456: Wander (SOC)

456: Wander (SOC)

A human. Many humans. Earphones in. Tonight I feel like an album made for slow dancing, and honestly, I don’t normally listen to this album unless I’m alone or feeling the need for alone time. I sit in this once brimming mall area, watching the deciduous leaves of thin branches sway with the persuasion of the evening zephyr. I watch the rotating white mannequins, donned in the latest trends, and in watching them, I think of my not so recent ex, whom I broke up with some odd eight or so months ago. His habitual expenditures, expensively cheap tastes and insatiable impulsiveness when it came to bargains or sales. He probably still checks OzBargains daily like clockwork. I think of him, and I miss him, all his flaws, our memories together, the good and the bad. Now it feels good to not have to answer to anybody, to spend more time with friends old and new, to think for myself only. Yet there is still a lingering feeling of emptiness, like I want more of something that has only been present in my life for less than a year.

Being in love. Really in love, having fallen so deeply in love that it becomes a trap, your trap. He is the first thing on your mind when you wake up, and the last thing before you go to sleep. You think of him even more, having ran into him unknowingly a few days ago. His face, all the same. He doesn’t seem to have grown in height. His eyes looking at anything but not you, but cleverly focused away, as if he had not seen you before you saw him. You think of the boy who acknowledged you through a simple nod that late November, early December – for the life of you, you cannot remember; perhaps you have blocked the memory – before he returned your diaries, perhaps never opened to be read. After all, the day you gave them to him, the day you gave him a little part of the younger you, he concealed them behind an unused shelf. Or so the story goes in your mind. His face, his eyes, his smile. He really was the whole deal and it was your fault that it ended. Or perhaps neither party was at fault, but you still feel responsible. An aftermath, the lingering memory cells that remind you of once overthinking and manipulating so many scenarios in your head that it overwhelmed you. Your grasp on the relationship, the memories start to fade the more you try to hold on them, and the songs change. Now you remember yourself in the throes of depression, clinging onto a crumbling illusion in which you had unsuccessfully, yet emotionally, invested. The slow dances in the dead of night in a low lit kitchen with a lover, they come back to simultaneously kiss and bite you, a painful memory of past nostalgia and unbridled naivety, something you have since desperately tried to rein in as the summer starts to ebb and stagnate. You forget about all the past for maybe a few minutes and your eyes start to wander the streets. How beautiful the lights are, the nightlife…how could you ever turn your back on a city that made you? The corporate offices with their brightly lit cubicles, a world you may never find yourself in. You cast a few looks behind your shoulder, taking careful note of the abandoned bike on the footpath. Its twisted red frame, and you turn your head over some angles to better adjust the image before your eyes. Maybe if one squinted, its outline would represent that of an injured individual curled up in a foetal position, frozen in time. The lost memories and livelihood of this outline shakes you, and you stop looking back towards it. You turn a corner and think to yourself, I have not seen a single drunk person on the streets tonight, yet it is a Friday night. Perhaps you are on the quieter side of the city. You pass a bar playing live jazz or country – the notes confuse and bemuse you – and you observe middle aged men and women clustered together, nursing drinks you most likely have not yet had the privilege of tasting. It is time to refrain from engaging in heavy drinking, staying sober, being the best version of yourself without the haze of alcoholism to guide your loosened tongue and limbs. Today you have discovered the terrifying beauty that is hot coffee, enabling you to run on the odd few hours of sleep for the whole day. It bothers you that you could spend up to thirty dollars a week on coffee, so you make a mental note to convince your dad that now you are an adult and can take on responsibilities, it is only fair that he teach you how to operate a coffee machine. The sea of fatigue and exhaustion seems to set in as you sit on the bus, recording your memories, your feelings. You are so thankful for the privilege of sight, sound, taste, movement, smell.

How empowering it is to be young, but how wasteful it is to enjoy it without the preservation of the moment.

 

~Serendipitous

381: Love in Damnation

381: Love in Damnation

Two lovers met in the most ordinary of situations. Strangers one day, friends the next, then lovers in the months to come.

They sit in a cheap car out by a desolate picnic area in the middle of the night, car lights on, passing back and forth a bag of her favourite chips because both of them refuse to smoke weed or do any illicit drugs. Because he’d leave her if she tried, and she’d get addicted if he tried. She’d follow him to the ends of the earth. Better in potato chips than drugs, he said. Rock Deli honey soy chicken. He doesn’t mind that flavour. Whatever she loves, it will become his love, unless he physically cannot come to love it. Her parents don’t know she’s left the house. He’s probably in trouble for lying, but he doesn’t think about that now because he just wants to be with his high school sweetheart.

Eventually the bag of chips is depleted and she is left only with the sticky preservatives coating her left index and thumb. He watches her in amusement as she sucks her fingers clean, the lingering taste of honey chicken resting on the carpet of his tongue. She turns to him, that greedy glint in her eye. She brought a second bag of chips, but that’s not what she’s interested in. She’s interested in tasting more of that godlike junk on his lips. With both of her hands she pulls his head closer to hers and she lowers her lips. They kiss but for a brief few seconds. He pulls away first. He registers the hurt look that graces her countenance before she pulls away herself and sits on the far right side, casting her eyes out of false interest for the cloudy sky above them. He sighs heavily and grasps one of her wrists in his fierce grip, but she doesn’t respond. He realises too slowly that she was expecting to make out with him. Even though they’re adults now, she’s still a silly little girl inside. He calls her name. She doesn’t respond. He looks for her eyes in the reflection of the window, but he sees nothing. He returns his hand to his lap and clenches his fists. He loves her, but she always wants so much more than what he can give her. They’ve been going over this for years. He’s still not comfortable with her because there’s something about her that’s off. Why does she always like kissing so much? Are other girls like this? He covers the thought quickly. She wouldn’t like it if any of his thoughts were about “other girls”, not that she would know. Although she was a possessive bitch, and she could read him like an encyclopedia. If she knew where to look for one, that is. He turned to look at her, but she was gone. Disappeared from the interior of the car. The car door was open. She’d wandered out into the darkness.

He cursed.

Then his blood began to boil. Always, always pulling silly things like this, that silly little girl, why didn’t he just go after a real woman instead? Some woman who didn’t have mental illnesses, a drama-worthy family, a fat girl who had difficulty losing weight…some woman who didn’t need to be kissed, who could be kissed out of surprise and enjoy it…he didn’t even leave the car. He simply reached over to close the door before he turned on the ignition and backed out of the driveway before deciding to head home. It wasn’t his car. He’d borrowed it from a friend. He was mad. He wanted to be in his own bed again. He wanted to leave that girl. That one time he told her he questioned their relationship while they were mad at each other tore at her heart. He didn’t know. He just wanted to tell her the truth. But she was shook and she said they were supposed to be together forever. Or something like that, he couldn’t remember. Those endless apologies, they just became meaningless over time. Driving away, he felt free. Like he was unfurling new wings that he could fly with. Wings that had been bound by leather string, and then released like a dove. He wasn’t sure if she could find her way back, it was so dark tonight, but now that he left her, he could pursue another. Who to pursue? A girl with long, sable hair, just like hers…a dazzling smile, endless legs, endless intelligence, endless conversation…her. What the…it struck him. There was no one else but her. He’d met many girls with her in university, none of them shaping up to be half of the expressive, wild girl he’d fallen in love with years ago. He looked for a good opportunity to make a U-turn and drove back at a faster speed, wondering if she was waiting for him. When he turned the ignition off and dashed out of the car, he saw a silhouette, a very dark shadow, sitting at one of the benches. He rushed to it, apologising, crying, his heart shaken, tossed, stomped upon, but still intact. If only the shadow had not dissipated once he had tried to wrap his arms around it…

He drove home, without his girl. The next morning, he called endlessly, sent some several desperate texts, checked with mutual friends. She had been last active on Facebook eight hours ago, maybe around the time he left her. He went to file a missing person’s report. If she was dead, then a body had never been found. Did he unwittingly fulfil one of her empty wishes to disappear?

All he knew was that he deeply regretted driving away from her that night. She could’ve run away, been abducted, killed, anything…and it was preventable. Could he ever love another again, he wasn’t sure. He felt cursed. Even though it was a combination of both of their actions that had led to this outcome. He loved her, he loved her, and he only knew when she was gone for good.

 

~ Serendipitous

huh.

380: For Life

380: For Life 

Personally, I prefer the Chinese version more. Maybe it’s because I can actually understand some of the words, haha. I love the piano. Man I should totally write a short story around this.

If Trending/Trended was alive, this would go under January 2017.

Honey, I sent you the lyrics to this one a while ago. You should serenade me with this song. Hehe ❤

 

~ Serendipitous

379: Quiet

379: Quiet

The sound of forgotten dreams, lost hopes, dormant loves, endless regret.

 

~ Serendipitous

377: Endless Futures

377: Endless Futures

Whoops, I haven’t posted in a while.

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She stands on the balcony with her small hands resting on the cool railing, wearing a sheer nightgown, basking in the serenity of the dark before the dawn. He would not have liked her wearing his gift outside, but surely no one could see her now. She gazes into the horizon, waiting for the sun to rise and illuminate the midnight purple sky.

How easy it is for her to say that they both worked hard to get where they were now. Their own apartment together, studying in their dream degree together, sleeping in the same bed together. How easy it was for her then to dream of such a thing. Even though they had been together for a while, longer than most couples had been when they graduated high school, it was still all too surreal for her. She was, is, will be living a dream that teeters on the fine line between reality and imagination.

She stands there indefinitely. Her hands become immune to the cool touch of the metal beneath her fingers. The sun, pulling itself into the sky and radiating its warmth, sending rays of light from heaven itself, emboldening the shape of the billowing clouds in the far off distance. If she wasn’t so careful (and she wasn’t), she would go so far as to say that this would be what she’d see when she was as close as she could be to her lover, best friend, future husband, partner for life. To see the sunrise was, is, could have been, will be, her happiness. With his arms wrapped around her waist of course. But he hadn’t woken up yet, at least in this fantasy set up. Maybe in a while he’ll wake up, wander half-asleep to the balcony with the screen door that has been carefully opened so as to not have woken him up hours earlier, and he’ll see her standing there, still as a post, watching the sky unload its daily story. He’ll see she’s wearing that nightgown, and he’ll go to scold her, but she’ll turn around and smile, and she’ll say,

“Good morning honey. Did you have a good sleep?”

He’ll think about what she said, with an arm resting on the frame of the screen door. He loves the sound of her voice, even if she doesn’t herself. The perfect number eight will roll around in his mind, and then he’ll think of her rolling around on their bed. No. Nah. He wouldn’t do that. He’ll just think about how he’s perpetually tired. He hasn’t gotten the perfect number of hours of sleep since tenth grade. Or maybe even ninth, depending on what version of stories he’s told his girl. She probably doesn’t remember, on account of her short term memory loss. But, since it’s a weekend…

“Yes, bub. What are you doing there? Why are you wearing that?”

She’ll come away from the balcony. The sky lost her attention as soon as he came out to the balcony. She’ll smile at him, one of those secret, furtive smiles she reserves for him, that twinkle in her right eye when she smirks crookedly. His breath will catch in this throat, only momentarily – she’s done this more times than he can count, but still – and then she’ll wrap her arms around his neck and wait for him to do the same around her waist. She’ll have brushed her teeth long before he woke up, but she’ll kiss him, morning breath or not, all the same. She will like waking him up even more with a morning kiss, then breakfast, then more kisses. And normally they’ll have rushed off to the clinic, but it’s a weekend, so she’ll probably take him back to bed so that they can discuss their future, their past, their present, and everything in between.

 

~ Serendipitous

Huh. I like writing in future tense. I wonder if anyone else does that. Probably. I didn’t invent future tense so yes, probably. Rambling.

I love you, honey. Here’s the post.

2.42 am