plateau

on that plateau, 

i stared, and stared, at a life that could have been

mine

a wine cellar, refurbished sofa, a picture, a heart, a girl,

a spice rack, a bone crack or two, 

a skirt, a house, a job, a boy

you wondered, does the boy know what it felt like?

a hip, a hair, a hand, 

skin tender, bone soft, 

a womb, in whose mercy a life beats – and stops

but not in her mercy,

never hers.

on a high plateau, the wind is sweeping

when you're a remnant all you can think about was an if

if i was yours

then tell me whose heart am i holding?

not mine,

never mine.

on some mornings

On some morning, I'd wake up feeling like everything is right,

But again it's been forever since I know what's right,

Like, it felt right under your heartbeat;

Yet I'd know it would feel scary for you introduce me properly, or pronounce what kind of future we'd have together, and where, and when.

I would always say I'll leave the fastest, 

Leave before you'll hurt me,

Leave before you'll saw how things would hurt me,

I'll leave if you ever hurt me;

I'll say it with such convincing fakeness, 

I'm confident that I'm faking,

While at the same time I know this time next year I'd doubt I'll not remember your name or the warmth of your skin.

For the longest I'd just wanted to be loved.

And don't make me stupid for wanting to be loved.

Dari kota kota yang terlihat separatis

Jarak adalah absolut, namun menjadi nisbi apabila denganmu di ujungnya

Lalu walau kota kota ini terlihat semakin separatis

Selalu akan ada kita dalam bayangan jarak dan asa,

juga dalam kenangan yang tak akan pernah jadi absah.

Kemudian, apalah perpisahan apabila bukan hal yang tertunda?

Dari sekarang, lima, sepuluh, lima puluh tahun lagi;

Dari kota yang terlihat semakin separatis tiap detik berlalu,

Aku tanam rindu dari jarakku berpijak;

Dan do'a untuk hidup yang lebih tanpa sarat.

All the places I thought I'll never be

"I remember surfing through 2020 in grave survival mode. That's why when I see my reflection in your crescent, undemanding eyes, with your hand around my neck, all I can think about was: how that everything that happens between us and akin, was never where I thought I'll be."

1. The start.

    The mantra was, to have control. That the amount you give should not be equated with the amount you receive, and everything was collateral. You should not give, at all. Giving is being taken away, and by that point, you've had so much taken away from you. 

    I began to realize how my stuck-up, avoidant way of communicating was just another form of twisted self-defense. The way of locking in, I daresay. How can I not? When I'm still desperately finding ways to heal the bare wound I was left with. And that was all that I was left with, bare wounds and a little bit of a condescending tone in the way I behave. 

    The one thing that's funny as well is that many people thought you were okay. They congratulate you for faking. They thought you started doing all this work on yourself and call it "a character development". The work you do sleepless and tirelessly was an improvement. You are more mature, less clumsy, speak more eloquently as you recite quoting by books, and now wear dark red on your lips. You cared less, or you don't seem to care at all.

    On many lenses, it is an elevation, I know it's growth. But what many don't see is that it is an escape more than a drive. What many don't see is that it comes from a place of desperation, and raw fear. I can't sort out my emotion and reaction, so I just blocked it all. Run like it doesn't eat you up inside. Run and smile like you're not chased by the constant trauma tailing behind your back.

    It felt safe and empowering being in my own little bubble of thick defense. The hour I spent busy-ing away keeps my head from going insane. When I work, my head was silenced. The more I work, the more I don't think. Then the more I am hollow. Thicker outside, emptier inside. 

    Is it an elevation? I don't even know. If it was, I'm not supposed to feel miserable, right? I was supposed to be independent, proud, passionate, happy, and bright, and quote en quote: alpha. The kind of women that are content. The kind of women that know what's right.

Yet, when all your mother taught you was being a martyr, every line is a blurred line. 

2. The crack.

     I don't really remember the first day I fell for you, or what is it that I fell for, or how, or why. What I know is one day, I'm dreaming about a pretty day, and it looked like if I lie down in a vast green grass just outside the city, with you.

    You're quite different than what I'm used to. A little less romantic, less dramatic, or problematic--just you: stable, serene, and a little broken. On a constant warzone, you feel a little like a sanctuary. Calm, practical, and just now I realized that you are much of what I needed. Everything crept up and your existence was far intertwined with mine. 

    I know I'm good at everything surface. But I didn't know intimacy would've demanded so much from my being, from everything that I had run away from. In a way, you felt like a liberation. I'd fallen hard until I remembered I can't afford to fall.

    

    Then it began to feel a little comical with the way I really take pride in how I survived, and it resulted in feeling like a crime when your skin brushes against mine. I felt unpacked, and the walls I've built are becoming undone. It was fearful. After all, how could I do it again? Falling reminds me too much of heights and pieces--and being broken was not an experience one would be willing to relive. It's hard loving someone when all you know about loving was messy and defensive. 

    When I said I am scared to be in love, I'd mean it. At that point, I know very well that, the cherry-flavored conversation also has the color red.

 

3. The dawn.

    It was suddenly July, a year later, and I didn't know I could open up to someone again, never this much. I didn't know getting kissed and being told pretty could still give me butterflies. Or that how you could make something so mundane: a phone call, a dinner, a word, means so much more. 

    Only in July, I look forward to feeling the safety in pleasure. How I long to feel your hugs and only felt the warmth of your skin against mine, not the fear, not the what if's. For once, I did not want to run. 

    For once, I don't want to be busy or not feel anything. I wanted to feel, and I want to tell you how much I love you. I wanted to cry or show that I am jealous because I cared. I wanted to fight and change. I wanted to feel peace waking up, and sleeping being in love.

    At one point I noticed that all the places I am now are also all the places I thought I'll never be the year before: falling in love again, getting so weary again, starting again, opening up again. Life on the one hand will feel like a bad joke of cycles, I think it also taught me, no matter how much of a failure you convince yourself to be,

    you can always begin again.

    

Antologi Kamu

"Seperti disengaja, Tuhan berkehendak kamu jadi satu keajaibannya."

Aku masih mencoba merakit
Jawaban-jawaban tentang
Kenapa
Kamu jadi
Yang aku cintai
Dan yang juga pergi

Juga jawaban-jawaban,
Tentang mengapa aku masih juga rindu rasa jemarimu di tanganku
Atau aku masih akan selalu ingat pilihan rokokmu
Dan aku bakar lagi agar ada sepicis kamu di jemariku

Mungkin cinta memang agak gila,
Dan banyaknya destruktif
Seperti cara aku mencari figurmu
Di setiap-tiap bayangan yang berlalu lalang masuk pintu.

home

home is home and indeed it is bliss
resting bones and familiarity, remnants and pivotal
of a young girl, or a girl, or a person, or at least an identity


yet the thing about home is
that it reminds you too much of the person that you are
every nook
and cranny
and crevices
and the yellow camisole that hangs just above your plant lavender
or the letters you wrote when you were just 12 and life feel too much to answer
it felt too much like raw wounds and vulnerability
and the life you're hanging death upon to escape from

kaleidoscope

I was wondering when was the last time my heart sounded like a heart. One morning it sounded like footsteps, or door banging upon your leaving, or blackouts, or sobbing and throwing. Heartbeats became the projections of my self-created wars, i called myself martyrs.

I do not remember what stability felt like. I'm used to the way of running that without constant rush, life felt like nothing. Pumped until empty. Carved until hollow. Racing thoughts are meals. Sitting down felt like dying. Laying down means i have to think. I do not want to think. So i am used to blocking out feelings. Did i ever know boundaries upon sanity? I probably do not. These thoughts are lawless, and ungoverned. 

I have not taken a rests for a few weeks now, these are a kind of defense mechanisms. I keep myself busy with papers and people. Medicated. Write the thoughts away. Thinking and theories. Just to keep a small part of you from going rampant in my mind. Anxieties taking over my body. I run blindly exhausting everything.

And for what reasons?

And everyone has addictions, mine just come in a pretty package and a brand. So on-brand that people cheers. These are compensations for all the ways i'm hurting. These are a facade so well done i call it achievements.

If i were then what i was now, would we survive?

december air

airport became a witness to how love left your eye

the last time you see me

witness how dreams turned to ashes upon our feet

words turns black and blue and bored

you began to see how young love is supposed to stay young

now you’re older and love sways

but it happened in the midst of anger and tantrums

and whispers of regret

that you watch love become unrecognizable

with every syllables per second

you then learned distance is everything but numbers

and love is everything about letting go

Heartbreak Requiem; part I

Doors

My mother taught me the way of locking in. A woman in this household, she said, does not weep. We simply stare, and continue living. The way of martyrs, she renounced.

Do not let emotions fail you, an iron clad-rule behind this door. A woman in this household, is built to be strong-willed. There is no room for weakness here. My mother shows so. Play before get played. Abandon and be desired. Pick yourself up and dust off the softness. Vulnerability is a sin.

I soon became the master of my own escapes. I do not admit. I do not administer. Tried being insatient and inanimate, I release myself from the satisfaction of intimacy. I do not need what is unnecessary.

That's why when i met you, it was some kind of salvation, a world of unknown to me. I'm still not sure how i ended up falling, but, falling into you feels okay.

We sat in front of McDonalds at 4am half drunk. Life was airy and we were exploring steps. Heavily intertwined, we tweaked and burn. You were there outside of my class, a breath of fresh air to the boredom of coffee shops, and late nights lonely became lunch partners.

For once, i dived into a mind not mine. It felt liberating. Burden of locked words and emotions were laid off and melt in your existence. Heat and skins and everything otherworldly merged, it was ocean, it was the sun.

Yet, in my mother's language, i was utterly defeated.

Before long, i found you filling my ribcage. It was full and crowded, pressing my lungs. I find myself blaming cigarettes for the lack of air. And words, they were blooming in and out. Every touch of yours in my soil is fertile, it covers my entire body, i became something else.

I no longer knows the world outside the grasp of your fingers, and yet i was exhilarated on being wanted. I was stripped naked down to my core and out of my own independence. World became ours. World became you and me. We peaked and reached.

You see, the thing is, my mother never teach me about the danger of addiction. She was an addict herself, on principles and ideals. She did not warn me about being blind, nor warn me that heartbreaks comes with pretty eyes and soft words.

I ignored all the red flags because your fingers were dripped in it. I became fond with red. As the color of your lips. As the color of the clothes you wear when we first met. But being stripped means being sacrificed. Dependant and high.

Is loving you ever the right thing?

Amydgala

I would choose you in a heartbeat.

A beat in which i hums your name. A vow i swore by, in my blood, alive. Trampling down my neck, under my breath. It lurks like shadows, biting me so hard i won't be able to let you go.

Is it a curse?

In a dazzling sea all i can taste is salt water, alike with the ringing in my ribs the day you said your goodbye. It bubbles trough my lungs, foaming deep in my throat and yet i was still able to beg for your presence. Am i asking for too much decency?

You see, i forgot when my heart sounded like a heart. On most days, it sounded like footsteps. Sometimes little walks, runs, or even the sound of running trough stairs. The day you left, my heart sounded like closed doors. Ramming and jagging. I feel so empty yet i make more space for the void. I began to normalize the darkness inside your belly, swallowed by the empty promises and broken memories.

Am i not worth scarring for?

I still would choose you in a heartbeat. In a heartbeat that tastes like bloody wrists and swelled tears.
Still salt in every atom. Maybe i'll grow another heart.

One that is not yours to drown.

go ahead,
ask every pages about my downhill
it's wrote down loud and clear,
that i love you still