A spider

It just hit me,
That we're complete worlds apart,
I try to reach you,
But the space between us is too great.

I feel like charging in,
But I cannot,
And so I watch on from afar,
Willing you to be safe.

Once a day I look at your face,
The one I keep in my worn-out wallet,
Sometimes more,
Because that's the closest I can get to still being with you.

Do I have to lose you too?

I will let you go,
Not because I don't love you,
But because it's easier for you to hate me,
Than for me to hurt you more.

Home

There they go, tearing down each brick I put up.

When will I find respite, and where?

Will you not pause, and will you not stop?

Until when, when will your resolve end?

Must I be brought to my knees, must my heart give up before all this ends?

There you go, tearing down each brick I put up.

My moat is dry, and I have no defence around you.

I try my best, yet I cannot wall you out.

Until when, when will your temptation end?

My heart, seduced by yours.

Days past and months go by.

What does it feel like to kiss a dying love?

As I hold your hand gently to my heart,

When will this be the last kiss goodbye?

There you go, drifting away.

I knew of this end before it began,

But my foolish hope still clings on,

What it clings on to, I know not of.

Tell me, where does my hope lie?

There are a lot of things that I want to tell you, but I can't.
So I'll just tell them to myself, and imagine what you would say.
I talk to myself a thousand times,
and you have a different reply every time.

Sometimes I'd like to think,
you'd respond the way I imagined it,
Sometimes I think you won't,
I really don't know.

I look into your eyes, and my heart screams a thousand words,
But I smile, and try to show a face of calm.
No one sees the struggle inside,
And brick by brick, the walls just get thicker.

Maybe one day I'll share,
But not today.
It just wouldn't be right.
Not with you, not with me.

thin line

He leaned in, yet her face tilted ever so slightly so that their lips wouldn't lock. She didn't dare. Not when they wouldn't be able to see each other again. She couldn't bear to let her heart free to love a dead end. He held her hand, and proceeded to kiss her fingers. He could still smell the belacan in her fingers, probably from the hours spent grinding that prawn paste in the kitchen with her mom. He loved that smell.

He turned to the other side to sleep, not letting her see the single tear rolling from his eyes. She put her arm around his waist, and he gripped it tightly, knowing that this would be the last.

---

The agreement in 1909 had taken effect, and they were never to see each other again. But he was desperate. He left his shirt from that night unwashed, because it still had the scent of vanilla that she always had in her hair.

"Into the jungles I will go," he thought to himself. "I will cross the border, in the deep bamboo jungles where the patrol guards will not see me."

Off he went, on a journey that would take two months. He lived off the wild tapioca in the jungle, and water from the streams.

And when he finally arrived, he saw her, laying motionless on the ground, cup still in her hand.

What are we, but mere silhouettes of our past?
Beings, altered by the course of time,
Until we are but a new being.

For cells die and cells divide,
cells new again and again,
Can we truly say that we are the same person of yore?

New likes, new dislikes,
Taste and senses numbed by age,
What we once knew, foreign,
and what we once thought was, isn't.

How then can we love?
The person I loved yesterday, today isn't.
The person I am yesterday, today isn't.

Who are we? What are we?

Are we not mere doppelgangers of ourselves,
Hoping to be but never really.
Hoping to stay but moving constantly.

I yearn for the days of old,
the times familiar,
but merely hold on to a stopped watch.

He still mumbles

As the evening sun sets, I watch the shadow of the old tree stretch out. Reminds me of how my thoughts of you never end. Turns out, I never got used to you not being by my side anymore. As I walk back to the city, most of the shops are closed, and all that’s left are the neon lights of pubs flashing in the distance. In the tiny street where I stand, it rains all night. 

He mumbles

It’s been raining every day now since you left. Maybe it’s the rainy season, maybe it isn’t. I want to let go, but I can’t. The rain keeps falling. I try to pretend the past isn’t important, but I can't. It was only after we said goodbye that I realized we can’t see each other again, and I can’t just lose your smile like this. I try to withhold the pain and the tears, and I struggle. You said you’d be with me till we’re old and that we’d go there to find eternity. But for now, even a hug, no, just spending a second with you will do. 

Your smile, your virtues, they constantly dance around in my mind. My hand still holds memories of the warmth I felt while holding your hand. My heart is in pieces now, and I can’t make it beat like it used to. I’m imprisoned by the past and have no strength to run away.

It was only after we said goodbye . . . that I realized . . .we can’t see each other again.

Oh, what I would give to turn back time,
To right the wrongs, to clear the crime,
Now all that's left is a mountain to climb,
And I,
I am too weak to overcome.

My legs burn, and my fingers bleed,
My lungs are giving out, even at this speed,
It would be much easier for me to cede,
I cannot go on,
The pain is too much to bear.

I cannot run forward, yet I cannot run back,
Sixteen days ago was my last snack,
I question if my life is on the wrong track,
Without you,
I no longer know black from white, or day from night.

I try to hide in the crowd, hoping no one would notice. I look at the window pane, and all I see is the past beyond the fog. The past hurts, but I keep it all inside. The rain continues to pour as the crowd disperses, and I’m left all alone in the room filled with nothing but empty memories that linger.

This loneliness that I feel without your hand in mine, is like a game of chess I play with myself. Life strangles time, and I never have a moment to sit down and write to you. When I look up, you are already gone. This moment hurts, and I'm trying my best to go back to the way things used to be before.

I try to write down the feelings that I never had a chance to express. I know that there are things you dreamt of when you were young, and you saw them crushed in the time you were with me. That was my mistake. It wasn’t until afterwards that I finally understood, when I flipped through the letters that you wrote. I finally saw the fatigue and many tears you cried because of me.

And it hurts me that I hurt you so much. I am not worthy of your presence.

miss-guidance

You lock the bear up in an unnatural habitat. Every day, you antagonize the bear. You mock the bear, you poke the bear, you beat and torture the bear. Will the bear not fight back? Must it only sit and suffer? Why then do you blame the bear for retaliating? Why then do you punish the bear for retaliating and put the bear down? Did you not start the whole thing? Did you not take the bear out from its home? Did you not provoke the bear? I hope the time comes when you realize, it is you, not the bear that is at fault. You, my friend, are guilty.