Red

I want to paint this blank canvas because its whiteness is unsettling. Dimensionless, and vast, it promises to consume everything that falls in its path, much like a raging river. I want to leash it - with intricate patterns, rebellious graffiti, vibrant colors, paint balls and tear drops.

I want it to contain something – something explicable, something meaningful, so that I don’t have to hunt for words each time I try to describe it.

I have the supplies : the paints, the paintbrush, the smock – everything that I could buy.

I still haven’t started, and the longer I stand by the easel the more I realize that its growing and becoming larger than life.

I can’t start. I really cannot. Not because I am not an artist, but because they didn’t sell clarity in the supply store. And I can’t make up my mind about what it is that I want on that canvas.

It's the good advice that you just didn't take

I think the human race is meant to thrive on irony, and has the uncanny ability to internalize the most unexpected and irrational things as its nature. As I type this, sitting in the dark, unable to sleep, I can think of several such ironies that have shaped my own rapports, relationships, and thus my outlook towards people.

Don’t we have the remarkable ability to hurt the people closest to us? Abandon the people we love so much? Ruin some of the best things in our lives, over reasons that seem trivial, minutes after the damage is done? Destroy something that we’ve always wanted, just as we are about to get it finally? Say things we don’t mean, and yet do them anyway? Call ourselves rational, and yet make decisions that we end up regretting later? Knowing that we'll be hurt, and yet, letting things be? Allowing others to be important enough...?

I confess – I have done most of the abovementioned myself, or have had them done to me, just like a majority of us.

Someone was once trying to tell me that they loved me and I was far too hurt by then to seek any sort of comfort in that love. I said I didn’t buy that and that no, they don’t actually love me. How much of that I actually meant, I don’t know. Was I angry, yes? Was I hurt, yes? But should I have said that? No. My bad? Yes.

That would be one confession that I had to make.

The conversation was never resumed – it was put on infinite hold.

Oh, how talented we are at hurting ourselves and those we love. And how we love to be trampled on. A masochist hides in all of us? Or are we plain stupid - and not the most superior species after all?

Because ass much as we seem to like to win, our conscious and rational actions and our decisions always seem to direct us towards losing - something or someone.

Irony bites, doesn't it?

One step closer

Tonight, for the first time in the past 4 years, I thought you looked beautiful. From the cab window, your skyline fit the panoramic frame well and you looked almost gorgeous. It must have been the night, the stars, the river, the bridge, and the laughter in the background. The feeling didn’t last too long, but yes, today I smiled at you.

Its like an understanding you develop with someone, who you might not particularly like, but are forced to coexist with. You learn to live around each other and make peace with your differences, and end up finding this strange sense of comfort in knowing the other is there. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you now love them, or ever will, but you can tolerate them, for the most part.

Or its like smiling at the random stranger who commutes with you every morning and gets off the same bus stop. You don’t smile at them the first morning, because you don’t know that you’ll be seeing them everyday. But as days pass, you see them, you observe them, understand their ways, and eventually reach a point when you start smiling or nodding at them every morning – a gesture, an unsaid greeting and a relationship.

I don’t know if I smiled at you because we’re finally both in a neutral zone, and have resolved our differences. Or if it was because I’ve realized you’re going to be a fellow passenger on this commute for a few more years. Either way, looks like we’re not at odds anymore.

I don’t love you. Yet.

But maybe I can make myself love you. Maybe not.

Let’s try being friends first.

Long Way Around

Lips drawn in a tight line, distant, almost lifeless eyes, and a stoic face – the mask of a typical MRT rider going back from work. Last night it hit me that I was becoming one of them – not because I was returning from work too, but because I could feel my own face tighten up as I stared into space and waited for my stop. Since I did not just get a botax, I figured there is no need to minimize any facial activity, but I couldn’t exactly strike up a conversation with a random stranger, now could I? No no, atleast not in a Singapore MRT! So I hid my face behind a book and kept tuning in and out of it, alternating between random thoughts, and following the story. Soon I was smiling to myself, and even muffling a few chuckles, because it was a rather entertaining book. Its not *haha* funny, but the imagery triggers such strong sensory responses, and you end up smiling once you realize you were so involved in the book.

Despite all this, I somehow managed to tune out from time to time to get lost in my own thinking world. While being jostled around, at one point, I was rudely shaken out of my world because of a lady with a huge bag, and I noticed the cacophony, that is the train, at such a busy hour. A few seconds in that dimension were deranging enough to send me back to my book and/or thoughts.

I fumed over some events of the day, silently vented it all out, not to the person it was directed to, but their mirror image, in my head. Felt a little better, but not quite. I smiled about the previous night, dinner with girl friends followed by hanging out at the Esplanade, lamenting, cursing and pondering over what’s in store for us, and who deserves what. I thanked whoever's in-charge, for such great girls. Tipsy and Flirty - hats off to you two.

I also played the blame game.

I blamed you for giving me the freedom to make my decisions.
I blamed myself for not being able to tame these decisions and their consequences.
I blamed you for being so loving.
I blamed myself for liking being loved.
I blamed you for being too far from my reach.
I blamed myself for having rotten luck.
I blamed you for playing hide and seek.
I blamed myself for letting you play.
I blamed you for knowing what you want.
I blamed myself for wanting something.
I blamed you for being practical.
I blamed myself for being a dreamer.
I blamed you for being strong, ruthless.
I blamed myself for not learning it from you.

Somewhere along this game, I lost track of score. Anyone of you think you're winning?

Tired of playing, I allowed myself to take a cab back from the train station.

I met a friend and plans were made. Wednesday night, ladies night. It was a coincidence, and a sign.

I looked back and decided that I had had enough.

I don’t remember ordering a side of complications, so I sent it back to the kitchen.

"Add it to the bill, if you have to. Ill even leave a huge tip."

"It doesn't matter right now, cuz I'm going dancing baby"