luckier than life

we’re talking again. although i no longer have feelings for you, i don’t know what i should do. the friendship we once had is still one i remember well—our good conversations, the way you made me laugh, i didn’t forget it all. i don’t try to remember it but it was good while it lasted, and i’m okay with the way we are now. talking to you again just leaves me torned between keeping you for the sake of our friendship and cutting you off for the relationship i used to hope we would someday have and now no longer want.

if you don’t care, just don’t say anything. i don’t need your polite excuse or your fake sympathy. i don’t need your waning attention. i don’t need you to ask me how i’m doing if you can’t even pretend to attentively listen to me. don’t pretend to be my friend. don’t try to be my lover. your insincerity is showing, and i’d hate to see that as your true colours.

finally i’m doing something good. finally it’s me over everyone else. for so long, it was easy to be anyone else in the world, to say yes to everyone else but myself. it was so easy it was subconsciously done. i didn’t even realise just how much i was hiding, how much shame i didn’t want to show. worse, it was loud. the shame was so loud i couldn’t even swallow it whole. and finally i could recognise it in myself. finally i stop trying to swallow it down. finally i’m not scared to choose me.

i find it so ironic that after a year, you contacted me first. it was something so insignificant, just a video from our past. and yet here i was antagonising having to be the first one to reach out between us. and no, we’re not fighting, we never were—but in my head, when i decided to ghost you last year, i knew i was better off than to keep hoping for something i wasn’t even sure i want. i did it for me and i never regretted it even though sometimes i’d wonder if you wish you did more than this, try more than me.

you are the prize. and if no one has ever tell you that, you are the prize. your worth is not dependent on what other people say about you. your worth is what you are from the moment you were born. you were put this earth to be loved. you deserve the very best things in life. you deserve unconditional love. if there’s someone out there who isn’t treating you like the prize that you are, why are you with them? because they’ve done absolutely nothing to show you that they deserve you. if anything, they are telling you just how little worth they see in you right now, they are telling you that you have no good future with them, at least never a future where they are treating you well and giving you everything that you deserve. if you wouldn’t want to give someone else a future like that, why would you want that for yourself?

i told you i wouldn’t care, i said it in my head and i meant it. too many chances i have given you only to be left disappointed in the end. it doesn’t matter if i didn’t tell you what was wrong then, because i don’t need you to change to become the person i’m looking for. no, i need more that that. i don’t need a pretender. i deserve a partner who naturally suits me. love shouldn’t be hard. and if you’d cared a little more, pay a little more attention to me, to what i care about, i wouldn’t have to tell you when something’s wrong. even if you didn’t know, you would’ve asked, you would’ve noticed. and to me, that makes a world of difference.

i could have another life with you. even if it’s different from now, i still believe we can be happy. this feeling i have for you, even holding your hand makes me giddy, seeing your smile makes me happy, and knowing you love me back makes my heart beat faster than ever. i don’t ever want to let go of this feeling, and i don’t want to let go of you. in another life, in another time, in a whole different universe, i think we can still meet each other and be happy together.

as a child, our parents’ hands were our comfort, the reason why we’re holding on. as a child, a hug can say all the words needed to be said and a gentle push to another child standing with their parents was a kind message that it’s okay to seek comfort in someone else, that it’s perfectly fine to depend on others for happiness too. as a child, so many little, yet simple things can bring out a smile. perhaps nowadays these little joys aren’t joys anymore. we grew up and we start looking for bigger, better things. perhaps a hug seems like a chore now. perhaps making friends is no longer for the purpose of seeking comfort. perhaps our parents’ hands is no longer the reason we’re holding on. but please remember that all these little things were once simple joys that bring children like you happiness, that’s not something you can take back.

make a wish, angel. sing it to the stars. dance it to the moon. you are all things beloved, stardust and sea sand. your wish will be fulfilled, your desires will come true. new year is the beginning of your very best life, if it hasn’t started already. nothing and no one can stop you from getting what you want—and everything you want is what you deserve. don’t forget, you are not just another human on earth, you are everything someone could love…

what would you do when you realise i no longer like you? when, instead of my attention being immediately on to you, i’m too busy with other things to care about someone that used to matter—and instead of trying to talk to you, trying to see you, staying up longer just to have your time, i’m actually just doing my own thing, caring about myself, no longer trying, no longer doing absolutely everything just to be by your side.

one day i’m missing you, the next i don’t even care if you’d call or text my phone. even if i don’t want to, i’d often find myself thinking about you, wondering why you didn’t text, why you don’t ever call, wondering if you miss me, wondering if you’d ever man up and say what’s on your mind. these thoughts are incessant at first, fresh after our last meeting—and then it slowly wane as i forget why i was ever hung up on you—i forget why i wanted to call you mine.

the words we couldn’t say— it bleeds into our silence. don’t say another word, if it’s all going to be meaningless in the end…

don’t tell me pretty lies and try to hold me like i’m yours.

you were a puzzle, an endless maze i entangled myself with. i thought i didn’t understand you because you were so unpredictable, that i have to keep figuring you out to truly know you. but the more i tangled with you, the more you slowly let me in. that was when i realised that all along, i was wrong. you weren’t a puzzle at all. i just needed you to be you with me.

i saw you among the crowded street. it was a wonder how i could still spot you among the busy crowd. i tried to call your name but my voice won’t come out. i stood there and watched as the distance between us grew, wishing i could reach out to you.

i’m sorry we haven’t been in touch for years. i’m sorry that i didn’t text you back when you asked me if i wanted to meet up that one time. i guess i am a coward, but it’s not like i don’t want to reconcile when it’s all that i have ever dreamed of since the day we parted. i didn’t mean to give up on us — but somehow, the thought of reconciling is like damaging all the fond memories i ever have of you, and i’d rather live in the past then be disappointed by the present.