In Continuum.

Torn Paper Hearts

Help, I have done it again
I have been here many times before
Hurt myself again today
And the worst part is there's no one else to blame

It was the day of the angry sun, if you remember. The cool air of the empty shopping mall on that weekday afternoon, that afternoon when you took half day leave and you wore maroon. The cold air welcomed us with its imaginary arms, as the automatic glass doors came apart before us and we were received and submerged. The light that filtered through the glass penal above were reflected off the tiles, and it made them glitter in the footsteps of the silent janitor, pushing the blue cart away with a mop sticking out from the top. We were there, hand in hand, wandering down the half empty corridors and whispering words of affections into each others' ears. The warm breath from between your lips, the ones that were caught in between from the summer breeze, they came in torrents that brushed against my ears like soft feathers from a pillow case. I smiled, and even under the eyes of random strangers, we made no attempts to disguise our happiness.

But the aimless wandering grew tiresome, and the empty halls of the shopping mall became uncomfortable. The shopkeepers in Toys R Us chased us out because we were carrying out bags, and partly because we were fencing with rubber swords in the middle of the aisles and taking videos of Barney the Dinosaur. We scrambled out of the place laughing, and because you felt thirsty all of a sudden, the alluring arms of coffee beans being crushed from the cafe downstairs became out afternoon's refuge, and also the place where the heartbreak of this entry was eventually born.

Be my friend
Hold me,
Wrap me up
Unfold me,
I am small
And needy,
Warm me up
And breathe me...

The day of the angry sun, I remember that day well. The color of your shirt matched the color of the giant umbrellas outside on the balcony. I pointed that out, and wrote that down on a random page of my notebook in blue ink. So started out conversation throughout the afternoon through written words instead of spoken ones. Everything was written, every gesture was done through the flowing of the ink. Yours in black, mine in blue. And together, the blank pages were filled one after another, flipping only when there isn't any space left for a single alphabet more. We wrote jokes only we understood, smiley faces that we created on the internet. Lips that looked more like peanuts were drawn, and in the corner of the page there was a star. But the images are blurry now, and the lines we wrote are blending together to become a giant abstract painting of sorts. I cannot make out the words anymore, or the little silly pictures that we drew, with our fingers interlocked and the angry sun casting an illuminating light on your face.

While you wrote, I peeped from the corner of my eyes, at the radiance emitted from the side of your face. You doubted my words then, when I used the word 'beauty' on your features. I guess you were right, I never should have used that word. Because in that moment, that very moment when you were unaware of my stares and I was of your radiance, I should have used a better word, a more fitting word perhaps. Because it was - beauty, and so much more than that alone. We wrote the three magic words in a dozen different languages. I am sure that I spelled it wrong in German, but it clearly didn't matter. The handwriting still vividly clear on the piece of paper, and they reflected that innocence in all that is in our relationship back then. The way a chuckle would mean a world to the other, or the way a random message would seem to last for infinity in your mind. That sort of happiness, that innocence, captured in those three words in many different languages. But there is sadness, and only sadness, as I looked upon those pages in the middle of the night last night, as they laid before my eyes in the dim glow of the corridor light.

Ouch, I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found yet
I think that I might break
Lost myself again and I feel unsafe

It was a pure accident, an innocent one, as I flipped through the old pages of my notebook and found those words. They were crawling everywhere on the pages, like hordes of ants upon a hill of sugar. Black and blue ones, in every possible direction, and almost climbing out of the edges of the paper. They crawling down the side of the table and up my bare legs, through my pants and up the spine in my back. The chill ran down my nerves and through my body, and in the chest area a sudden piercing sensation of extreme pain. I gave in, gave in to the call of pain in my chest and grabbed hold of the edge of the notebook. There was a moment of not knowing what to do, not knowing what to think, or say. Say? To whom? To you? How ironic, to have such a thing happen to you immediately after you've blogged about not caring at all, not giving a shit anymore.

It was like a corpse rising up from the dead, crawling out from the dirt with worms spurting out from the eye sockets. The smell of rotting flesh in the air, pungent and repugnant. Teeth falling out from the mouth, hair tearing out from the skull and falling onto the floor with every step that it took. I wanted to scream, to shout in terror but the breath went out of me. The monster before me, this creature, the manifestation of old memories stood before me with its arms widespread and welcoming. The arms of memories, the ones of nostalgia, welcoming me into its deadly embrace. I tried to run away, run away from the cemetery and into a place unknown. But the monster - the pages - were still there. Black and blue, black and blue, they were everywhere.

Be my friend
Hold me,
Wrap me up
Unfold me,
I am small
And needy
Warm me up
And breathe me...

In the moment of silence, I contemplated. I laid out my options, and considered them carefully. I thought about the possibility of regrets being involved in my actions. I thought about the self-accusations that might happen afterwards. But then there were the words, as I read through them all over again, for the first time since the day with the angry sun. Read through them with much care, trying to recall every emotion that was attached to every word, every laughter that was tagged to each sentence. Oh, how they dug holes in my heart last night, how they so efficiently elevated my pain to a whole new different level.

So I tore out the pages, one by one until there was nothing left. I tore them out, ripped them off the plastic bindings at the back, and removed the left over corners on them with the tips of my fingers. For the last time, I stared upon the pages with disgust and regret, remembering the innocence involved in the writing of these pages. But it was all part of the process, it was all part of the road that leads me on. Like the places that I brought my friends to, like the messages that I deleted in the deep night, with crumpled pieces of tissue beside. Like the pictures that were deleted with one swift pressing of the button, and the removal of your name from my contacts. It was all part of the plan, part of the breaking up process. But to have these torn out, these innocence, it was pain on my part but probably insignificant, almost trivial on yours.

They were on the table, throbbing like a dying heart. Or the gills of a fish just brought up to shore. They laid there, like the fishes I mentioned, gasping for air with the stomach rising up and down rapidly. They were dying, they were all dying like fishes on a shore. And I watched, as the eyes were slowly darkened and the death of the past took over. The stomach stopped heaving, the fins stopped flapping, and there was silence in the air by the beach, just the soft brushing of the sea against the coast. It was done, the final hurdle and task. I collected the pages in my hands, feeling the last remaining warmth between my fingers - within the spaces that your fingers once filled - and held them close to my heart.

Then, as brief as the contact was with my chest, I crushed the pages in my hands into a white ball. The black and the blue became hidden, lost under the folded edges of the paper and into the heart of the ball of dead memories. And now it lies, amongst the old newspaper and used tissue paper. Soon enough, they will be disposed of, thrown into the raging fire of a furnace on a far away island, away from Singapore. And there, the ashes of the past shall not come to me, not even by the wind of the sea.

And so it was, just like you said it would be. We'll both move on in our lives, the way it should most of the time. You made your choice by moving on, while I made mine by breaking down. They are the same parallel ways, just different paths that we are following. It's just that mine, it involves a certain level of self-destruction, one which you are blinded by your new found love and would never be able to witness. Why should you bother, like blogged about before. There isn't any reason to do so at all.

For a moment there, as I looked at the ball of paper in the blue dustbin, I forgot that I should have been breathing. And so I took a deep breath, and reminded myself of the subsequent one s that I should be taking. So life goes on, one breath at a time, one step at a time, one broken heart at a time. It takes a lot of those - time - but I will make it in the end. Alive. Broken, but alive.

Be my friend
Hold me,
Wrap me up
Unfold me,
I am small
And needy
Warm me up
And breathe me...