Opening and closing that metal door I can still smell the rust 

Bending down looking in to make sure it wasn’t missed 

Sometimes reaching in just to feel that void 

Finally when you arrive I hold on to you excitedly yet cautious knowing that once I lay my eyes on you that whole magic and ritual would end 

What I became so obsessed with and even a little proud of would just... be. 

So I delay that process, I pretend you did not arrive

Until I am ready

Ready to be made vulnerable 

Pouring my heart out hoping it still speaks to you and you would respond again 

Just a piece of paper you think 

It was more than that 

They will never experience the real meaning of the wait. 

If you had pointed and said “that would be important”. 

If you had lifted it up and said “let’s get it”. 

Would it had been enough? 

What difference would it make?

Darting eyes, a quiet fear broadly spoken, a change in colour was all it took 

Another spin on the unimportant, an awakening to take a deep dive on how sick we truly are 

Now what you see is something from the movies

But it is here and now to stay 

The beautiful thing about today’s technology you get to see real time statistics. I see you. Numbers and graphics giving me a breakdown of everything. The locations of where individuals reside, whether they were accidental or intentional and if they had stayed long enough to understand or relate.

Is what I am seeing real or am I just interpreting what I want to think is real.

They say I am unwell, point and shoot procedures. But I feel fine. Numbers game did you rig it to let me get out of there. Is the mind not catching up with how the body feels again? A lapse or something missing again.

How do you decipher something your body feels but You do not.

Which is real? And whose to say the other is not?

Holo

You can’t sleep.
Because something is calling out to you.
A subtle nudge.
A curious pull.
You turn the pages back and forth.
Looking, reading, searching, wondering...
What did you missed?
Is this what they call it
Grieving an unknown death
Or checking The Coffin to find the body

Did you return here to examine the void
To find a hint and leave some ink
Make it known that you left your shoes by the door
Turning the knob you enter feeling the cold quiet heaviness sinking in
Like an old embrace and a solemn kiss
Maybe comfort is sought in darkness
When darkness was exposed to the world
You know it too well
It’s all coming back.

It is a different mountain to climb now that you are older. How easy it was to write out your version of the truth the way you wanted to see it back then. How dangerous the world could had been if you were not careful enough. Maybe being so caught up in your own pain and darkness made everything else unclear which protected you from greater harm and regrets. If you could had felt so much then, wouldn't she have that same chance of feeling all that too when it is her turn? Could it be a lot worse? And that would be even scarier than what you had went through. You had literature, words, songs and you were disconnected from the world. With simpler human beings as strangers with lesser motives and complications. 

Another stock take of the here and now. How you have to make another decision to change the gear of your life and its direction. How did you break this time? The demands? The expectations? The exhaustion? The fall? The hospital? The paralyzing guilt and fear of being absolutely out of your depth? You drowned and hated every minute in that building with all those puppets. How did you end up here again?

Reading back on written words and drafts, how they meant so much and made so much sense back then. And how it does not mean a thing in the present. The ephipany you thought was mind blowing or awakening seems like childish thoughts and mottos you stringed up to move along. What a fool. I am embarrassed. But I had lived. The wrongs and rights all of which I am accountable for I do not deny nor regret. Each chapter threw me along further into the future. 

I am glad to see how life had turned out for me and the person I had become. I hope it had been the same for all those I had left behind. 

The simple act of sitting in a train by the window looking out at the fields passing by. No skyscrapers or towering shelters. Just fields and tracks. Nothing higher than the eyes can see. I watch the world go by. I am here. The sun is warm today. I'm reading and looking up at the changing scenes. 

She woke up into a life that she had never envisioned. After years of questioning the living and breaking down wrong doors, even shattered windows she climbed through on all fours. Unknowingly she walked through the darkest portal filled with numerous trials and tribulations, funerals and rebirth. The stars aligned and with the right amount of force it pushed her through the last hurdle into the greatest unknown. 

It was different. The most unique of them all. The kind that while collecting death's certificate you smile and in love's loss there is an ironic insider joke. A really good one. 

Here's to the one that stayed. 

"When a vacuum form, something has to come along to fill it." 

"He does not exist here, with me, but flesh that does not exist will never die, and promises unmade are never broken."

Mental acuity was never born from comfortable circumstances.

"That pain you’re feeling is directly proportional to how much you loved and were loved."

When a push comes to a shove you will be sacrificed. Naive little one how could you forget. The tendency to be swept away to think that it won't happen to you is foolish. You are just another pawn in their chess match. A useful piece sliding across checkered tiles to be placed in positions to make difficult decisions. So you killed yourself. 

All that is left is a handful of disappointments one after another. Constant rearrangement of their placements. 

Now. You are no longer the same. 

As the day draws nearer. You feel solemn. More than anything else. Always. Wretched. It dawned on you that the truth is, you have been on a run for the past six years and there is a reason why. The beginning of it all. Why you are never here. It was the perfect excuse to never talk about it ever again. 

This is the analogy a friend said recently. Each of us have closets which we constantly close them and move to the next. However, unlike the fortunate ones who have the leisure to fold and pack everything in nicely, we on the other hand have been in such a chaotic state to throw and fit everything in base on survival instincts, in order to move on to the next. Hence, ours is an exploding junk yard which never had a proper ceremonial closure. It is always there. Always lurking. Unravelling when you least expect it.

The greatest test for the generations to come is patience. 

Remember how we would roll in bed and wait for a simple beep to indicate a text response and then spend the next hour cracking our heads to draft a message good enough to be finally sent out again. Because we know how critical it is to use the minimal number of letters to form words in order to catch that person's attention and interest so that they would respond to us and not keep us hanging. Individual text messages would be stored and fondly relooked at while waiting for the next reply. It was so precious. The whole waiting process even felt romantic. 

We were handicapped. Unable to check to see if the recipient had received the message or if it was intentionally left unread. No photographs. No directions. No maps. No phone calls. And I have yet to even start on the generations before who relied solely on pen, paper, stamps, birds and humans. 

Therefore, in the years to come the greatest challenge of all is patience. 

Be careful in the words that you say to each other. What comes out as spite could do damage that last a life time.

Maybe it was their upbringing and the skewed tunnel vision they are brought up to view situations and treat other human beings. You cannot deny that nurturing a child is crucial in their adolescence stage as it could tarnish their adulthood. Their nature is largely attributed to their nurture. Akin to a robot the programmer is the one that inputs the data for it to function.  

You need to breathe life into words again. Let them form and take hold of your page. I forget sometimes the need to leave a little of me online in this virtual world. 

It is a trend. There are too many scams out there offering you opportunities to jump onboard their easy way out solutions. The price? Your money. How about the media? It distracts you with fancy new things or news and all we end up doing is feeding this Monster with an insatiable appetite. 

Quote: Always online but never available. 

But the real price, is your time. 

And. Falling into the pit of selfishness. "Me" mentality syndrome. 

After one month, once a week, of giving away time to volunteering works, I won't say they need me. But rather I need them more than they need me. It made me grounded to the here and now. For a moment I am offline, doing something meaningful for someone else. 

It is always nice to know that in the sea of people there is one person out there waiting for you. Anxiously looking out, even if it is just a shadow or outline. Traces of you in the crowd is good enough to give the heart a little kick of thrill and joy.  

Quick... become the arrival I have been waiting for. 

It will no longer hurt or excite you. Those intangible hopes and foolish fantasies on your part. Be brutal to say that you were thrilled by your selfish thoughts. 

Turning around you cringe at the past, you look at the path leading to ashes and then ahead of you the path into the light. 

Another trigger point are past words written and left in closets of technology. You enter it door after door and there the horrible bare faced- truth; hides there waiting to expose your stupidity. But that is not the end.

You are standing here. Bidding goodbye. 

Unable to grasp this scene. You turn a page and it had been nine years. No longer that girl on the floor nor walking the streets at midnight courting rejection. You find yourself catching this bus at peace with yourself and the way things are now. 

It is frightening to see that you no longer write the same. 

They call you another name.