supposed to be the girl who has it going, put together in the right way. How inappropriate! This is the time to celebrate. 

Out in the rain, I couldn’t walk far with my kebaya. I wanted to walk away into the darkness of the deserted business district. Hide among the marble pillars and let everything out of my tearducts. I turned around instead and found a corner. I don’t want to be attacked by a random vagrant.  I’m not stupid.

Eric stumbled into me. They always look so confused. I said I’m fine, rather unconvincingly through sobs. I’ll catch a taxi home. I shooed him away. He left. I didn’t take the taxi. I took the MRT. You can’t eat, smoke, carry durians and cry on the MRT. It’s punishable by law.

Some girls cry over boys. I cried over my own words. Only two people saw. The rest knew nothing. I though it’s better that they’d never know how much it meant to me. Maybe this time they should.

I am tired. I need a rest.

I do not want this.

I am not sorry.

Goodbye.