Hand in Hand.

He hobbled on his walking stick. She took his other free hand in her arms. They both waddled in the morning light, holding hands, pushing eighty years behind. He walked in silence and she twittered away. Over time their faces had sagged and swelled in the same places, making them look so much alike. It’s the cutest sight to see on a Thursday morning.

I don’t know if that is love that they both held in their hands. Something kept them together, be it her constant chatter or his silence to make room for them.

I guess forever looks something like a softly leathered hand on a Thursday morning.

Anniversary

It crept into conversations and lie there like a gigantic invisible octopus we’d tiptoe around. It laced itself unto some idle thought, ending in quiet tears. Bound around my ring finger, a hollow thought for every hollow twirl. Sometimes I see your outline in some faces. Fragments of mouldy photographs for memories.

It has been four years and I am four years and a little too much older. You’re shallow breaths and wet eyelashes on a quiet bus ride. But I’m better.

I’m here, 4 years too late.

Dear Future Minister of Finance,

Cromacom

The Celerity of Radish Shaped Pumps.

I figured hearts don’t break as easily as they make it out to be. They’re rather sinewy things, all muscles and heartstrings. Without faith, they corrode. Without exercise, they harden with cholesterol. So here it is, on my cleanest sleeve if you want it. It has your name on it. It’s up to you now.

Aussigall

It’s not the bravest thing I’ve done. Once I know that it’s unwanted, it makes it easier to wipe away the letters drawn on its arteries and veins. The distance helps. If I were a little less afraid, I would have waited. It would have hurt a little more. We’d be in the same city, separated by traffic jams. Combined together, the distance would equal a string of promises and excuses. I didn’t tell you. It’s better not knowing, no?

But this radish shaped thing? It’s yours for today, yours for the last dozens of days. Tomorrow it belongs to me again.

As a friend don’t I at least deserve a word?

It’s Just Unfortunate.

Dear Heart,

Laure Nollet | Flickr

It’s time you accept some inalienable truths.

1. My blood pressure is low. My haemoglobin levels are negligible. You never needed to pump so hard. It’s just how you are. Just know that though you are a type O, the Red Cross is awfully afraid to take your blood. You will never be a donor.
2. I am lazy when it comes to laundry. The state of my clothes can be best described as dreadful. You, dear heart, are encased within a set of ribcage unwilling to part and put you on my sleeve. It’s unhygienic, frankly. So let’s be pragmatic, prudent and responsible. Do not worry. I will be the one who knows how to protect you best.
3. You belong to a human being with an uncanny ability to make great close friends. They are so few but they endure across time and space. The unfortunate case is that they remain forever platonic even when you don’t want it to. You belong to a girl who doesn’t quite know how to go about it all when it comes to what they call love. Take comfort that you will never break.

You see, it’s not a case of never being enough. Don’t ever believe that. It is a large heart. You are doing a fantastic job, keeping me alive. It’s just unfortunate that it is all you may ever have to do. You never need to pump harder. It may implode once in a while, like what it is now. But know that it will come back fortified.

One day, when all my muscle, gristle and bones have pounded itself from work into nothingness, they will see you too. They will see ventricles and atria, safely encased and whole. It is not a puzzle piece, incomplete. It still beats the same, it’s automatic. Dear heart, you will never break. That is why it is inalienably unfortunate to belong to me.

A La Mode.

The best time to eat dairy products is in the morning, except ice cream. This frozen bovine juice can be consumed at noon, in the evening and sometimes very late at night. It is usually eaten as dessert, as salve for thirst or as comfort. Sometimes, it is offered as a ruse for the conversation that comes with it.

Bonnie Shulman

Suddenly, it has become a part of my staple diet for supper. I may have developed a strange insatiable need for ice cream at odd hours of the day or maybe just the company that comes with it. But I already know the answer to that. That question isn’t for me.

It would be good to let me know before I begin to wonder if I’m developing a diabetic problem. If it is just butterfat and hazelnuts, that’s fine. I can cope with “just ice cream”, remember? If it isn’t, well what are you going to do now?

Leave Unsaid Unspoken

I can’t continue pretending to choose
These opposite sides on which we fall
The loving you laters, if at all
No right minds could wrong be this many times

Sara Bareilles - Between the Lines

Bareilles is better than a one hit wonder.
This is a radio prophet post. It all started here:

The Russians had Sputniks.

I did something relatively crazy today. This, coming from a girl whose idea of rebellion is walking halfway through Orchard Road with bare feet, is relatively outrageous I’d say.

It began with a boy. It always begins with one eh? Let’s be pragmatic here. There is an ending in a not too distant future. We know the scariest part is the queasy frightening pudding-like middle. But I’ve been told it’s the better part of the story. Is this really worth the better half of my ventricle?

So what is this? This is relatively crazy and who knew it could feel this good (=

Blue & Constant.

It was another Friday and a little close to ten. I am sitting with you, shoulders pressed: my pink jersey against your blue cotton. It was a comforting blue. But it wasn’t blue at all. it was crisp white with tiny blue threads weaving in between. It stood against the flushed cheeks of tired skin. Fingers tracing the outlines of our long day. We talk about school, about life, about dreams, about and about. Never quite about what this is.

All this while I’m thinking about resting my tired head on that blue cotton shoulder. It wouldn’t seem out of place.

More domestic, less romantic. More silence, less noise. Is this what this is?

Imploding Hearts is So Last Summer.

I have a knack for knowing how to make good, close, platonic friends with guys. It comes from having honed pathetic skills in flirting and instead have relegated myself to actually getting to know them as a person. It’s a slow and steady process and before you know it we’ve hit the Friends Zone and he’s telling you about his crush much to your sad pitter-pattering heart. Your heart feels like it’s about to implode, sucking in your limbs into the cavernous squeeze of warmth to the left of your chest. Letters in a song begin to make more sense that it ought to.

I can cope with “just friends”. Honey, there’s nothing new there.

I have been told that my love life makes for a very entertaining read. It is a barren road with remnants of candy hearts and hershey kisses, shrapnel if you will, of my failure to launch. So partly inspired by haikus and pineapples, I shall divulge the titillating tales of my exciting love life.

Don’t worry. It never ends in a heartbreak.

Just implosions.

This Here Giraffe.

Its slender tongue tentatively touched my offering. It was the colour of chewed-up blueberry bubblegum stuck to the underside of a chair. It tugged at the teal green leaves of my offering. I squealed and dropped the branch, scared that it would reach forward and eat my hands.

He had propped me up on his shoulder so that I was as tall as the metal enclosure and almost as tall as the giraffes. I was the tallest girl on earth - giddy with thrill and giddy with fear that I would fall head first into the ground. But his strong hands held me in place, long before the years would turn them callous and dry. I had believed for the longest time that he was the strongest man on earth, that it would mean that I was safe whenever he was around. I would look beside me and see her delicate face framed by swathes of cool white cotton hiding the mass of ebony underneath. She wore that red lipstick then. She only wore one shade. She was our Snow White: the fairest woman on earth. With her, anywhere we went we were home. We were happy. We were the happiest family on earth.

The photographs were all that remained from that day now speckled with green and grey mould, eating away at the edges. I was three and it was our first visit to the zoo - just the three of us. The photographs lie safely in the dark tucked away inside a box, inside our closet, like relics of another life - as though they belonged to someone else. Perhaps it did.

I may have pieced the memory from bits of old photographs, painted the cracks and scraped away the mould. Maybe I haven’t. Maybe it did happen. I don’t know the difference. I don’t think it matters. All that matters is that there’s some truth to it. it’s enough to keep. It’s just enough to believe that maybe we were still the same people. Just a different photograph.

Dear You.

A little bird gnawed at my heart when I saw that picture of you with her. So it’s official. A Facebook-certified truth.

Yesterday you told me it’s over and the little bird flew. But today you told me you’re with her again.

And funnily enough, the bird never came back.
I’m just happy for you kiddo (:
that’s what matters.

He’s Just Not That Into You

Ever been approached by a guy or a girl for your e-mail? I’m sure you have you sexy, sexy muffins you. Now I’ve consulted with highly esteemed experts in social relations and asking for an e-mail is the easiest thing to do these days, more so than a handphone number and even more so than an address (eeeee stalker alert!). Chances are you’ve met the Undesireable, the Uninteresting and - the most feared - the Unrelenting. How do you maintain a sense of class whilst carefully giving a metaphorical little spritz of mace when propositioned by these three deadly beings? How do you brush them off firmly and politely with grace? How do you do it whilst hinting ever so politely that they should remove any notion of EVER getting to know you?

A restraining order is by far the MOST effective but they’re very hard to come by.

But fear not! The answer is this:

Give him/her your school email.

Why school email you say? Well school emails are generally reserved for e-mails from project mates, for receiving disgusting amounts of uni-approved spams from CCAs and for sending more stupid spam to the general population (CLICK REPLY, IDIOTS. NOT REPLY TO ALL). It’s a formal channel for the acquaintances and informal for the lazy friends who can’t be arsed to bring a hand phone.

So it goes without saying that giving someone (from the same uni as you of course) an e-mail address which they could have conveniently located themselves, would at the very least generate a resounding:

“………………………………EH?“

It’s strange.
It’s polite.
It doesn’t evade the question.
It’s perfect.

If the Interested is giving the Interesee the benefit of the doubt, s/he may come to the following conclusion:

1. S/he must be so technologically backwards that she doesn’t have an MSN in this day and age? OHMAFREAKINGGAWD!L0s3r!1!!exclamationmark
2. S/he must be just naturally awkward and socially inept.

It gives a whole new genuine dimension to the old “It’s not you, it’s me” diatribe eh?

Once the Interested finally do knock some sense into their heads they’ll realise that who, within the small scope of youths in Singapore, doesn’t have an MSN? In any case s/he probably has had two accounts: one you had when you were eleven with a username like pinksexybutterflyprincessglitter69@hotmail.com (or various permutation of those words) and of course your current one. So really, there’s no reason why s/he couldn’t just have given you his/her msn address. Abso-frucking-lutely no reason not to.

You see, giving a school email limits your interaction to emailing alone, not instant messaging and to me, it’s a deterrent like no other.

Getting to know a stranger over e-mail is something that I imagine only people who are dating online do with the comfort of anonymity and the urgency to spill your entire life story. OR at the very least the both of you have already established that you are friends. But for a casual, non-committal “hey are you awesome enough to join my elite legion of friends?” emailing is seriously not the way to go.

Bottom line is “WHO IN THE BLUE HELL DO THAT?”

Your pursuer will cease its modus operandi and you can pat yourself in the back for having brushed off someone politely. WELL DONE YOU!

Now of course this might not work for the Unrelenting who by their nature are shameless pursuer of their object of desire, oblivious to even the most blatant of all rejections.

In which case that restraining order would come in handy riiiiight about now.

Disclaimer: the above event doesn’t have any resemblance to the real life of the currently-annoyed-but-otherwise-somewhat-ego-bruised writer who is recovering silently between fits of maniacal laughter and angsty bouts of misandry. Nothing. Nada. Zip. No resemblance at all.

Delirium

Having crushes is the most fun a girl can have with her clothes on.

Girl meets boy, usually within a 5 metre radius or in my case, as far as my eyes can see without glasses - which is about 1 metre. Girl finds guy attractive and so the story goes.

The point of attraction, of course, varies from pure aesthetics to the most random, the most trivial and the most frivolous of reasons. That’s the insanity: to be so besotted over what could only be described as nothing. There’s a thrill in being so pointlessly giddy to see the sight of him and yet to feel so hopelessly frustrated when words simply escapes you. It’s the exchange of the mute, the subtle unspoken cues that begs for his undivided attention. Swish of hair here. An exagerrated giggle there. A swaggering hips here. An unbuttoned button there. Slicked lips. Rouge cheeks. All ruffled up and gorgeous, you think.

So lost in wanting the attention that you’ve somehow lost the track as to why he’s always on your mind and why he lies in every picket fenced fantasies. It’s irrational. It’s impossible. It’s madness. You say you want it to disappear. You say you don’t want the illusion. But you know the ache is insanely delicious and you want it. He’s the smile that hangs on the edges of your lips in the lone silent moments. He’s the guy that makes you quote the cheesiest pop songs and you can’t bear to admit it.

And you are scared. Scared that you want this more than reality could ever offer.

Still you wonder if that fantasy could be true.

It’s hard to think that you might not be real.
You’re in every word i see
… but do you see me?