Staccato

She caught your name when you wrote it down on a piece of paper this afternoon.

She doesn’t even know why she had to bother to look at it. If she wanted to know your name she could have just asked her seatmate. Yeah, her seatmate knows you. Everyone in this college seems to know you.

Then again, maybe it’s because if she did ask her seatmate, that nosy boy might ask why she wanted to know your name.

And then she wouldn’t know what to say.

***

She caught a glimpse of you nibbling your fingers as you listened to the professor who kept rambling about some political shit.

In her mind she muttered a profanity because you reminded her of someone that she shouldn’t be thinking about. Yeah, he bit his nails that way too. So she turned her eyes back on the professor in an effort to shake the thoughts away.

The professor asked the class for their thoughts on the political shit she rambled so passionately about, and she waited for you to raise your hand and start blabbering an Iliad-long narration of your profound thoughts. Hey, you’re supposed to be this political brainiac, right?

But to her surprise, you sit still on your chair, hands on the armrest. A small smile playfully grew on your lips.

And you didn’t even say anything.

***

She read your blogs that night.

She had no freakin’ idea that you two were freakishly alike. In fact you even chose the same wordpress theme. You also wrote the same crazy stuff she did. The only difference is that you post your works in a blog that proudly screamed your name while she posts hers in a secluded corner of the internet under a pen name that does not have the least connection with her real name. Jin, that is. Her pen name is Jin.

She goes over all the things you wrote, and when she’s done she smiles to herself triumphantly because for all the giftedness that you seem to have, she has an awful lot more comments than you do. In your face.

But by the time she finally hits her browser’s exit button, she has no choice to retire that you are indeed brilliant.

You, with your gift for writing that easily overshadowed hers; you, with your carefree defiance of the prodigy stereotype; you, with your definitive glasses and nail-biting carefreeness.

***
She might actually like you, you know.

Too bad she hates people whose names are made of the two letters that yours is made exactly of.

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Time to Hit It

Last weekend, I finally decided that I want to learn how to play badminton. By badminton I mean the smart game and not the ‘hit the shuttlecock’ thing that I do every Saturday when my orgmates and I play at Smash.

My dad says that the first step in learning badminton is admitting that I’m new at it. So I’m not gonna be like other people out there who’ve been playing badminton for just a few days but claim that they’re masters of badminton already. I admit that I’m new and I’m not good at it yet, but I hope to soon be. From this day forward, I will strive to do my best for my games to be all about footwork, form and fun.

What made me decide to learn the real game?

I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. ^_^


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Just So You Know

Today is gonna be the day when they’re gonna throw it back to you.

I need a break.

I need a break from a lot of things. I need a break from using ‘she’ when I mean me and using ‘he’ when I mean you. I need a break from having ‘Wonderwall’ and ‘Flavor of Life’ as the only songs in my playlist. I need a break from the emotional turmoil of wanting to bring back something that I can never have again. I need a break from all of this – I need a break from you.

By now you should’ve somehow realized what you gotta do.

And so today I’ve decided that I’m going to use ‘I’ to refer to myself in this entry. And I’m going to have a playlist all made up of happy songs. And I’m going to forget the things that I can’t do anything about anymore.

Today I’ve decided to let it all go. Today I’ve decided to let go.

I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now.

Three years ago a guy put a ring on my finger and promised me ‘someday’. I knew better than to believe him, so I threw the ring away. Not that long ago you put a smile on my face and promised me ‘forever’. I knew better than to believe you, but for some reason, I thought you were different. So I held on – I am holding on – to your promise.

Backbeat the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out

Except that sometimes we think we can do things that we don’t do just because we want to. Me, I’m impatient; I don’t like waiting for things that don’t come fast enough. I’m a proximity person; when you’re no longer beside me, everything we shared fades away. I don’t like vagueness; I want to always be able to know which side of the line I’m on. But because I believed every word you told me that night, I decided that I would be patient, I would put up with the distance and I would bear the haziness of it all.

But now I realize that I can’t do this after all. I can’t hold on to ‘forever’ because it hasn’t even been a year and the pain is already unbearable.

I’m sure you’ve heard it all before but you never really had a doubt

I saw this coming a long, long time ago, but I guess I committed the mistake that everyone high on serotonin does: I chose to dwell in the present and not think about the future. Had I had more sense when this started to become a big deal from me, I would have walked away. But I didn’t, and that’s why I’m in the middle of nowhere right now. I’m hurting in the middle of nowhere right now, holding on to your ‘forever’, which I’m not sure when it’s gonna come or if it’s even gonna come.

I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now

I’m trying to hold on because I want to believe in you. But I’ve come past the point where I’m asking myself if your ‘forever’ is really worth holding on to, especially when it’s causing me this much pain. I’ve been told forever before, you know. By a group of people who were supposed to be by my side whatever happens, until the end. But their forever didn’t even last a semester. I’m wondering if yours would be like theirs, and though it pains me to admit it, I think the answer is yes.

And all the roads we have to walk are winding
And all the lights that light the way are blinding

Maybe we’re just not meant for this. Maybe we’re meant for something else. I can’t go on if this forever means waiting for a promise that you’re not even here to deliver. Maybe it looks okay to you because I try to hide it by being supportive of you and your decisions, but the truth is, it’s not okay for me.

It makes me want to cry every time I laugh and pretend to be alright, it makes me want to cry every time I lay on my bed and feel so hollow inside.

There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don’t know how

I want to believe in you. But I can’t hold on anymore.

They say that you should never regret anything that made you happy. I don’t regret anything then, because you did make me happy. It’s just that maybe this is not what we need right now.

I’m letting go of forever. I’m letting go of you.

Because maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me. And after all, you’re my wonderwall.

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