In Continuum.

Lighted Porch

Wide awake, fall again
Scratching at my wounds
Always in tune
Love came too soon

It is the habit of the family, if we are all going overseas, to leave the lights of certain parts of the house turned on. The lights at the corridor, the back of the house, the balcony and places like that. It is my mother's idea to do that actually, because she doesn't like complete darkness at night. She does that on normal days as well, just leaving the lights on. It might seem like an awful waste of electricity but, she doesn't like the house to seem empty or vacant at any time of the day. Thus, the lights even when we go overseas for weeks.

One of the reasons might be that we had a burglary when we stayed in Taiwan, when she stepped into the bedroom to see the shadow of a man rummaging through the drawers. That image must have left a lasting impression. And though in the past, that man climbed through the second floor window, I hardly think that anybody is capable of the same feat on the nineteenth floor. Because it's a different ball game altogether. But what the hell, I think it is a good idea to leave the lights on anyway. To know that anytime, we can come back, not to a vacant house but a place we can call home.

And in the morning, I saw the wave
Wasn’t it something
And you say you don’t need me
And you say you love the scene

Forget about you

Like I said before, I've been having insomnias again. Appetite is decreasing, sleeping lesser and lesser at night, feeling like a rotting zombie roaming the face of the earth. The silence and loneliness of the night is killing me, the cold penetrates the skin and the bones. You feel it inside your body, like a whirlwind spinning around and breaking the insides, creating a hollow in your chest. The hollow aches with a dull pain, and scratching at it doesn't help. It only makes the wind spin faster. But wait, what am I talking about? This is not the feeling of emptiness, but merely the sensation of a breaking heart.

I spend most of my waking hours alone in the darkened living room these days, looking at my reflection in the television. The sound of the water trickling down the back of the fish tank has been heard by the family but never listened. But there I am in the middle of the night, listening to the sound of water falling down and down, splashing into one another. Suddenly, all sounds in the night were amplified. Deafening.

Had a feelin it would come to this
Stitches always breaking
Every sound that you make
Keeps me awake

It is the same routine every night these days. Waking up, knowing that the day hasn't got a real purpose anymore, feeling the hollow, the going back to sleep at night finally after hours of unnecessary tears and thinking, with the same hollow in my chest. The same sick cycle carousel goes round and round every day these days, and I wonder if you feel the same. Obviously no, from the entry you just type you must have been sleeping like a baby while somewhere down the road from your house eight bus stops away, I am wondering if this feeling is going to threaten my life.

To put up an act, to be pretentious and to show that I am all right to the world is a tiring thing. The very first question every friend asked me after being informed about my break up, is that if I am okay. And every single time, I have to be dishonest with them, showing not the vulnerable and broken side of me. It is not my forte to pretend that I am strong, that I am somebody whom I am not. I've tried that with you, and sure as hell it didn't work. The reason why nothing worked is not because you changed, but it is because you didn't. And this break up is merely the result of you not changing, and not because anything was really wrong between the two of us.

And in the morning, I saw the gaze
It wasn’t a comfort
And you say you don’t need me
And you say you want to breathe

Forget about you

A mess, was how you chose to describe it. Something about dark alleys and interwoven streets, I cannot remember. I haven't the courage to go back and read it again. But that word - mess - pained me when I read it for the first time. It's strange how all I was trying to do was to get you out of the messed up life that you were leading, to set you free and live a brand new life all over again. And at the end of it, you discredit everything and say that even my efforts were part of the mess. Why was it a mess? Was it so distasteful? Was it so dreadful, that you called it a mess? If it wasn't me or us, but yourself who was in a mess, then isn't it unfair to leave because you were unwilling, or unable to change?

Despite everything, there is still a light that I keep holding on to. There are doors slammed shut in my life, doors leading to your heart. There are roads being blocked off now, paths no longer accessible by myself. But there is still a little light of hope, a hope that on some lonely Christmas night in the future, you might think a little about me and want to come back. I understand that right now, you won't come back, that you will not look back. But is it so hard to say, that there is a little chance that you might? You looked back and it caused you too much pain, but I am different, and you know that. Because like I said before, they don't love you like I love you. And to tell myself every single night that I have to let it go, is something that I cannot do.

Forget about all this life we have
We were the unseen
And I don’t regret the days
Wasn’t it something

Forget about you

I'm leaving the lights on my porch on for as long as it takes. To know that there is a home you can come back to, if it turns cold out there on the road. Don't shut out all possibilities, because you are a possibility I am still willing to keep. For now, I will learn to forget about you, while keeping the warmth in the lighted porch, just so you know.