i never thought i’d meet you again here. in the bustling madness of a busy MRT station. between the tangled lines of people tapping out from the exit machine, your steps made their way to me. it was four years of my life, compacted into two seconds of fight or flight reaction. back then, we didn’t even allow ourselves a fight to fight, so this time i decided to man up against whatever gentleness you still carry in that same sweden backpack. hands meeting halfway, i guess some things are just simply incapable of changing.

it's been so long. has it? as we took the longer route to the center of the city, my hands began to tingle. i look up at the skyscrapers, then down to the scrapes of my heart.

time has lost its meaning, i wanted to say. for me, it's been six months of impossible performances. i have been wearing my machines down to the point of malfunction just to achieve half of the things on my checklist. i have been selling myself out, dropping the price each time i faced rejection. i have been staring at people's windows on my way home from work, wondering if there's anyone at the table kind enough to invite me in and save me from the excruciating pain of having dinners alone. it's been six lonely months, hanging by a thread that will soon choke me up to death.

you're working now. here for a visit. said you've been enjoying the city, though it's a bit too crowded for a country mouse like you. it's been a hard year, but things are getting better now that you've landed yourself a job that pays well. nothing too fancy, you downplayed. just enough to survive. well, isn't survival is what we're trading our souls for? i have to say, it's nice to be able to hear your voice again. you look beautiful now that your hair is a bit longer. there's a sharpness in your face that i don't recognize. but i guess that's what growing up does. it strips you down to your edges.

under the street lights, i was unable to meet your gaze. you laughed when i told you about the industrial city and the polluted air that might cost me lung cancer. you nodded as i ranted more about what it's like working with expats with difficult accents. how soul-consuming corporate social codes are. then it occurs to me that you've been giving me those eyes. those 'i'm proud of you' eyes that sent the younger version of me into a full-blown overdrive. it took everything in me to hold myself back from punching your face and bolts. God, you can't look at me like that.

because what the hell. what do you say to a person that you once loved with all your bones? you know how language fails at exactly the moments we are trained to rely on it? what are the words you're supposed to use in front of someone who had a connection to your every neuron? the question gnaws at me as seconds flicker to minutes, and minutes slip into the realization of how fleeting this moment is. in an hour or two, some metal tubes would have to bring you away from everything we are right now. and i would be as powerless as i was in september 2021, clad in my white shirt as the autumn wind blew us apart.

what are we doing anyway? sitting on a bench of a soccer field, shoulder to shoulder as the cold air engulfs us both. this is part solace, part lunar eclipse. it's like someone had whisked me away from my tiresome routine and allowed me a few minutes of heaven. but where do i go after this? knowing such heaven exists. knowing i might be able to afford it. i might be able to afford us. but with you, it's always a game of calculation, and i'm always a deer caught in the headlights of my own mathematics. so what do i know?

it's been years now. and for what it's worth, we both are adults. the place i'm returning to by the end of this night is a lifetime of empty rooms with single beds and suitcases that are always half-unpacked. i'm guessing the price i'm paying for rent and groceries is not knowing what a home looks like from the inside. it's standing between the line of the marxist root i was born into, and the capitalist promises of what life could have become. it's knowing that the only option i ever have is to keep moving forward. you know i'm a tough kid. hell bent on being able to withstand any storm with my own legs. but even i often would unconsciously peer down just to see if someone, anyone, will catch me if i fall.

i couldn't admit that to you, obviously. not when you already know it all without me having to spill my guts out. there's a depth in my soul that you know, but will always be a mystery to me. which is unfair as i have told you countless of times in my letters. i have nowhere to hide from you. i can lie to myself and say that things are going to be better. life is going to be worthy of all the mayhem i went through. but not in front of you. not with you sitting beside me with that same smile you wore when we first met. 

i took a deep exhale as we both walked back to the railway station. my dearest moon, i genuinely wished we could be blooming petunias, evergreen in someone's garden. but whimsical wishes are expensive, so i'm watching you board your train. electricity flows up to the overhead lines, doors are closing. funny how undeniably in love we looked to strangers stepping up to their commute journey. two young heart staring at each other through the fogged up window. well, you know how some love just simply cannot be resurrected without killing the people involved? but then again, my question is, did our love ever die at all?

that was rhetorical. i have questions running through my brain like a haywire prison break. maybe it is me breaking out of the prison cell and realizing how finite we are even beyond the walls. there were no weight to what i've been dwelling all night. there were no weight in our reunion. this doesn't change anything. you're leaving down south to our hometown, our highschool friends, and the tree lined street that lead you to beautiful churches. and i'm staying here, doing taxes and getting cheap takeouts on saturday nights. desperate to find out if i will ever be capable of falling in love again. 

so, so long, my brightest star.

glad i've met you in my north.

 jocelyn, i heard they're locking your wedlock this July. 

you know it's a small town. rumors are bound to spread faster than a summer wildfire. it reached my doorstep before your white invitations did. i was disappointed that you weren't there to break the news. just your mother and her 2010 honda civic, leaving tire marks long enough to stretch my heart loose.  maybe it would've been better. i wouldn't know what to say. i never know what to do when it comes to you. 

they said the party would be small. closer to an elopement than an actual wedding. your family were a closed up methodists. never for big celebrations. just close family and friends, they said. i wasn't both, i guess. but it seems that we both agreed that i had to be there. 

honest as you are, it itched my ear when they're keep saying he's making a honest woman out of you. what were you thinking, jocelyn? going for a good-for-nothing son of a gun. you could've just run away from this city, maybe begin a life on the shore. not fancy nor church approved, but entirely yours. you light the whole city with your laughter and now you're walking down the aisle wearing a pan am smile. 

oh jocelyn, maybe it's just jealousy speaking. do i want to be your husband or do i want one my own, it's my own misery to dwell upon. you do look beautiful in that dress. but with every morphemes pouring down your lips, it's getting harder to keep tears falling down mine. i kept seeing the phantom of your burlesque days, radiant and in my arms. i kept seeing versions of myself, melting into the same altar. ah jocelyn, i really want to go home now.

because of course i want to go home. you know i was never the best and letting things go. the sun is setting now. they're lighting the fairy lights and you stepped down to mingle with the guests. i recognized your aunts, the cousins from your dad's side of the family, the hot uncles. i just stand there awkwardly, not knowing what to do with my hands, or with the scraps of my heart. they offered champagnes, but what i want is a can of ice cold root beers that's just balsamic enough to makes it disgusting. what i want is the color of your eyes, knitted into gigantic persian rugs. what i want is escape. what i want is my home cat that died when i was eleven. what i want is not here nor anywhere. jocelyn, you're one hell of an evil woman.

its killing me. i don't even care to pretend, cause it's just killing me real hard. you're not running. i'm not objecting. you're marrying a man and i'm melting into static sugar. what the hell is static sugar even supposed to mean? i lost. i lost. i whispered to you. congratulation J. the crowd whispers. liar liar supernova on fire. fucking childs game. i took my car keys and left the church. 

your wed is down locked, so be it.

our wed is down closed, so be it.

so be it.

so be it.