Lonelily Lonely

1.
And then, maybe, it’s just the rain. Maybe it’s one of those days when you think you feel lonely, and after a few minutes, your heart follows suit. I’ve told myself that if I wanted to be strong, if I want to go through life with a spirit that can best all odds, my heart has to be the one leading the throng of wills inside my body. My heart should be the one who will have the courage to make a choice. I know my heart, I know how it feels. It will always be correct, no matter what my brain says. When my heart goes, everything will follow. And nothing else will need to matter after that.

2.
When I was young, I actually thought that the more heartaches you have, the better. I moved through my life relishing all the bitter endings of my childhood, all the while thinking, yes, yes. This feels right. Even when I was on my knees, keeling from the pain of my memory which only serves to make actual situations seem more painful than they actually are, a part of me wants to break open my chest, hold that throbbing heart in my hands and tell everybody, look at my scars, look at my fucking scars: I’m in pain, isn’t it the most wonderful thing in the world?

Always when I am at that edge, I swear everything else blurs, and there is nothing else but me and that long, long blackness ahead. I can’t even pinpoint whether my pain is pulling me towards it or holding me back; the agony of what I’m going to do from there is excruciating. And addicting. Maybe it’s partly why I have never really learned how to run away from my problems and forget—because I revelled in it, in a way, the doubt, the tears. It’s something I knew early on. It’s the only thing I knew. And it really sucks becoming like that while growing up. Because a part of me is uncomfortable whenever I’m happy, like I don’t deserve it.

3.

So I’ve never really been the one for all the happy-joy-joy’s of the world. I’m more of the wallflower kind, I guess. Always observing in a corner.

Today while I was waiting for my friend, along the street of Kamuning Road, I was standing under a shed, waiting for the rain to stop. To my left was something I’d call a drinking shanty. Seedy, with all the smoke, greasy countertops and bad karaoke. A man was there, all alone, drinking. Probably have been there all afternoon. He was singing to Enrique Iglesias’ Hero.

And maybe it’s just me, and the rain perhaps, or the way lonely people seem even lonelier whenever it rains: I felt sad, sad in a way that I’ve never been in a long time. I felt like crying, and suddenly the street before me seems so long. And I felt out of place, like I needed to be somewhere, within someone’s arms perhaps, but then I think it’s been about three years now today that I’ve had someone, and yes I am alone, I am fucking alone again. And that man singing is alone, too, he’s singing his heart out because he’s fucking alone. He’s wailing, I can be your hero, baby, but there is no one looking for someone like him today, everybody’s got somebody witnessing their lives, and we are two people, out here in the streets, losing our minds, feeling our hearts flood heavily with rain.

4.

But not to be too poetic. It’s just been a few months, but I’m working hard on trying to stop with all this crap. The bleeding heart and all that. I’ve told myself, man, you have got to grow up, and crying about everything else is not at all something I’ve envisioned myself to do in the many, many years to come. But I am also coming to the realisation that this fucking slump might take a while, like when I tried to teach myself how to ride a bike, or tie my shoelaces, or peel oranges, or, my goodness, write poetry. It takes some time, and I’ll always emerge victorious but bruised. And when I finally learn how to do some things like that, I’m no better off from before, I’m still the same me, and I’ve managed to learn these things in the only way I’ll be able to do it, no matter how much I’ve told myself to try something new: in a way with my sadness clinging, hanging on to my sleeve.

So there. I’ll always be a little bit lonely, no matter how much I’ve wanted to change. There’s always something to be lonely for, in this world, that I think I’ll never run out.

5.

Yes, there will always be brooding. I cannot escape it. There will always be things like that, things that will make my heart tell my whole body, this is what it takes to be sad—knees shaking, lungs contracting, eyes feeling strangely hot—this is what it takes to be me. There will always be things to notice, things to grieve for, and I am still that little girl who wants to break her chest open, show everyone her scars and say, over and over, Isn’t it lovely, isn’t it lovely, isn’t it lovely?