Elegy.

You may never see this.

And I am not sure what to make of that. This uncertainty does allow me to be certain of one thing, though - I'm not ready for this.

Here I found myself again, anticipating, looking forward to this one particular day. And for what? For the simplest of messages. For the one or two opportunities a year to say hello, once again. Damnit.

There I was, weighing the pros and cons of sending a birthday message. How pathetic. And that's when I realized what a terrible idea it would have been!

Not when each message carries the risk of actual conversation, connection.

Not when each message seems to resound (to me) with the hollow ring of "don't you think it's such a waste?"

Not a chance, man! Not what would amount to slow suicide by attempted "niceness" (or the desperate attempt to maintain a certain image - because if I lost even that then what would I have left at all?) At what cost! And so the answer - for sure; for now - is no.

Let's let things take time. I don't know. Maybe the day I no longer feel a need to write a blog post to explain my actions (or inaction) toward you. When I can say friend and mean it.

One day, perhaps! Until then, allow me this selfishness (the blog post, the inability to eke out even a "happy birthday!") If I could only have handled all this better! Even so. Some mistakes, I think, are worth making.

(You were a mistake worth making.)

Happy birthday, you.
We grow older and hopefully we grow wiser.

And that means this has to be it, for now.
Goodbye, you.

1500hrs and all is well.

2300hrs

This is a time for lovers. As the rest of the world makes their way home, rests beneath their sheets, sleeps on the MRT, beats their wives, runs out of things to say to their friends, makes plans to meet hopefully sometime again this year, wonders why their children are not home yet. As the rest of the rest of the world, the lost and the wild and the exuberant, brushes teeth and puts on makeup, tries on six different outfits perhaps meant to seduce or maybe merely meant to restore some sense of self-worth, the only way that's left? As they slink their separate desolate ways back to their respective sanctuaries/hells, into their double locked gates and abuse or their dark clubs and gyration and excess and loss of self.

These streets are for lovers. The sidewalks meant for two and the two-seat benches at parks and the alcoves barely sufficient for two bodies bound by the belief and the fear that the world consists only of the other.

The quiet is for lovers. For murmurred declarations of love, for philosophy and the separate pursuit of the only question that matters: is love enough? and the follow up: how can it not be? For frenzied-hand-scrabbling in the dark and the urgency of motion.

0400hrs

This is a time for nobody. For the nobodies who make up so much of everybody. As the rest of the world dreams, lies in restful oblivion. As the rest of the rest of the world slips out of darkened spaces, makes plans for real food and real sustenance despite fatigue and drunkenness and disappointment, pretends desperately that life is not slipping away, that the excesses of youth can be replicated without any consequences.

This is a time for regrets and terrible decisions. As you lie awake at night wondering at the consequences of all these things over all these years, as you make unsound promises to yourself to effect change at last, as you begin even to believe yourself and that these 4am epiphanies actually represent a turning point in your could-be-so-much-better life, as these late-night visitations of wisdom and revelation occur again and again and again, as you wonder how much anything has changed at all.

1500hrs

This is a time for [fill in the blank]. Who are you without the urgency of the night and the madness of deep morning? Who do you think of in the middle of the day before you are assailed by the doubt and loneliness and sorrow of nightfall? [Who thinks of you?] What do you mean most of the time, unmasked by sunlight, stripped of shadows and the poor excuse of alcohol and the mumbled pleas of sorry I'm just really tired?

This Vast Wilderness

And loneliness is the cry
Of your soul into the vast
Wilderness
That is human life

And love is the improbable
Impossible
Imperfect reply.

/

Falling in love reminds us
Of what it is like to be young again
Hopeful, unshackled, invulnerable
Desperately, beautifully,
Myopic.

Love, then, is growing up.

When passion and desire
And the light in your eyes
Have long since burnt away
As we emerge from our bunkers
Surveying our burnt out remains

And the answer remains:
Yes

But Oh!

And you who thought you were too smart,
Too sensible,
For love -
Eventually fell too.

But oh how wrong you were!

You were not too smart,
Not too sensible -

Not in love.

Bluebird, Where You Gonna Go Now?

And how brutal we all are to (all) our past selves.

And some nights we just want to walk on and on and on and on - but we can't. We've got all these responsibilities and commitments and obligations. And don't we wish we never grew up? And some days, like these, maybe we believe.

"And you'll fall in love again," she threatened.

And partaking of a stranger's happiness on a train, as she reads a birthday card, perhaps from a lover. Perhaps not.

"And were you ever lost, 
and were you ever found?"

And she casts no shadow on nobody, 
and nobody cares, nobody does not get hurt.

"And are you ready for this life? 
The world is calling out your name, 
there's another future out there for you.

And this, and that too, shall eventually pass. 
The universe is riding off with you."

And oh, bluebird, I would not ever 
try to capture you.

2 1⁄4

______________________________

 The dust motes swirling in the sunlight
as it streams through the open window.

A woman tending the fire to the sound
of crackling firewood.

The smell of tea fills the air. 

Home can be found -
Two and a quarter time zones away.

______________________________

Desastres Naturales.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick,  to-

He looks up at the clock whose second hand is still now, time freezes for a second there as his brain scrambles to figure out what it is that has suddenly gone missing. Something so seemingly insignificant, so perfectly natural, as the sound of a second hand ticking, his mind does not know quite how to react to its abrupt absence.

He stares at the once-clock. What is it, now? A clock which cannot mark time. Something whose entire existence is now entirely invalidated. A being with no raison d'être, no reason for being. He does not know how long he stares. Ha ha.

And the once-clock stares back at him. Tick, tock. No one's making those hands start moving again, and yet life goes on.

Life does. He starts walking. Away. And he walks, and he walks, and he walks. What, or who, was waiting for him back there anyway? Nothing. Just an existential question of a clock. Ha ha. He walks on.

He remembers this recurring dream he has:

A girl, a traveller in a city on a hill. As she wanders, absolutely and utterly alone, she wonders. She stops at a break between two buildings, and gazes out at the city spread out before her. She's never felt so alive, alone in a strange new city. The possibilities seem endless. It is beautiful, stark, the utter desolation of freedom. She smiles softly to herself. She walks on.

He realizes he cannot hold on to a girl like that. He must not. That no matter how tightly she holds his hand as they walk in the park, a part of her will always long to be free. A part of her which wants to lose everything, to leave everything behind. Her family and her friends and her habits. Her work and the things she enjoys. All the things that make her, her. She cannot help it - the desolation of freedom accepts no compromise.

Ah, compromise. He remembers the man on the streets, old, decrepit. Broken.

Love fully, or not at all. If love doesn't ruin you, then why love at all? Why settle for some safe, pale imitation of love?

His eyes comes alive as he speaks the words. Maybe broken isn't so bad after all.

What a strange place. This modern world, right? Surrounded by all these people, five million of us in this tiny city-state, and you're alone. Even though each of us know how lonely we all are. We pass each other by, strangers on a train, embarrassed by the furtive eye-contact, when we're caught peeking at each other's messages, showing interest in the shows we're watching, the games we're playing. Embarrassed!

The broken man does not stop talking.

The girl on the train reading the same print of Catch-22 you never quite got around to reading yourself, listening to your favourite song just that little bit too loud so it bleeds into the otherwise quiet cabin, with a faint smile flickering about her lips as she comes to the realization that you're looking at her. Perhaps wondering, too, what might be if you would just say something. A million possiblities, and then nothing. Another day, right?

Another day, it is. It has to be! The once-clock protests in futility - time marches relentlessly on. He takes comfort in that. He walks on.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.