Gold and Silver

I never thought that I could be so satisfied
Every time that I look in your angel eyes
A shock inside me that words just can't describe
And there's no explaining

Something in the way you move I can't deny
Every word from your lips is a lullaby
A twist of fate makes life worthwhile
You are gold and silver.

(chorus)
I said I wasn't gonna lose my head
But then POP! goes my heart
I wasn't gonna fall in love again
But then POP! Goes my heart
And I just can't let you go

I can't lose this feeling
These precious moments, we have so few,
Let's go far away where there's nothing to do but play
You've shown to me that my destiny's with you,
And there's no explaining

Let's fly so high- will you come with me tonight?
In your dress, I confess you're the source of light.
The way you shine under starry skies
You are gold and silver.

(chorus)

A twist of fate makes life worthwhile
You are gold and silver.
I said I wasn't gonna lose my head
But then POP! goes my heart.
I wasn't gonna fall in love again
But then POP! Goes my heart.

(chorus)

******
Of course I listened to the lyrics,
and of course I smiled.

*****
Sometimes, rarely, there's a moment just before the rain comes, when the wind slowly rises to a crescendo and the leaves begin to be stripped unwillingly off the trees in a gradually enlarging shower of yellow; and there's an almost palpable magic in the air... a fleeting moment of tense expectation, of an almost... longing... for release.

It's the perfect moment for a brisk walk down the riverside; so drab and mundane in the day - and even on a muggy tropical night, dull yellow lights mutely reflecting off the still of lethargic black water - but when the moment arose last night the waters were whipped into a frenzy, and the lights of the Fullerton and Indochine transformed into a myriad shifting fireflies - alive - and breathing.

And I just stopped walking, and missed the feeling of your fingers gripping mine, and your shoulder brushing mine as we walk in that odd loping gait we always assume, side by side.

And then the rain came.

*****
As she said it, her voice broke.
"I don't want to lose him!"

She sniffled a bit.
"What's wrong with me?"

I paused, and thought.
Nothing is wrong with you, except perhaps that you are blind to what is good, and real, and
right there in front of you, and you keep trying to throw it away. And you despair, because you know subconsciously that it is rare, and precious...

I said "nothing is wrong with you...", and thought.
I don't want to lose you.
Ever.

Unless you should wish to leave; even then I won't want to lose you. But I'll be good. I'll try. The final act of love... is sacrifice.

*****
It's only been a fortnight!
Perhaps this is too precipitous; perhaps I should save the words for a moment of more significance, somewhere in the future;
But somehow, early as it seems, now feels the time.

I've only ever said this (not in so many words) once before, in the aftermath of an unexpected, badly executed and half-thought out breakup. And the words were charged with such different emotions then, as they are now...

but thank you.

for every glance, and glare we have shared,
every smile, every touch,
every moment of love and passion,
and friendship and laughter

every thought exchanged
every jibe and riposte
every mock moment of hatred, and every true moment of love
For every moment we have spent together

I thank you.

It's been a joy, and an honour...
and simply wonderful.

I had forgotten how to hope, in the face of all I have watched, heard, and experienced; I had thought the future too vague and uncertain to think past tomorrow.... too many variables, too much left to chance; too volatile and unpredictable. But if I may be so facetious...

My lady,
my lord
my hero and my love,

I pray we may dance like this... for a lifetime.

Afterwards

He looked into her eyes.

"Perfect."

They smiled.

Ripostes

They looked at each other over the table.

"So how long have you been crazy?" he said, smiling.

"So how long have you been girly?" she shot back...

*****
It happened quite by accident; somehow she ended up cocking his thumb backwards on itself.

She recoiled, clearly startled; and startling him in return.

"What?"

She cocked her own thumb back in wonder, and said, "we're made for each other... we're freaks!"

they laughed.

*****
Perhaps the eighth or ninth time they met, when he was just about to ask her if she was really a rep, she asked him if he remembered her product.

He paused for a moment, marvelling at the sheer coincidence of the moment which she would probably never know about.

Of course he remembered. He answered, in his mind : "You're ____, aren't you? And your product is B____, a once monthly _____." (And then he thought, bloody 'ell. I actually remembered all that? But I have the world's most rotten memory!")

Out loud, he said instead, you're the B___ girl, no?

She smiled, clearly impressed.

He couldn't resist...

"I have no idea what it does...?"

She frowned, and he laughed inside himself.

*****
He watched the words appear on screen : Out of point, but I miss you.

His Y chromosome kicked in and he didn't reply, but just smiled at the screen.

Not that this has anything to do with anything, but I miss you too.

Because all that matters is what you believed

I'm not going to turn this into a "hurting you" affair.

My instinctive reaction had been to laugh - derisively, snort - in disbelief, roll my eyes - till it hurt.

I'm not going to hurt you.

But instead I smiled.

Infinity Pool

Have you ever watched the sunrise over the cityscape?

It starts subtly, with a barely perceptible lightening of the horizon...

They watched the sky brighten, and take on a faint, pale blue hue; the water at their feet began to shimmer and glow just a little. And the wind, which had battered them all night began to abate. The buildings slowly shed their cloaks of darkness and turned from black silhouettes into grey shadows.

I wish I could stay here forever, she said, huddling closer into his arms.

He didn't reply, but drew her in a little, and thought - I wish I could hold you close like this, forever.

Dance Macabre

He'd spent most of the night just looking at her eyes, watching the way she animated herself. She was so, so alive, and her eyes, as they held his gaze, were simply breathtaking.

Every now and then she would wink, and old at heart as he was, he always felt a thrill of... something young, and good, and he would laugh.

She was so very, very beautiful.

When they reached her place, he slowed down to pull over.

"You don't have to turn in..." she said, looking at him with those eyes. (coolly-amused but unexpectedly - ie when she wanted them to be - soulfully-expressive almond-shaped eyes)

"I still owe you a killing..." he said, and smiled.

He put his hands around her neck as he'd planned, in a mock-stranglehold, and looked deep into her eyes.

In truth he'd waited for, and wanted for this moment to happen for the longest time - but somehow had felt too shy the previous times they met to actually make it come to be. Oft-times in a past so forgotten now that it felt like another lifetime, he hadn't been too shy; yet those moments had been mere facsimiles of what was about to happen.

He reached out and brushed a stray strand of hair off her face, and said, softly,

"Don't move... a muscle. Don't twitch a hair. I'm memorizing your eyes..."

He'd wondered if - and had rather hoped he would - and now he found himself doing it for real, too easily... he started to drown in her eyes.

"I'll never forget your eyes."

drowning...

"You have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen..."

He'd had half thoughts of ? maybe? reaching over and drawing her to him (in a gentle, yet manly manner.... laugh) and kissing her, or perhaps just saying goodnight and letting her out of the car; he hadn't really thought this bit out...

... what followed was. Unexpected.

A Poor Head for Numbers

Perhaps he had always searched for a certain affinity... a certain significance, and perhaps that was why he had always gravitated towards those in his own field, and perhaps why the few abberations that had occurred, he had sought a certain similarity between two souls and minds.

As his eyes met and held hers, holding his; eyes that sparkled with mirth and mischief; playful, rogueish tomboy eyes set in a deceptively delicate, gentle and very feminine face... as he watched, and played with her, just sitting there, it seemed enough, to just sit and watch, for as long as he could; to just be. And play.

And laugh.

No more quests for truth, no more searching for soulmates; just here and now;
just... enough.
Just... forever.


*****
There is a time to meet, and a time to part...

... and a time to be.

Finding Jean

As they turned to go, her slipper fell off with a clatter. It landed flat side down, heel up. She had the good grace to look embarrassed as she groped around the floor with her foot for it..

"Oops..."

He scrambled off his bar stool to retrieve it, and knelt down extravagantly to help her become re-shod.

"Cinderella..." he muttered, slipping it back onto her foot flamboyantly.

As he stood up, there was a clatter...

She : "It's almost as if..."

He : "Are you doing that intentionally...?"

They laughed.

*****
She narrowed her eyes a little, as did he.

And then she, a little more. Menacingly

He followed suit.

There was a tense silence, and then they burst out laughing.

I can't see your eyes, she said, in turn mocking him with hers. Roguish.

As he watched her, he knew it would only be a matter of time...

.. before he confessed to having already fallen.

She was... perfect.

*****
He turned slightly as they laughed, and his eyes found hers.

They were so, so beautiful.

Nothing happened for a while, and then they looked away.

He realized, in shock, that he had stayed himself out of something approaching fear, or perhaps (spit) shyness.
It was something old, yet familiar.

Something he had thought lost with age.

And then the moment... slipped away.

The Passionate Heart

I recognise you. Because we are the same. Passionate hearts that know no rationale. But while you do not reign over your actions, it is to my emotions that I give free flight. Because it is when we allow ourselves to feel - love, hate, happiness, sadness, joy, fear - freely and beyond the boundaries of sense and sensability, do we truly live.

Everloving

It's funny isn't it? How music can stir emotions. How this is our song. How you do not know it, and probably never will.

I cried a river of silent tears then, as I poured my heart out to you. But you chose not to listen. Not then, not ever. But it doesn't matter anymore, does it? Not now, not ever.

I still think of you everytime I hear this song. But I don't miss you anymore.

Comfort

He seeks me out for comfort these days.

Silently, he appears beside me. He brushes against me. I am here, he says.

And as I stroke him, ever so gently, I can see the frown easing. He closes his eyes, and for those few moments, he is at peace.

Sleep

It's dusk. The windows are slightly open, but I don't bother to get up and close them properly. It is with a tinge of sadness that I see the last rays of sun disappear.

It's night. The blinds are half drawn, but I don't bother to get up and draw them fully. It is with a sense of dread that I see that darkness has fallen.

I'm lying in bed, flitting in and out of sleep. I tell myself I have to get up, I have things to do, so many things to do. But I don't move. I don't want to get up and face the things I have to do.

And with each passing moment, the sense of sadness and the sense of dread grows. I don't want to deal with it. So I close my eyes, and allow myself to drift once more to sleep.

Sleep, is where I am free.

Despite

... everything that has happened, and everything that has been said,

... the temporary distractions, and the temporary life,

I miss him.

Cheeky

And of all the things she liked about him, what she liked best, was how alive she felt when she was with him.

He had that look on his face again. So she grinned and asked what he was thinking.

You know, you have this very cheeky look on your face. Makes me wonder what you're thinking.

And she laughed, delightedly.

Because no one had ever described her as cheeky.

Expecting

She woke up and switched on her computer.

You have no new messages.

She was surprised, even a little disappointed. She had gotten used to daily banter with a stranger, and the delight that accompanied each new message. Each new message that made her laugh for different reasons.

She lingered for a while... then she sighed, and switched off her computer.

Eyes wide closed

I sat down on the tiled bathroom floor next to him and lifted his head, so that he could rest it on my thigh. He looked slightly happier then, resting his head on my thigh. And as I spoke to him, I stroked his head. Ever so gently, just so he would know that he was loved.

Sometimes, he'd close his eyes, only to open them later to look up at me. I'm here darling, I'm here. Do you know how much I love you?

And then he'd close his eyes again.

Walking with Grace

He watched her eyes sparkling with mirth and mischief, as her face lit up now and again with the brilliance of her smile. The setting : the backdrop of the Singapore skyline, and the ever increasingly noisy New Asia Bar.

It had felt like a quiet little pub when they arrived, rather along the lines of Que Pasa... but as time flew by (as it always did around her) the music became ever louder and the beat began to pound. Girls were standing up to dance... and somewhat insiduously, they had been transported into an upmarket reveller's night club.

He had always hated struggling to make himself heard at clubs and watching people's lips move silently in stark, frustrating incomprehension. Other people always seemed to have the gift - he suspected he was born a little deaf.

Yet somehow they spoke effortlessly through the din, engaging each other with their eyes and thoughts.

Afterwards as they walked, and talked their ways back to the car enjoying the crisp coolness of a rained-out night sky, their hands brushed once or twice. They spoke, and laughed, and teased each other as they always did.

Something she said sparked yet another in the mounting chain of mock-retaliatory-tickles and counter-pokes-in-sides they had been sharing, and then, rather naturally they found themselves walking hand in hand.

Nothingness

And I welcome the tears, the hot tears that flow down my cheeks. Because they tell me one thing, that I am still able to feel.

When emotions cease to exist, and all I feel is... a void... and I know, I'm not feeling anything, I'm just... numb... and I think, I don't want to feel nothing, because there is nothing beyond nothing, and I wonder, why am I not feeling anything, why can't I feel anything... and I search, for something to feel for, for anything to feel for, because there is nothing worse than not feeling; except maybe... I don't know, I don't know anything anymore.

Perhaps that is what happens when grief ends. Nothing.

The Happy Prince

*****
There was once a sad prince. He wasn't really a prince, but some people (well, one person at any rate) called him the prince of posh, and once upon a time he had been a King of Corn, so for the purposes of this little parable he was a slightly blue-blooded prince.

Anyway, the point is that he was aggrieved.

*****
Grief, according to Kubler-Ross -

In a nutshell, there're five stages.

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

*****
He was used to grieving, it had become second nature. It's a fucked up world, and as we get older, we realise more and more that people fuck each other over all the time... and with every subsequent fuckover his heart grew just a little more cynical and cold. Sometimes he got screwed over by purported "friends", and he'd watch it happening to himself and laugh.

Something happened one day, and one suspects it happened in the prince's head.

Then try as he might, grief seemed to have taken a hiatus...

He was sad from time to time, of course... life is all about little moments in time.

But where for the longest time he had lived in an relative absence of sadness, interspersed with the occasional happy moment...

Now he found himself smiling at the quirky little messages on his mobile screen, as he blundered down the street oblivious to the people around him...

... laughing as someone struck him hard on the shoulder, again and again...

... trying not to smile, looking into her eyes, then glancing away, then irresistably being drawn back again...

... and laughing again at her, and with her, and with the clever and funny little things she said from time to time.

... and trying not to smile, and failing, as he watched her lolling on a park bench by the waterside struggling valiantly not to fall asleep in what she called sunshine, and the rest of the world would have called dreary, overcast twilight.

And often when he laughed, he really laughed.

Illogical

And I guess the reason why I am scared, is because I can see where this is heading.

How many times have I been hurt because I allowed myself to lose control? To fall, deeply, for someone I knew would never reciprocate my feelings? To abandon all sense of logic, and just feel.

I don't know when he will be ready, and even when he is ready, if he'll be ready for me. Given the uncertainty, logic dictates that I should not allow myself to like him too much. But I've always hated controlling my emotions, hated having to control my emotions, hated losing control of my emotions. Whether my feelings for him develop or not is irrelevant, I just want to be able to let go right from the start. Because that is what makes me happy, that is what I consider living life.

But I am scared. That my feelings will develop. As they invariably will. That he will never be ready for me. As they never are. That it will all go horribly wrong. As it always does. What happens then? That I know I will be able to handle it is irrelevant. I don't want to put myself through all that. Because living life has worn me out.

Logic dictates that I should walk away. At least for now. But since when have I ever listened to logic?