Lost & Found

Lost

Poking at my Greek salad, I looked around the table at the young man I liked to call my best guy friend.

Big bites, small giggles.

I laughed because he did.

"What was that again?"

It's almost like I was an afterthought...

And in that moment, I realized, I had never felt more alone.

Found

Poking at my Greek salad, I looked around the table at the young man who called me his sunshine. His lover. His whole life.

Big bites, shared giggles.

"Hey, don't steal my olive!"

"But I like olives too, and you have two."

And in that moment, I realized, I felt loved.

The Flake

I sat waiting for him, munching happily on my Cadbury flake, ignoring the people shooting me dirty looks. He walked out, exhausted, smiling as he saw me. Noticing the chocolate, he looked at me incredulously.

"You're eating a bar of chocolate outside the gym?"

"Yup."

"But it's a gym!"

"And you're telling me this because... Want some?"

"Things I do for you, woman!" he grinned whilst biting a huge chunk of flake.

Pieces Of Sunshine

She spends all afternoon assembling pieces of him together.

She sits on the floor, legs outstretched, head titled back, wondering what piece of him goes where.

Her jigsaw. Her challenge for the day.

He keeps changing, with every piece of him she puts together. Different permutations of him.

She understands him better. And out of the sheer joy of it, she applies two and two better.

Occasionally, there are pieces missing. So, she breaks off bits of her, and put them there.

A little spittle to smooth out rough edges. A nip here. A tuck there.

He takes any shape he wants. He grows. He's beautiful now.

Glowing and full and ready to walk out, shine, put the Sun to shame.

She basks in the glory of him.

Each ray of him, pouring through her, spilling onto the floor beyond.

Through gaping spaces.

Spaces made to him.

Remember, Hold On

You asked me to write you a sad song that could string together all the parts of you and all the parts of me that mattered before that morning in May when the rain we so loved become the menace that kept us together because we were never clever enough to keep an umbrella and neither of us could leave properly without taking our laptops for which we had no bags or covers and held in them precious things like photographs of you eating pasta from the pan and pictures of me hiding in your closet and a little poem for snowy that we wrote together while he was sitting like a king in the middle of the mat you prayed on in the direction of Mecca five times a day except for that morning in May when the shirts we shared that were slung over chairs and smelled of you were hastily gathered up and thrown like darts at an open suitcase and the person next door didn't hear a sound because he or she was listening to Christina Aguilera's Welcome to the Circus and the windows was open like a wound in the wall.

I will not.

Instead, I will give you a trail of breadcrumbs:

Wrestling for the end of a blanket that was not big enough for the two of us,

The crust of the painting I made on your back, using the colours I stole from the studio,

Putting out a fire in the kitchen, and later listening to Mozart on the rooftop while we lay exposed in the shadow of a sun that sailed across a sky so blue we could imagine we were fishes looking up at the surface of the sea.

These breadcrumbs are sweet, and they are enough.

You do not need a sad song.

They are enough.

Yours always,

A.

Free Fallin'

I've lost sight of everything that I wanted to love.

I've lost my need to be needed.

By you, or anyone else.

I've lost my tolerance for irrelevance.

I've lost my will to be indifferent.

I've lost a scarf he bought from Budapest.

I've lost the ability to absorb shock.

It bounces and flounces and shocks someone else.

I've lost the love of my seventeen years of life.

I've lost my capacity for sentimentality.

I've lost my adulation for perfection.

I've lost so much hair so much blood so much grit.

I've lost my life.

I've lost my sense of comprehension of things right and wrong.

I've lost count of the things I have lost.

Many The Words

Lately, I've been wondering about what writing means to me.

And why I instinctively avoid writing in first person.

As much as it is an honest and personal issue, I figure it has much to do with dealing with me.

Every time I run from writing, I run from me.

I don't like saying statements that would make me cringe when I read it the next time around.

I don't like sounding like an indulgent seventeen year old. And yes, I do not like situations where I have to contest that my mental age is frozen at seventeen.

I feel like writing. Every damned day.

I feel like opening my eyes, absorbing a moment of beauty, and keeping it there. Just as beautiful.

So, the world can read the same beauty that I'd seen there, then.

And it's always in wondering, if someone else smiles the way I do, or loses at least one of the senses to a moment.

Do people smile at a cashier counting coupons, her lips and tongue moving soundlessly to English numerals, with Mandarin phonetics? Can deja vu happen by way of smell? Isn't listening to someone, with your eyes watching their eyes smile, light up, disappear to places you can't tell, a wonderful thing? Does anyone watch how they absently smile, and let you in on how they and their faculties are continually fabricating words, gestures, expressions to translate what they're processing deep inside - letting you in on something so private?

Writing, to me, is what I heard when I was listening.

Writing to me, is when I pin down zero intent, and pure indulgence into structure, form, prose, poetry, images, visuals. Verbs, adjectives. Values, judgements, grammatical errors, clauses.

Is when I archive everyday, and sew days together with words.

Between The Lines

"Don't leave me like this,"

she called out desperately, the porcelain mask finally cracking.

"I need you."

His steps faltered.

"Why now? You never needed me before."

"You're all I have,"

she said with a sigh.

"But it was never enough, was it?"

"You never really loved me, did you?"

she cried out in anguish, not knowing how else to answer his accusation.

He looked at her like he was about to say something. Something that might turn everything around and upside-down. She held her breath in anticipation. But then the moment passed and he seemed to deflate. He shook his head almost imperceptibly and said sadly,

"Just because I never loved you the way you wanted me to doesn't mean I didn't love you with all that I had."

As he began to walk away, she sighed and said wistfully.

"I could say the same."

He never heard her.

Imperfection

It is three in the morning and she's sitting on a chair in a dark, cold room with her laptop on her knee. He's three feet away from her, tangled up in sheets, fast asleep. Occasionally, she hears him sighing restlessly, moving his limbs until he is comfortable again and with a final sigh, his dark outlines settle back into another dream. Maybe he is dreaming of her, causing another scene, falling down again or bickering with him over nothing. Or maybe he dreams of the things he so long for - home, familiar family members, Mama's home-cooked food. But he is here. And she smiles.

In a few minutes, she will crawl into the warm bed and snuggle up to him at which he will protest mildly - her arms are too cold. They will giggle slightly, but he hugs her anyway, and soon they will be sleeping soundly.

... he just woke up, saying, "What's going on babe?"

"Nothing, just surfing."

"What's going on with the typing? Come to bed, it's really late."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Come to bed, now!"

"Okay, two minutes."

"Why the hell are you typing?"

"Two minutes. Pfft."

And he is wide awake now, waiting for her to finish whatever it is she is doing.

She will have to continue this attempt at an ode to imperfect love some other time. Even though this is just a memory, she feels too annoyed to carry on now.

Another Brick

There is a wide gaping rift between who you are and who I thought you were.

To think that we all lead lives of discretion.

Secrets that you yourself have lost in the enfoldings of absent words.

Secrets that have been stripped of language that relay them.

Secrets that disconnect you from the people you love.

Secrets that pattern your lies.

Secrets that displace you from being the person you want to be.

How many of us are really unknown?

How many of us live lives that are disengaged from our daily paths?

How many of us spend our days suppressing conscience?

And how many of us read this and pretend we remain undisturbed?

Pretending you have the rightful audacity to doubt my reference to you;

Because it takes one to know one.

Wanted: Muse

She slowly stretched, languorously running her hand over the empty side of the bed. Rolling over, she buried her face in his pillow, breathing in his scent. Staring out of the window at the crescent moon, a half-smile on her face, she slowly traced circles on the patterned bedspread. It was red and black - his favourite colours. Clutching his pillow, she started to shiver as she was suddenly assaulted by tattered memories, that, in their vividness, seemed as fresh as the gutted twenty dollars Unagi she had purchased that morning.

One year. One whole year one month and twenty-seven days since his demise. Since then, it seemed as if a part of her had ceased to exist, only to be replaced. She was no longer outgoing and vivacious. She now had a routine to follow. It was almost as if all the effervescence had slowly fizzled out.

The day started and ended with him. Somewhere in between, she had lost the will to search for herself. Breakfast was always two eggs, sunny side up, just a tad bit runny, and two sliced of toast, exactly one and a quarter turns on the toaster - exactly how he liked it. Every night, she sprayed the sheets with his cologne - the one night she miscalculated and ended up with an empty bottle in her hands, she spent sobbing on the bathroom floor. She now has two bottles of Ralph Lauren Polo Black and Armani Code each in her closet. Just in case.

A sudden chill broke her out of her musings. She slowly got up, casting the pillow aside. It had started to rain. She walked towards the windows, intending to latch them and return to bed. As she paused to look outside, staring at the pristine rain-drops falling carelessly, enticed by gravity, she suddenly realized that she would never be able to truly shut out the cold. Suddenly feeling as if a huge burden had been lifted off her shoulders, for the first time in a year, she smiled. She had never looked more at peace. Spreading her arms out and throwing her head back in exhilaration, she jumped.

Love, Alive

Every single time I miss him, my heart would ache terribly.

It would ache really bad that it wrenches my everything.

And when it starts, it never stops.

There I was placing my hand on my chest, wishing it would slowly disappear.

Then, I would give up. And do what I always did when it happens.

I call his name. Again. And again. And again.

And I close my eyes for a moment or two.

There he is.

He is standing by my bed. Looking at me, with those tired eyes. That speaks volumes.

Stay with me for the night, I would say.

He would smile that smile that I loved, his eyes twinkling with hope.

I push away my quilt and he would climb in bed, his body warm and collected.

I would stay up all night, resting my head on his bare chest, listening attentively to his every heartbeat.

Every second of his breath calms me. It made me feel safe. With him next to me.

I would try my best to keep my eyes open, doing little things that matter to us.

Rustling his hair with my fingers, mapping his face out line by line and running my fingers up and down his chest.

When I finally succumbed to the magic of the night, he would hum my favourite hum, careful not to move an inch of his body and wake me up.

By morning, he'd already left my side, and I would secretly smile because;

On the nights that he stayed were the best nights that I felt genuinely happy.

Twenty Minutes

She defined her space by an 8X5 ft grey-tiled room.

It wasn't a particularly attractive. It had a grey western commode, a grey sink, and a grey mirror-closet, both suffering previtiligo - threatening to go white. Even the view from the window wasn't particularly spectacular. The neighbour's barren bedroom, and occasional liaisons with a loved one, peeked between tilted serrated glass. Both, handheld and overhead showers stopped working, so she resorted to a grey bucket, coupled with a grey mug.

There, she'd spend twenty minutes in solitude, everyday, her left hand dousing her form with water. One brother, two parents, a dozen or two of friends and one unsurviving boyfriend later, these twenty minutes were hers.

Alone.

She liked her water either very hot, or very cold. Season was irrelevant, function was important: cold to rouse, hot to lull. But she was partial to cold water.

There was never hurry. She'd treat herself to a tiny shriek when cold water established contact and would giggle when the water forced its way into her ear.

She'd watch how water droplets, each clinging on to her nails, afraid of gravity - would extend her otherwise pruned nails. She loved the way water would course, down her eyebrows. Rivulets would run from the locks of her hair that hugged her shoulders; drip from her full lips.

Water would course, halving her body symmetrically, celebrating her irrespective of her uneven tan, scarred shins, splinted ends, shaving nicks.

The mirror told her she had a nice smile, inclusive of a tiny glimmer of light that is portrayed in her eyes. She'd wrinkle her nose, her reflection faithfully repeating. Her navel, her long lashes and slightly full lips were her favourites. She's half smile at her cleavage, young lowerback, arching into her full, but slightly bow legs ending in her ankles that she didn't like. But neither soap, nor loofah cared.

Her eyes would crinkle at their corners, once she's examine her fresh, wrinkle-when-wet self, dried. Her eyelashes, clumped together, would match her wavy hair, now settled comfortably.

She was thankful to those twenty minutes everyday.

Not because they were sensual.

But because they were twenty minutes alone.

Thoughts, They Flow

l feel old. Hate it tires me. Aged by the bitterness of life.

I count the empty days that never waits for me. Chasing. Chasing dreams.

Dreams that remain unattained. Unchangingly, unattained.

I want it. I want you. But you, you are never here. Stay there. Where you are.

Because intimacy damages me. Me. Me. Me.

How narcissistic! Secretly narcissistic. Aren't we all?

Yes you are. Denying it would be hypocritical. Hypocritical hypocrites. Aren't we all?

How ironic!

I've lost my ability to judge superficially. Being shallow, is a blessing.

Trusting superfice is easier. Easier than what exactly?

People are never exact these days. Vagueness is safe. Seek comfort in obscurity.

Maybe that's why I'm non-specific. Always ambiguous. With everything I say. And think.

What is the point of thinking then? If everything is pointless. Not pointless. Just vague.

So vague that it's pointless!

Talk in circles. Think in circles. Why do you want to confuse me?

So you sound more profound with the complexity of your thoughtless flow of thoughts?

I don't know. I wasn't aware that I was talking in circles.

Until the circle was formed I suppose. Pity pity those who try to understand.

Pity!