We spoke like time had folded in on itself. Like the last twenty years had never happened. 

The words weren’t loud, but they knew where to land. Soft blows wrapped in laughter, memories draped in jokes.

It is funny how we find mirrors in each other... and just like you said, how life pulls people in entirely different paths yet somehow brings familiar souls back into orbit. Two separated lines, intersecting, once again.

We didn’t talk about fate, but we circled around it. Danced with it in passing. 인연 (In-Yeon), that old idea that some connections don’t start here. That maybe they just continue.

(a question, not an answer)

---

i still remember my mother's set of rules,

the quiet rituals i had to follow

before i could run free with my friends when i was five.

i remember the specific location of the tree we used to hang,

the one with the crooked trunk,

and how we spent our days run and roam,

and how my Snoopy jean jacket would get soaked from the puddle

in front of the place i once called home.

i still look back on the days I skipped choir rehearsal

just because my friend asked me to.

i remember wandering alone as an eight years old,

dreaming of a little library of my own,

where my friends could come and stay awhile.

i still think about the first gift a boy gave me,

a grey and blue necklace.

given to me when i was eleven.

i didn’t know what love was back then.

and i still don’t know what it means even now.

i am still reliving the moments of being seventeen:

winning my second first-aid competition,

blowing out candles from my beloved friends,

visiting my mother in the sterile halls that smelled like fear and antiseptics

the very day i turn seventeen.

i still recall, everyone who passed through my life.

the flowers they brought

and how it turned brown with time,

our little traditions,

and how specific their smiles were,

...and how i lost them too

knowing it feels so wrong to reach or write,

but just as wrong to not hold tight....

to all the lovers and friends,

in the name of "all for the better,” so they say

...but that does not take the ache away.

but are these heavy feelings,

this thick nostalgia,

really for the better?

does life truly require this?

this aching recollection of scents, of times and places,

of feelings pressed into memory

like handwriting faded on a letter?

does it get easier with time?

can i keep living, knowing that someday,

all the people and moments

i now hold dear

I stumbled upon this image, in a midnight, when my heart felt as heavy as the earth itself, and I couldn’t stop crying.

I reminisce all things that has passed in my life, all my life choices. All the bad and good ones. All the heavy decisions that brought me here. All the stupid ones. All the betrayals I made.

Someone close to me once said that it feels as though every decision I make is for survival. I always put aside how I actually feel, trading them for the cost of simply enduring.

This picture brings me back to what life could have been...

I remember when I was little, I loved to draw. I really loved it, I used packs of drawing books to doodle. From postcards to comics strip. Years later, I saw the before-and-after drawings of a renowned artist, and my heart skipped a beat. Her childhood sketches looked just like mine. All the heavy pencil strokes, the stiff lines, the messy background. It was like glimpsing myself in another life.

I moved a lot in my childhood and never call anything home after. The most important thing was I could eat, study, and rest. All my home after that was like that, there was never once a hanging picture of me or my family. And slowly, I began to forget that once, I really loved to draw.

Maybe in another universe, in another life, I was given chance of living a simpler life. I could have let my sympathetic nervous system rest, uninterrupted. Maybe, I’ll draw, I doodle all the birds I encounter. My stupid childhood portraits hanging here and there. 

Maybe I’ll fall in love, lost in the suffocating beauty of it all. Maybe I can let myself feel, and drown in all those confusing emotions rather than shutting all out. Maybe I’ll let myself get hurt now and then. Letting love drown me instead of seeking refuge in the safe corners of my mind out of fear of abandonment. 

He cared so much about me, in a way that I couldn't even do to myself at that time. I wasn't brave. I was deep down in blue. But he stayed, despite.

Years after years.

The love was our comfort zone, feels like a cradle one tight away from being suffocated. Two of us feel like we never gonna see a sunlight. Burning in the depravity of one. And we were never brave enough to walk away.. until one of us did. And all of us gone.

I was forcing it to be ready, rushing to the finish line too soon. Sealed us away. Being okay with no sunlight, "at least there is us".

Tolerating love. Tolerate you tolerate me. Accepting love as it was served.

And he wasn't ready for one. He wasn't ready for a marathon with chapped feet, necrotic toes.

And part of me glad he wasn't go with it because I never had the bravery to never returning.

It is so hard to describe what kind of love this was. It was the best yet the worst thing for us. It was the comforting notion of love but also the suffocation of one.

Now, I've come to realize that I tend to reject expressions of love, convinced that loving me would only burden others.

It became a habit, to find ways to justifying my leaving and justifying theirs.

and all I can think of is if only I wasn't filled with too much despair. Maybe it would be easier to love me. Maybe I wouldn't be so lonely.

Before this realization, I had made peace with not figuring things out, finding solace in white-painted walls, the solitude I had grown accustomed to.

But I've also come to realize that love always finds me, even in ways I never anticipate. Love continually peeks through the dark forest, slipping through the cracks, illuminating me. No matter how hard I've tried to run and neglect, it always notices me. Love has made itself very clear that it will try to understand me, as long as I let it in.

What an odd thing to hear from someone I just met on the first date,

Well, the thing is, I don’t feel lonely anymore and it is not in the way that it was something that has been improved.

It’s just the feeling of loneliness is no longer the big elephant in the room, it was the white painted brick. it was there as long as I can remember. it was there the first time I moved in.

the way in medical school, I learn the difference between acute and chronic illnesses. how the chronic ones are relatively calmer, it is just embedded to you. Your body is just acclimatizing and learning to just live with it (well until it doesn’t anymore at some cases).

and I’ve lived with it. I don’t perceive it anymore. The feeling has morphed into me and it became a part of me.

I’ve lived alone for years,

sometimes during junior high, a little bit a lot during high school, and fully on my own after that.

I never consider any ceiling as my home after my mom passed. It has just been an obligation or simply a necessity.

Coming home on Eid to my grandma, coming to my apartment after school, and coming to my family’s house on a particular holiday.

It was never the feeling of “I am tired and I am sad” and the melancholic need to go to a sanctuary called home.

It was only a ceiling, bricks, and cement.

It was never a feeling of unconditional love and acceptance. It never felt like open arms filled with curled-up emotions.

Grieving didn’t help either.

They said, “Home is wherever mom is”. But mom is not anywhere.

She was the only person that would love me whole. She would listen to every fuck up thing I did and loved me the same.

Home is supposed to feel like that, right? The privilege of taking acceptance and unconditional love for granted. Not as something you have to work for.

So I begin to accept that being chronically lonely is a part of me and I’m glad I don’t perceive it anymore. I have grown into it. Acclimatizing.

It just became a ghost in the background, the white painted walls, the aromatic candles you let it light all night.

Maybe, just maybe, someday, I will perceive that I am no longer lonely. Maybe I will realize that finally there is no ghost in my room, the walls had turned out to be blue, and the flame has been blown out.

And maybe someday instead of realizing that being lonely is something I have got used to,

Maybe I will feel the acceptance and open arms as something new.

Maybe.

being in your 20s,

you will fall in love, stupidly so

you will think that he is the one, the last hun

you will plan the next day, the next months, the next years rotates around that particular person

so when life has other plans

you will have to rearrange everything

while grieving for the lost things

but that is life,

i wont tell you how to not open your heart

how to not get hurt

because it is bound to happen

you will find yourself get up the next day,

feeling okay,

feeling that you will get through this, like other hard and messy stuff in your life

but you will also find yourself crying in the balcony of your apartment,

trying to get back feeling okay

you will also do stupid and messy stuff

i promise i will understand the premise

because i have been in your shoes (as i write this)

being happy means that you are alive

being sad sends the same letter

i hope you are more lucky than me, so i can be there when you feel this

we will postpone being okay

instead we will wallow and then re-plan everything

i hope you are not alone

when you have to pick yourself up

but if you are, (just like when i write this)

i hope you find ways to get peace with it

of course i haven't found mine yet

but i know i will be better knowing that my mom has felt what i feel, and that is just part of cosmic mystery of growing up

i love to read and write about feelings, about arts, about things that are trivial but give such meanings to live.

Tamu mengetuk rumah biru

Biasanya kamu kutuk, "tolong jangan lama-lama. Aku ingin bahagia..."

Namun hari ini kamu berjanji.. ..untuk membiarkannya masuk dan duduk

Di sebelahmu, mengikutimu

Berbicara tentang luka, berbicara tentang sunyi, dan batas yang dibangun di antaranya

Selalu sakit, sulit. Mengorek luka basah dan menari di atasnya.

Tapi seorang asing bersapa, apa yang ditolak untuk dirasa, tidak akan bisa sembuh.

aku pulang ke rumah kaget sekali, ada tv dan sofa baru. aku kira seperti persinggahan lainnya, hanya akan diisi oleh bahan-bahan yang penting saja, asal bisa hidup. asal bersih. asal tidak mati di kemudian hari.

kemudian, kala itu ia berkata, “agar sedikit terasa seperti rumah”

...

setiap sekitaran jam lima kita menunggu makan, bercengkrama di sofa hitam dan di depan tv yang sekadar dinyalakan, tentang seharian aku sekolah dan apa yang ia baca seharian penuh. 

aku tidak tau seperti apa, tapi mungkin rumah seperti itu ya.. hangat.

dan ketika adzan maghrib datang, kita kembali ke urusan kita masing-masing. aku dengan sekolah. dan ia dengan jam istirahatnya. 

terus saja begitu berbulan-bulan. kadang waktu kita lebih, jika malam aku butuh hangatnya. atau ia mau bercerita hal hal baru sambil kadang memelukku. 

aku suka sekali rumah, tv, dan sofa baru.. dan baunya yang kadang melekat. 

namun beberapa bulan kemudian, ia pergi dimakan waktu dan sisa sisa perjuangannya.

hingga,

sofa dan tv sepi. 

the world never runs out of love.

it doesn’t always come from a charming guy with glasses. or roses. or letters. or poems. or validities.

it also doesn’t always come from pearls, and fancy bags. and glitters. and golds.

sometimes it is a guy, with a compassion to built an aquarium that will be placed in your room. and sometimes share the same interest with you. or just being happy of knowing that you are. 

sometimes there are girls. which can sense your sadness, and your deep down emotions. and sit next to you while you mend your flaws. and let you laugh to your own self. in a very good way. 

sometimes there are people. which fate has randomly picked. and you let them in, and shared duren, nights, long-drive, and songs. and sometimes dance. and stories. and some of them are kind enough to let you pet their pets.

and so, here are facts,

you are happier. a lot more than you have been. a lot more than a year ago, or years before. 

and it came from letting people in. 

and giving them chances. 

to hold you tight.

to remind you that the world never runs out of love, 

kamu kadang bingung, bagaimana bisa ia cepat temukan rumah pada abu-abu.

padahal kamu telah menghabiskan waktu membuat mozaik dari orang-orang kerdil. membuatnya milikmu, kesukaanmu. meskipun bukan satu.

tapi dirinya sudah menjajak baru. memamerkannya seperti di pameran. ia memang cantik, seperti porselen baru. mudah memang mencintai yang mudah ditelaah.

kamu merasa ada banyak orang di dalam diri kamu. masing-masing menyalahkan kumpulannya, soal bagaimana kamu tidak mengikuti apa yang sewajarnya. seakan hidup memiliki standar operasional prosedur. 

satu dari bagiannya adalah orang yang tidak pemaaf, bukan pada orang yang membuatmu jatuh cinta atau terluka, melainkan pada kumpulan jiwa sendiri. kerjanya mengingatkan salah. seakan manusia bukanlah orang yang akan belajar, seakan kamu adalah manusia yang harus terlahir tanpa cela. tidak ada ruang untuk salah. semua harus sebaik-baiknya. 

maka hiduplah kamu dengan sesal, sesal tentang jawaban ujian, sesal karena tidak datang, sesal karena tidak cukup berkata maaf dan terimakasih, sesal karena memilih. sesal sesal sesal. 

dan sisanya adalah penyembah, hidup untuk usaha agar kamu masih bangun kuat. trauma akan malam yang penuh ketidakmaafan dan kebencian.

dan lagi, bukan benci dan dendam dengan jiwa manusia lain.

kamu berusaha mendistraksi diri dengan manusia-manusia lain. ada yang suka bercerita, ada yang suka mendengarkan, ada yang suka memberi, ada yang suka tertawa. apa saja akan kamu biarkan masuk karena nampaknya sulit sekali damai dengan diri sendiri.