6:53 AM

when i first met you
i saw sadness in your eyes
in the thin tuffs of hair behind your ears
in your hands of protruding bones
so i made up stories
about fixing you
that would never come true

in between our awkward conversations
i made a world where
he and she shared the stars of the night sky
they shared their daydreams
and whispered love
you would have never cared anyway

when i was leaving
i wrote that he left first
but it didn't matter anyway
there was nothing between us but fiction
then i met him
and saw your sadness
in the tuffs of his hair behind his ears
in his hands of protruding bones
and it is not fair

you are not him.
why do i think about you
when there is nothing to remember
but the world that i created?

the reality is, you do not exist.

5:34 PM

of course you would remember the first time you met eyes.

at that time he was no one. he was another person to fill the pores of your skin. then he talked to you with those eyes.

of course you remembered that time he said hi to you at that corridor. it was no big deal; just a hi. but not to you, who felt invisible under the sheets in your bed.

of course you would avoid the road where you two met eyes and waved at each other. of course you felt special. he made you feel like you exist. like he saw you.

he saw nothing.

of course you would be upset to know that he was not who you thought him to be.

of course you would be heavy-hearted to smile at his jokes, or the stories of him your friends tell you.

of course you would be hurt.

of course you would cry.

there is no wrong in being weak; in being human.

it's okay, it's okay.

you can live without him in your life. you don't need him. you don't need anyone to fill your life with greatness; you are the epitome of potential. you were made for lazy nights and ocean waves. and it's okay to want to have someone, but know that that won't destroy you.

it's okay, really. it's fine, you are going to be fine. of course you are.

11:03 PM

Isn’t it beautiful?

When we read each other’s hearts and minds, but on the outside we pretend nothing’s going on.

It’s somewhat a secret; a silent joke. We look at each other and we know, but we don’t say a word. What’s left written in black and white, we don’t mix with our colourful world. It’s all too complicated to handle in real life anyway.

We know. But we keep silent. It’s our tiny little secret.

-

the other day it was just me and him in the kitchen waiting for a pizza to cook and I asked him "If you could go overseas, where would you go?" and he said he wanted to go to U.S., specifically, he mentioned New York. "Tau New York tak?" and I nodded, smiling. "Best dowh, kalau pergi New York." before I could ask him what he would do there, a customer came in. and continuously, it was always that; work, people, time. things that stop two people from just talking, dreaming.

 -

so i was out with an old friend that i haven’t met in five years and i told her “you wanna know something weird? i love those knives that have that rigged part on the back side” and she was like “yea we saw that in frozen when they cut the ice” and i’m like “yea maybe it has like a better cutting effect like the back-pull will cut the ice more evenly?” and she was like “this is very weird elyna, having preferences to knives” and i just realized that all these while my mother told me that i was weird? it wasn’t our generation gap. it was just me.

- 

i wanted to look at the back of his head and his face.. his nose, his eyes, how his eyebrows were slanted and his cheekbones protruding and his square jaw and the lines of his neck and back… but he turned so i had to look away. now all i can remember is the shade of brown of his shoes when he stood next to me.

-

As I reached for the familiar glass bottle filled with dark liquid from the door of my fridge, I started to wonder if all cough syrup addicts start like this. First, it was just to get some sleep. Then, they start getting dependent on it. Soon, they can't pass a day without a bottle full. Maybe this is how I'll start intoxicating my body with medicine I don't need and get into hospitals for over dosage.

But I knew it wasn't gonna happen. Because before I took a spoon of the thick dark liquid (not the pink syrup like I read and had taken when I was younger before we knew it was addictive) I whispered "Bismillah".

Dammit fiction seems so much more interesting than real life. How did my brother do it? It feels like i've been stamped and delivered to the good girls' boarding school for life.

-

I didn't realize what I was really feeling about certain things until I talked about it with her. "I never really understood when those people say they have to put on a mask when they go out," I told her. "I didn't feel like putting on a mask so that everyone else likes you was necessary. But later I find out that putting on a mask doesn't just mean you're pretending to be someone you're not, it's to--"

"--hide what you actually feel," we said simultaneously. Smiling at something like this felt sad. It felt like it was something we can't change, therefore we both agree against frowning about it and smile instead.

11:18 PM

I fell in love with the full moon
glowing against the indigo sky
where the scent of smoke
flusters in the air
like small deaths kissing your cheeks
salt stained fingertips 

and youthful laughter
the smell of dewy grass
staining your shirt
your jeans
the sole of your shoes
your lungs

dear full moon
may we meet again
in this world of mine
where you
don't
belong.