In Continuum.

7:00

If I gave you the sky
If I laid down my life
Would you believe me then?

I felt the plastic with the tip of my index finger, feeling the curvature of the cellphone. The screen felt cool, like the rest of the room this morning at seven. Outside the world only just started, the noise rising from the roads and the streets like a layer of fog over the lake in the morning. I remember seeing that out in the field when I was still in the army, admiring the beauty of the morning as the sounds of the night died away, replaced by that of the coming day. That's how the noise felt to me while I was in bed at seven, with the sky still retaining that bit of dark from the hour before, but slowly waining, dispersing.

I don't know why I still wake up at seven in the morning, or why I still leave my phone turned on throughout the night. Just a fool's hope perhaps, that it will vibrate and ring your name again. I stared and I stared, until the lights on the keypad went out, plunging the small circle of light around the phone back into the morning darkness. But I still waited, hopefully and wistfully, perhaps also stupidly, that you will call or even drop me a message.

If I promised to change
If I carried the blame
Would you believe me then?

But this is how it goes isn't it? When a person leaves - be it in a relationship or from your life - everything you used to relate to with that person seizes, save for the memories. The phone calls in the middle of the night stopped, with the messages in the inbox almost a week old. This is the hole in life that I must have sunken into, when everything seizes to mean and to feel. There is a certain hardness about my personality, there is a certain stubbornness that I adopted in life as a sort of defense mechanism. I pretend that I do not care, I pretend to have myself on top of priority lists. And then on lonely mornings like this one, the layers of the onion is peeled and the inner core is revealed.

Inside I find myself cuddling my knees, hugging them like the flesh of somebody else's. There is certainty, and there is hope that things will turn out for the better. Because they do, they always do. Rising from the ashes is always a different person, a different person whom I will eventually get used to and grow to love all over again. But for now, I wonder how long this is going to last, for this path I have to take seems so long, and so bleak. For how long will I endure this? For how long will I pretend, before I can say that I am fully healed? I have given you all my secrets and sorrows, so what the hell will this heart of mine stop hurting?

Could you see it like me?
And believe what I see
Could you listen and remember
That I loved you?
Only because I told you
'Cause I told you so...

The pictures have been taken off my Friendster page, all the other pictures gathered into the same file in my folders and kept in the corner. I have turned the pen holder away from the view from the rest of the room because the words stabs my heart a million times over everyday, and I have resorted to clearing other items and throwing them into a box. But the messages in my phone, I have read them a dozen times and every time my finger hovers the delete key, I hesitate. And no matter how much I force myself to do so, it just wouldn't budge. Believe me when I said that I have tried my very best to remove all forms of reminder in my room and life of you, and even dreamed of the clinic in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to have my memories erased. What would that memory be, if I get to keep just one? Would you keep one memory of us, if given the choice as well? Would you?

So it is still seven in the morning, the day still cool to the night's chill. And in the still air of the morning, I played the video I took of you in Toys 'R' Us. The Barney dinosaurs singing some ridiculous nursery rhymes and you looking distastefully at the camera. I must have played the fifteen second video about a hundred times, because by the time I fell asleep again the phone was out of battery. But the pillow case smelled of dried tears, and almost faintly the smell of your hair brushing against the surface of it, with my hand underneath. Forgive me, if I am not nearly as happy as you clearly are, or trying to be. I can't pretend to be this way or that anymore.

If you told me you lied
But I stayed true and tried
Would you believe me then?

Is the Tiramisu still as good as before? Did you have the same look in your eyes when you tasted it? I haven't the courage to go to the restaurant, or even step foot in town. Everywhere is plagued with the shadow of you, of us, wandering down the street aimlessly and carefree. My home is my own prison that I have resorted myself to, locking myself in with a door choked with memories. I have found the key yet, the key to this door because like the pair of keys that we tossed into the sea, it might have been lost in the currents of time and water, forever.

For certain, I have no idea how you can revisit these places and keep up a strong face with whoever you brought, or how the world can function properly with myself suffering in this prison cell of mine. I understand that the world does not revolve around me, me being as insignificant as I am. But surely somebody should feel my crisis, somebody should see the alarm blaring above my head? This is a state of emergency, but nobody is panicking. Perhaps it's not sad enough, but how much worse can this possibly get? Teach me how to live again old love, because I forgot.

If your beauty was gone
But my move lingered on
Would you believe me then?

How many more of this seven o'clocks can I endure? If there is a way to smash the body clock of mine, I would. Just so that I would sleep through the morning and not wake up at seven again. But it is not possible, not when I still have hope that you will call one fine morning in the future. There is optimism still, even if it is foolish and stupid, that you might call me out in the morning to have breakfast. Toast and coffee, scrambled egg and ham, perhaps? Or do you prefer it traditional, Chinese? How about something exotic for a change, Indian?

As much as I hope that you are in the same dying state as myself, I know you aren't. You are bigger, stronger and better now. And in the mirror I see myself, broken down and wasted - A by-product.

I do not care little, only too much.

Could you see it like me
And believe what I see
Could listen and remember
That I loved you?
Only because I told you
'Cause I told you so...

You take the wheel for now
I'm too tired
To drive this one home anyhow
For now

When you mention my name
Let this one thing remain
My love,
Believe
Me now



Note to self: This shall be the last if not, one of the last posts about my predicament. I'm tired of myself. Perhaps I should shut the hell up, once and for all. To go on with this, or stop writing? Decisions, decisions.