music is the way kindred souls communicate to each other. you can tell a lot about your friends by their playlists.. each melody represents an era, a feeling, a memory, each word carries with it a pain, a person, a whole other lifetime lived not so long ago.

i have punctuated my life with songs, sometimes when i hear one playing on the radio, a certain year comes to mind, a moment freeze framed and slowly flashing like an old movie on replay. often these hymns are so powerful that they bring me back to a place that used to hurt – a place i’ve covered with cobblestones to hide the bruises. but one tune, one lousy refrain and walls tumble to give in to longing.

memories could be a gift, or a curse, depending on which kind you wish to bring back from the dead. but i know one fact.. never listen to crappy songs on vday =) happy hearts day everyone!

i wake up.
i eat my breakfast.
i take a shower.
i do my errands.
i go to the gym.
i sit at my favorite couch at the coffee shop and order burnt rice green tea.

sometimes i play billiards or badminton or kart racing with my brothers. sometimes the family is complete and we have dinner together.

before i sleep, i read two chapters from the bible and a short story from one of my favorite local writers.

i rarely check my email nor go online, the real world turns and i spin in place. i’ve been doing this for the past five days and yet it feels like a lifetime. i see the same old places but no familiar face greets me. i feel lost.

tomorrow i will wake up. i will eat my breakfast. i will take a shower. the real world will do another 360, and i will still be here, missing the people who used to walk these streets with me, who are now scattered around the world, away from here.

and this is why i know i need to write myself away in words and wish i was homeless again.

Once upon a time I fell in love – the mad, blind, irrational and passionate kind. It happened unexpectedly as all great loves do. I didnt look for it, it just found me while I was busy with the mundanities of living.

I never really knew what it was until it was staring right in front of me. I tried to deny it, push it away, paint it with stipes hoping to make the hippotamus look like a zebra. But it just washed itself, shook its head and stubbornly stayed. Nothing made sense until I admitted that I was in love.

We kissed then lightning crashed on that damp rainy night, and that’s how I knew that as much as I wanted to keep this feeling, this high, this heaven, I didnt want to risk losing the person that brings it. Friendship survives holocausts, other relationships crumble. I had to let it go.

So I went away, I made excuses, it was crushing, it broke my heart into a million tiny pieces that will never heal no matter how many centuries it took. It was stupid, but it was the right thing to do. At rare times when I allow myself to feel, the wound still hurts,

That was 5 years ago, I coasted through life since then and made myself believe that I was fine. Found new people who entrusted their hearts to me but I never kept them. The spark never came back, something was always missing.

Sometimes when all is quiet I would weep and look back at the path I chose, then I would blink the tears away and reassure myself that I made the right decision.

Tonight the ghosts rose from the grave to haunt me, and taunt me and tell me what I would have otherwise missed if I had stayed. But I am too far down the road and I have learned to live with the pain for as long as I can remember that it doesnt seem to matter anymore. I have become contented with the role I chose to play in your life.

I feel a twinge as I read your words – of a new found love, of the same old feeling – but you have become nothing more than my idea of heaven, that place where dreams are made of, I know that’s the best we can ever be – kindred souls. The half that makes me whole.

I will always love you M, and I will always let you go. I hope she makes you happy, I would never wish anything less for you.

I miss you, I miss the way my hand fit yours, and for me, that has always been enough in this lifetime.

Goodbye. Hello 😉

met up with the vip’s at shangrila – my cousin kat, her beau j, my former workmate venn and i sampled the ridiculously overpriced menu while we watched my other cousin neriz and her friend sing on stage. we were like groupies after each set, the celebrities would sit at our table and entertain us with anecdotes. it was a fun night cap to an otherwise hectic day – buying things i need to bring back, waiting in line to claim papers and going back and forth to the office to submit the documents. still need to go back tomorrow for the med exam then i should be done and ready to have a worry free vacation;

the taxi cab is my best friend again these days, as i shuffle my self between that faraway place called work and the tiny bubble i temporarily call my home. one of the drivers talked to me today and told me how his friend has been a victim of a stick up in that area where i was to be dropped off. made me realize how dangerous it could be to be stranded there at night so i made sure to finish everything before night fall.

with my friends either busy with work or sick of it, i spent the day alone with my thoughts while looking at shop windows. events that unraveled these past few days have been both enlightening and disappointing for me. it made me realize that deceit and danger lurk in the most unexpected places and people despite their good intentions always end up doing the wrong things. this reminded me of what my friend said a while back: “it’s not always about manipulation when you lie to get what you want, sometimes it’s just self preservation, a twisted act of selfish love.. hell is paved with good intentions”