Juxtaposed

Stars are burning 

light years away,

against dark skies of 

silent vacuum. 

Trees bend with the wind,

roots buried in the earth — carrying

what keeps them alive,

yet elements opposite

leave them more alive 

than before.

We are hurricanes and pavements,

snow and snow patrols,

cops and crime

juxtaposed against one another 

— howls against standstill. 

One would not be

without the other.

Three pieces of me

because you told me that I have all of you

You have all of my days — good and bad. They are numbered and boxed up in order for you to slot in your schedule between and into my own, hanging from the hook at the kitchen counter. My days are your days.

You have all of my words, you've had them for months — every comma and full-stop and hyphen for me to catch the breath you took away. Every sombre poem and joyous verse. People wrote Happiness like it started with an 'H' but I only know one kind of happiness — it starts with you.

You have all of my heart, warm and beating full-fledged for you and only you. Blood runs through my veins — an exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, speech and memories, for you. I wake up every morning, for you.

This road

What if love is a straight road? 

The street lamps line them like stages. Every one we pass is a benchmark, but the street lamps don't get planted forever, where do we reach the end? What happens then? 

Is there a word?

i've spent two weeks trying to find the right words, but all I needed were the wrong ones.

Is there a word for silent replies, for gazes that exchange sentences too delicate to be said? Is there a way to express that kind of intricate, blossoming feeling? Not like the burst of fireworks on New Year's Eve — it's not loud like that — more like hot chocolate in winter, like the feeling in your stomach when the plane takes off, like watering and sowing seeds that were shoved into dead, barren soil. Is there a word for touches like pockets of air, like ballerinas on pointe — graceful gentle points that were products of blood and bruises. Is there a word for emptiness since I am without you — a word for the cold inside despite summery weather? Is there a word for that gripping-breathless-tongue-tied kind of heart-stop? Like having feelings handicapped, dried up waterfalls and sunlight shifting into the room through the slits of your blinds, like I really really like you, I really really do.

Backspace.

There are only so many likes and perhaps and maybes you can say until it no longer cuts, but I am not made for definitions or permanent markers. I am only built with room for mistakes and gaps for redoing over, and over. I find comfort in knowing that I don't have to be sure, that I can cast the line with the possibility of retracing my actions before it's too late. 

I live in a world where the backspace button is conveniently placed, where we send bosses draft after draft, bouncing correction and constructive criticism back and forth so that we perfect everything that we do — word for word, and all punctuation. 

Backspace. 

I live around people who hang promises on a line, and get forgiven when they break them. 

Backspace. 

People pay to get their names off from the signed dotted line. 

Backspace. 

Even as I type this right now

Backspace, backspace, backspace.

I am not made for certainty or definition. I fit well in-between lines of ambiguity and pages that are blank with no margins. 

I'm bad at baking

I am half a cup too much of second guessing and you are two teaspoons short of what feels real. We are a recipe for disaster, I know this even before we folded ourselves into the pan that fit and moulded any other two hearts that felt just about right. It's the kind of picturesque you and I are not. We are different, sometimes opposites like sugar and spice, you add the two together and you'll get the kind of taste that stings your tongue and sends that tingle down the back of your spine — when we lock eyes it's like having neurons sent directly to every other nerve in my body. We are an explosion of flavours and sparks from a single firework — we are beautiful not in the way white picket fences line mowed lawns, not in the way Christmas lights lit up streets. We are momentary and that is what makes everything a million times more worth folding and keeping in the front of my right pocket because that is where I stuff my hands whenever things go off-track and I guess, that is when I need you. 

2015

I am 2 days late!! Been pretty busy these past couple of days oops. 

2014 was a difficult year, and I learnt that it wasn't just an insane one for me but also a really tough one for a lot of people in my life. Was this year cursed? Was it not meant to be great for everyone? Or rather, anyone? Surely, someone must have written a book or a song in some part of this world 365 (ok 367) days ago to make a mess of these dates and time. I experienced a couple of things I could honestly have lived on without, at many points this year I wanted to just lay completely still, hoping I could blend in with the lines and curves of my furniture and just lay there, I really didn't want to face any of it. I was always pretty good at running away from my problems, until my problems started becoming people — some I could avoid (even desperately so) and some, I really just couldn't. I love people — I love hearing their chatter and watching their shadows line my path home, I love being around people I work with — when we come together to make something bigger than all of us, something that stretches beyond the walls of underground practice rooms and synthetic grass and all the other mundane things. I love people. And humanity is uGLY — I'm not so blind to believe that we aren't, but maybe I love people in candid frames, who wear jackets too huge for their own size and shoes that were torn and overworn and comfortable and above all, their own. Maybe. 

I hope this doesn't sound too cocky and gross, I'm trying to be really honest here, do bear with me! Studies and academics were never something I really really struggled with. I mean, I did face troubles, but my best was always enough to pull my grades up — this year, my best wasn't. I didn't know what to do, it was like cutting out paper patterns on the wrong end of the fold, everything was just wrong from the start and I couldn't glue back the edges, everything was destined to be wonky. At the end of the day, I managed to scrape by promos with so-so results, which I am grateful for. Yet at the same time, I am disappointed.

A couple of days before promos, I wrote a list of good people in my life and bad people in my life because at that point I really didn't think I had anyone, and it was shameful and Athena, I will always be grateful for what you made me do that day, I believe it was that day that got me out of my ditch. I knew I had people, I just didn't believe I did. Idk if there really is a difference but that was how it felt like.

2014 was full of downs, I could list every single one — they were so hard to forget. But there were so many ups. Do the downs reduce the prominence of the ups? Maybe. Do they eradicate the presence of the ups? Never. Nothing could. And a year could be tough but we all survived it anyway. I really like this quote, although I can't remember exactly how it goes or where I heard it from, but it says something like "Time doesn't stop for anyone, so when life goes on, we go on with it" HEHE I like the last part. So, we go on with it, we will come out tattered and bruised but those will be fixed and they will just be battle scars we will one day be proud of.

anyway!!!!! I came up with New Year Resolutions!!!!! I did not accomplish ANY of my 2014 resolutions, pretty disappointing, so I will definitely do my best to accomplish my 2015 goals!! here goes:

1) Exercise regularly n be fit!!!!!!! 

^this has been dragging on for far too many years, ITS TIME.

2) BE HOME ON TIME

^i s2g I am never ever home on time and my mum always scolds me for it HAHAHAH so far I have not been late in 2015 and I plan on keeping it that way.

3) Understand physics

^i am exhausted by how bad I am at this subject, I can carry this on no longer, time to actually grasp the information I've been forcing down for months.

4) Honours' Roll for prelims!!

^I WILL find my secondary sch academic strength back (somehow)

5) Be a senior worth looking up to

6) Get an A in MEP Practical and do well in band

^well, not just decently or okay or passable, but well!!! it is a legacy that I want

7) Be more thoughtful n show it!!!! 

8) Love well & deep & wide, regardless

Happy New Year, everyone! :-)