It was the night of their first anniversary.
A chilly night with an abundance of stars
graciously lighting up the sky above them.
He bought her favorite shade of baby pink and cream roses.
She got him a new pen to celebrate his promotion at work.
It seemed like the perfect night.
Just that he did not seem to notice her.
Her. The girl he fell in love with at the coffeehouse.
Her frail hands begging for some warmth,
deep cuts on her wrist that has smoothened out over the past week.
It was getting colder,
their hair ruffled in contact with the wind.
Her eyelids grew heavier by the second,
salty tears welled up at the corners of her eyes
all ready to go.
"Will you catch me when I fall?"
She whispered tenderly into his ears
as they sat inches away from each other at the lake house.
He paused and started fidgeting,
eyes squinting in confusion and
finally let out a voice which was scrambling for a reply.
And in his hesitation,
she felt his answer.
- Audrey L.
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L.
Your loosely tousled hair matches your
almond shaped eyes
soft lips
pale face
empowering frame
and big comforting hands.
I would tell them all about
the sound your hands orchestrate when you rub them together.
The scent of the cotton fabric that caresses your body,
how your eyelashes flutter at the passing aroma of food and
most importantly..
The way you make me feel,
like a child standing in a majestic candy shop.
I would describe that
dancing sparkle
in your eyes,
how your words spring by and
hit the glass ever so gently.
Pitter patter. Pitter patter.
How your words make me feel safe,
like staying indoors
on a cold rainy day.
Raindrops splashing and
beating against the window.
Racing and colliding into each other,
blurring out the world and leaving the both of us.
I feel reckless.
I feel small.
Never felt like this before.
- Audrey L.
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Dear Future You
This is a start of something new.
This is the genesis of our love, a mirage of secrets waiting to be whispered through the night.
Odd as it sounds, this will be the only constant we will ever see.
This is the start of a long letter. Truth is…
I have written the world to you and you don't even know.
You don't even realize that at this very moment, you are here.
Staring at my fleeting hands scribbling these heavy thoughts and my ever awkward stance.
This is the start of a connection so great, so surreal that we cannot fathom or grasp.
We have crossed paths in a playful series of events.
We have crossed paths in the hallway, in the library reaching out for the same book.
What you don't know is that I have a sea of words buried inside of me, waiting to be dispensed into your hands.
Dispensed into your heart.
Give me the gift of words, something no one can replicate.
Hold me when pools of tears form on my notebook, just like how I would hold you when tears well in your eyes.
Pull me away from my writings if I work through the night and refuse to return to bed.
Ask me questions, come with me as we challenge everything that the world throws our way.
Take pleasure in knowing that I am yours.
All the pretty, messed up parts.
The confusion, anxiety and introversion.
The cheeky laughter, my demand for your embrace.
My obsession with boiling cantonese soups, the songs I play before bedtime.
These are yours, and yours to keep.
I hope you fall in love, everyday with the everyday.
I hope you muster the courage to laugh as much as you do now.
I wish to see you writing much more.
Never lose that spark that you have in your eyes.
Write the world for the people around you.
Write for me.
Write for us.
- Audrey L.
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You
You are the very same person
The one who will not dare to cry in public
One who once searched for love and
Kinship in people
You realized at a young age
That faith can make
Or break a person
That hymns cannot save hearts from destructing
That pews are meant for the weak
And hope came in a bag of offerings
That people should stop trying to construct homes in hearts
Nor attempt to seek shelter in embraces
You feel how comforters do not necessarily render comfort
That warmth on a cold lonely night could come in a stick
Across the street at that coffee joint
That broken window that no one wants to fix due to soaring numbers and empty tables
The barista manages a smile and conversation despite it all
You wish that he would tell the truth when asked "How are you?"
How are you, really.
You see torn promises and slit wrists
You sense heartache
Behind these bright cheery smiles
You sneak a shot behind your glass of pretentious non-fat latte
You stop and eavesdrop on the chatter
You write about them
Bits and pieces that you string together in hope of solving this mental labyrinth
You understand
That thunderstorms are not scary, people are
That the personalities portrayed are facades
That sometimes
People forget that other people are human
You are the very same person
The one who will not dare to cry in public
One who once searched for love and
Kinship in people
You realized at a young age
That faith can make
Or break a person
That hymns cannot save hearts from destructing
That pews are meant for the weak
And hope came in a bag of offerings
That people should stop trying to construct homes in hearts
Nor attempt to seek shelter in embraces
You feel how comforters do not necessarily render comfort
That warmth on a cold lonely night could come in a stick
That love is merely a word
Holding hands feel foreign because no one does it anymore
You are a queer child
Who prefers the gift of words
Hugs over constructed apologies
You notice things
Across the street at that coffee joint
That broken window that no one wants to fix due to soaring numbers and empty tables
The barista manages a smile and conversation despite it all
You wish that he would tell the truth when asked "How are you?"
How are you, really.
You see torn promises and slit wrists
You sense heartache
Behind these bright cheery smiles
You sneak a shot behind your glass of pretentious non-fat latte
You stop and eavesdrop on the chatter
You write about them
Bits and pieces that you string together in hope of solving this mental labyrinth
You understand
That thunderstorms are not scary, people are
That the personalities portrayed are facades
That sometimes
People forget that other people are human
- Audrey L.
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Instagram
3x3 spaces of memories in the making.
Meeting someone new.
A casual brunch date.
Love.
You take innocent pictures of your hand enveloped into another,
not realizing that these hands used to belong to me.
Used to.
Such strong words.
Black typography on plain white backgrounds.
Simple Garamond that pierce mercilessly like daggers on a dartboard.
Who are we kidding when we say that "it is merely a quote."
These words are screams we muffle in the efforts of tranquilizing our feelings.
Screams in these plain 3x3 canvas.
Days tumbling into years,
feelings snowballing into one massive yearning.
Tears subconsciously welling up whenever someone mentions a certain someone's name.
I return to those 3x3 spaces
peering into your life like a curious stranger.
Watching you surpass those milestones as you move on,
without me.
- Audrey L.
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Teach me
how to love you with the innocence of a child,
bound by selfish intentions and carefree inhibitions.
Teach me how to love with a fire that no man can extinguish.
Children are fearless creatures, and are ever so honest with their demands.
I wish to be like them, without all these careful calculations, considerations
and deliberate tactfulness in speech.
Love does not need to be this strategic and rigid.
We could bend the rules and go against the grain,
maybe we could run away for awhile.
Tell me
all about your scars,
the visible and the ones you keep well-hidden from the prying eyes.
I want to see them all, and will listen attentively if you wish to reminisce about them.
Know in the depths of your heart,
that these are the things that make the person who you are today.
I will touch these wounds, planting gentle kisses along these trails of your past.
Just like these scars,
I want to remembered in a bittersweet fashion.
We could sit in the car for hours conversing and debating about our differing preferences.
Or simply the silliest of things like ice cream flavors in that little cafe down the street.
Tell me that you feel the same way about our technology addicted generation.
The same generation that runs away at the sight of love,
simply because escapism is too easy an option to take
when things start
falling apart.
Show me that love does not need to be cruel,
that holding hands need not feel like a foreign affair.
We could bring some cushions out on your balcony
and count the scarcely scattered stars underneath the sky
(brightly lit by skyscrapers and dense concrete jungles).
We will fall asleep huddled against each other to fight the cold,
knowing that we want nothing more
- this is it.
Our thoughts will be harmonized without us trying,
simply because we have spent too many hours trying to figure each other out.
Too many.
I would have written you a letter
and a sea of ink would not be enough.
Teach me how to take the plunge
without bruising my own heart
and losing every ounce of strength I have kept deep within me.
- Audrey L.
Cold
when silence claps repetitively
- Audrey L.
- Audrey L.
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Cold
I wish I could find right words to explain what this kind of cold is like.
No one seems to understand it when I try to regurgitate this feeling.
It is the type of chill that creeps up on you when you least expect it to.
It arrests your senses and leaves you hyperventilating.
The chill has somehow snuck beneath your delicate skin and is getting increasingly colder inside you.
It engulfs your frame in every imaginable way,
and sends that indescribable chill shooting down your spine when you breathe.
I wish I could put it down in words, to explain what this cold really is.
It isn’t an externally inflicted sort of cold.
It is the type of cold that gets into your bones,
the one that chatters your soul and gets your adrenaline rushing.
It seeps into your blood
and it feels like your heart itself is beating out the cold in hard bursts through your entire body,
wrecking your ribs and chilling every inch of you.
And you suddenly remember that you have a body because you can’t ignore it anymore.
Your thoughts become magnified,
clearer than it has ever been.
Clearer than it will ever be.
Clearer than it will ever be.
You feel like an ice cube.
You feel like you’re naked and have fallen through thin ice on a lake
and are drowning in the ice water underneath.
You can’t breathe.
Most importantly, the cold changes perspective in life.
Somehow, it makes you see and value warmth differently from everyone who crosses your path.
It makes you grow by the tenfold.
- Audrey L. (Paraphrased from Marya Hornbacher, Wasted)
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Say Something
when silence claps repetitively
imitating thunder in a raging storm
words slide down to the tip of my tongue
and swallowed whole upon release
when the things we try to express slip away
like shadows chasing light at sunset
the hands of a clock glide relentlessly
swift and unforgiving
say something
to sweep up the disappointments you created
when hugs turn into constricted waves and
conversations grow stale and superficial
say something
when my usual persona is shackled
tight chest curled up in a frenzy
nervous hands dancing around in nothingness
shifting feet inching closer to yours
then drawing away in consciousness
say something
anything
- Audrey L.
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Who Am I
I am a student of the world, a ever-curious character lurking in the corner of the store.
I have a mind that would disturb your thoughts like ripples upon still water.
I am the stranger reading on the bus, the one who missed her stop just to complete that paragraph of text.
I have nothing but a frail body, bursting with a library of stories waiting to be read.
These bones hide wonders of hope, faith and immense courage beyond your imagination.
I am a commodity of popular culture and advertising.
My morals and ethics can be sold at a price, just like everybody else.
I am only human, one that has experienced the highs and lows of what life has to offer.
I am everything but fragile. And no, I am not emotionally unstable. I am well aware of the environment around me.
More specifically, the people around me. Always watching. Always listening for signs that reflect difference.
I like difference, I like rebellion against the grain.
I enjoy speaking to people who have once crashed, burned and managed to get back on their feet.
The process of knowing a person in darkness intrigues me. It is a paradox that I struggle with.
I read somewhere that we subconsciously fear the light.
We fear to shine, so badly that we doubt our ability to. It is not darkness that scares people, it is the light.
I am inadequate in many areas. I cannot speak my own dialect, I have been underweight all my life.
I possess many bad habits. I fall in love with bad people. And I continue loving them long after. After years of watching and listening, I learnt to understand why people are the way they are. Why they do what they do to get what they want. I have come to terms with how people forget that other people are human. This is the fabric of reality.
I am terrible at directions and lose my way a little too often even in the city I grew up in.
As compared to some of you, I am not well traveled but I hope to be. I want to see the world.
I want to speak to strangers on a train, I want to hear their stories.
Inadequacy eats you inside, slowly, mercilessly.
It kills you the moment you start feeling like you are not good enough, or will never be.
Do not be afraid of feeling inadequate. Embrace it and never let them tell you that you are not good enough for anyone.
- Audrey L.
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Her
She is the girl with hollow, almost vacant eyes.
Without turning around, she whispers into the darkness with a voice so painfully delicate. "I am just tired." You will notice the way she says goodbye, with a little tinge of pain in her eyes as if it might be the last time you see her. The spaces between her fingers grasp yours tight, as if dependent on this vacuum of space to keep her warm even just for a little while.
"I am just tired."
It will not take much to realize that her fatigue is a flimsy facade to mask the tenderness within her. She would never tell you that she has not stepped out of her room in weeks. She would mask it with pretentious activities to maintain her sanity. She would stay hidden from the world and bury herself in work. She would create magical things within this confined vacuum of space. The problem about her is that she allows herself to succumb to the world. As she prays for God to take her, she prays for superhuman strength to be constructed at the same time. She is a fighter in her own right, an unbeatable warrior of her own heart. You will fall in love with her ability to see things in strikingly different perspectives. You will be drawn towards her courage.
Take pride in the fact that she calls you often.
As queer as it sounds, she enjoys solitude too much to even bear the thought of sharing it with anyone else. To her, nothing is more important in the world than being absolutely comfortable with yourself in conscious confinement. She strongly believes in the indulgence of seclusion from the world, more specifically, people. You will speak on the phone. Sometimes in the middle of the night, those unearthly hours when lights are dimmed and shouts turn to whispers. You will both be intoxicated from a long day at work and completely drained by the world. Your voices will waltz in harmony even thousands of miles away, and the melody of exchanged words will be a magical antidote for your fatigue.
If you are looking for an arm trophy and nothing more, look somewhere else. She refuses to be your usual pretty face. She will battle against the walls of conformity and be wildly defiant towards the idea of fitting in on superficial terms. She detests the ridiculously fabricated status quo that tells people what they can or cannot do. She celebrates individualism and will encourage you to do so. She will make you a better person, in every aspect of your life. It will seep in slowly, like a leaking water pipe hidden within the walls that you have constructed around you.
Be comforted in the fact that she will be your home when your adventures run dry and stagnant.
You will find out that she is mad and magic at the same time. She is a self-proclaimed pessimistic optimist who cannot mask her sadness even if she wanted to. She will never bring herself to plaster a smile and laugh for the sake of it. She will not be bubbly and submissive to please you and your sorry standards. She cannot be.
Never, ever attempt to patronize her. Restraint your words as you struggle to sugarcoat them. Break her heart as you turn to leave. Stab her with the blades of your empty promises and she will write her sorrow away.
She will keep these words safely huddled in folders, at the back of her bookshelf until she is ready to face them again. Her disappointment in you will cease to exist over time. She has been through worse events, and knows that pain is required for growth. She will be okay, eventually.
We all do.