I like how we can sit together comfortably in silence. I like how we can really speak without having to say much- you over there, me over here, two bodies with seemingly one mind.
I like how we can stand together, miles apart yet seemingly right next to each other. I like how we can put a smile on each other’s faces: my ditzy grin complements your beautiful smile. I like how well we know each other, how we fit so well together, without trying too much.
I like how I can always smile whenever I’m with you.
I like you.
They say puppy love is always the best. The way you look at your new partner, the way they look at you. There’s a surrealistic tension, the ever present question of Is this really happening? It’s magical, you feel like you’re on a whole new level altogether. Like magic, that level might not seem real at times too.
Puppy love is the cutest when you can’t help but want to be around each other all the time; when you learn new things you would have never known otherwise about each other. Puppy love is cutest when skinny love isn’t so skinny anymore.
Puppy love is the best feeling, but puppy love can only bud if you have the guts to say the magic words I like you.
Her eyes were a dark brown, a rich color that he had never noticed before. It was mesmerizing, delightful to discover something new about someone whom he had had by his side for so long. For too long he had let too many details go unnoticed: the way her hair fell past her eyes, the way her eyes gazed at him, and the way he subconsciously returned her gaze.
But everything changed in a series of fortunate events. It was as if a veil had been lifted from his vision; he saw everything in a new light. And so now, when he looked at her, he saw not only the support she had represented in the preceding months, but also a girl whom he was inextricably enraptured by. She, the keeper of many secrets, became his reason to open up. And suddenly, all his stories were about her.
The words wouldn’t leave his mouth. They formed convoluted sentences in his mind: eloquent, apt for the occasion, but all that came out of his mouth was a series of gargled sounds, followed by a curse in frustration. She stared at him, unable to understand what was going on internally, and he could only sit and will his mouth to work the way his brain wanted it to. This is the worst confession ever he thought, and somehow, the words I like you popped out of his mouth quicker than he imagined.
He watched her face intently, hoping to gauge her reaction, whilst having an internal emotional meltdown. He wanted to dig a hole in the ground and disappear, but his body was again not a slave to his mind, and so there he sat.
When she replied, it was a thoughtful answer, though slightly hesitant initially. I like you too. The words he would have never dreamt of hearing. And his heart took off in a new direction: one he was completely unfamiliar with. He didn’t know what he was feeling- but perhaps, for the first time in a long time, his heart felt happy.
The eggshell is a curious thing: upright it is able to withstand immense amounts of pressure, but a crack on the side is sufficient to break it apart. I guess in a way it makes total sense: no matter how hardened one may seem, there are always weak spots, vulnerable spots that may cause a facade to crumble away.
The eggshell is a curious thing indeed.
She had always said that she hated the rain, so he always made sure to have an umbrella nearby- the weather was always unpredictable where they lived. There was once he had planned an elaborate picnic complete with a cleverly designed scavenger hunt that he took hours to set up, only to have the whole thing cancelled because of a sudden thunderstorm in the area. She sat in the corner, hands over her ears in a futile attempt to drown out the sound of thunder. He cursed the heavens for ruining his perfect plan.
The years went by, and he gradually came up with a way to help her cope with the thunder, and the rain. They stayed indoors, but if they had to brave the storm, his presence was a great comfort to her: she knew she was not alone.
There was once he wasn’t there- away on a business trip overseas, and the thunder roared like a lion through the night. She lay in her bed, under the covers, silent, but not afraid. It was then she realized how much of a change he brought about in her.
Imagine his surprise when he was greeted as soon as he arrived back home by her rain-drenched body: she ran through the rain to greet him, umbrellaless in a thunderstorm, but she seemed unfazed.
And this was the story of how one man’s love warmed his lover through her fears, and kept her soul dry where it had once been damp.
Twenty-one people. Twenty-one hidden scars on his heart. She had been there through them all, witnessed his ups and downs, and stayed by his side the whole time. She patched him up so many times emotionally it was as if she was a war medic whose efforts deserved a Purple Heart. But, just like how most wars go, soldiers who get patched up get right back into the crossfire, and get hurt again- as was the case with him.
Twenty-one lovers. Twenty-one silhouettes against a wall in a candlelit room. He spent too much time on too many women; talking, but never quite listening. He wasn’t listening to them, nor was he listening to his own heart- a quiet nagging that told him that he was making a mistake. He didn’t know quite what to do.
Twenty-one souls. Twenty-one lonely spirits searching for a person for company. Twenty-one, a number twenty-one times too many, because the person his heart nagged for had been right beside him the whole time. But as humans go, he had been too blind to see it. Twenty-one chances to figure it out, so twenty-one heartbreaks it was before he finally learned his lesson- only to have her grow tired of waiting, and moving onto a better guy.
So it goes.
The rain fell hard: big pelts of water whose impact was further enforced by the crazy, whipping wind. It was a storm that news stations warned people to “stay at home” for. But he couldn’t: the walls felt too constrictive. He went out anyways.
She found him hours after the storm subsided, sitting near the beach. In her hand she held one umbrella, and with the free hand she reached for him, as a means to convince herself that he was alright. Upon her touch he glanced over his shoulder and remarked, “What good is the umbrella after the storm?”
He turned away. Oblivious to her still wet clothes, her shivering body, and her glistening eyes.
I haven’t seen many springs, falls or winters. I barely see them at all. Where I come from, it’s always summer, and the world is nothing but heat. But in my travels and various stays abroad, I’ve discovered a the existence of the other seasons, and I’ve grown to love them thusly. The spring with her reviving powers, the fall with her colorful touch of death, and the winter with her harsh but beautiful snow.
I haven’t seen too many of the seasons, but I know enough of them to know that spring is the season when new things bloom, a time for new beginnings. I want to watch the flowers bloom.
She felt his presence everywhere: the squeaky floorboards in his bedroom, the loud water boiler that he kept in his room, the sound of the keys in the broken lock he didn’t have time to fix. It comforted her. She would lay awake at night sometimes, and hear the odd sound of the keys in the lock, and a series of four squeaks, and she would smile knowing that he was home.
Sometimes, when he wasn’t home, she would turn on the water boiler for no reason at all- just to hear its familiar hum. It helped her through some of the loneliness she never expressed outright to anyone, not even herself at times.
But sometimes she would catch herself wondering What would I do if I left? What would happen if I couldn’t hear these squeaky floorboards at night? She didn’t know the answer, and it scared her more than she would let on.
He read somewhere that baby birds learnt how to fly when they were young after being pushed out of the nest by their parents. The fact had always intrigued him, and he had always wondered how the baby birds would have felt. Betrayed by their own parents? Or delighted upon developing a crucial life skill because of this seemingly heartless act? He didn’t know.
It was a fun fact to think about, especially when he felt like he was down in the dumps. Baby birds can survive high falls, why can’t I? He reasoned. But sometimes, even that lie didn’t help- he wasn’t a bird. He was simply a human, plunging off the deep end in a futile attempt at learning how to fly.
I had the same dream again: I saw you from the back while we walked on the same road. You were a few paces away from me, and walking alone. I wanted to wave and shout, as a means to catch your attention, but you didn’t seem to hear me. I walked faster, willing my legs to move a little quicker in an attempt to catch up with you, but every quickened step I took, you seemed to match. We were still walking in the same direction, at a steady pace, but the distance felt greater than ever.
We walked: me trying to catch up to you; you walking along oblivious to my efforts. Somewhere along the way you were joined by a friend, but I remained alone. Still I chase after you, in an attempt for companionship. You don’t seem to notice, but laugh that joyful laugh I dearly love- it’s not because of me.
The problem is that I’ve had this dream too many times before. Sometimes I don’t even know if it’s a fragment of my memory from real life, a mere dream, or a recurring nightmare anymore.
Fairy tales were a lie. He knew that. But somehow he had always wished for a fairytale ending. He read books from his childhood as a way to remind himself that there were people who did indeed live such enchanted lives. He read the books ardently, as if his own happy ending depended on the culmination of all the happily ever afters written in story books. Perhaps it did, and he simply hadn’t read enough stories. Or perhaps there simply wasn’t such a simple ending to any story.
