where-the-heartache-is

[where-the-heartache-is]

Marshmallow. A prompt.

And all I can think about is the first time that we kissed. Your arms around my waist, and there I was, soft as a marshmallow, melting into your arms with my arms around your neck. After we broke it off and were both flushed with hints of "well, that happened" and I was about to leave the room - you pulled me in again and kissed me, again. And once again, I was a marshmallow, light as air. And then the third time, sitting in my house overseeing the vibrant gradient of a sunset, I was leaning on you before I turned my head and you kissed me - your lips on mine with the sweetest of songs playing, if the feeling of the moment was ever edible, it would be a marshmallow.

Cotton candy days and super soft smiles, it all falls in alignment with the notion of a marshmallow, yet all it was left as was burning, burning, burning. Now, I am. Burnt as a marshmallow.

I heard the word Marshmallow and somehow thought of you//SA.

[where-the-heartache-is]

[where-the-heartache-is]

how do we forgive ourselves for the people we don't remember?

When I was 6, I met a girl on a trip, she looked like Moana and her hair smelled like jasmine. I was convinced she was my soulmate. Then how did I forget her name? How could I? When I was 6, I thought stars were lightbulbs and that I could eat clouds and I thought soulmates don't leave each other.

I fell in love, countless times, with strangers and people I knew. I used to think that you either love someone or you don't. But I found this gray area where love remains frozen in time as memories. I loved them, I love them, back to summer 2021 and spring 2019 and summer 2010 and so many dates that the fountain where I house memories is overflowing and all people see are my tears.

How do we forgive ourselves for the goodbyes we said? Or worse, the ones we couldn't say? I was so sure that some people would stay, that I walked with them the last time and did not even know. I'm not 6 anymore but I secretly still hope that soulmates don't leave each other.

My friend once said that people are like lighthouses, they'll guide you home if they want to. And when I saw a beacon of bright lilac light, I thought it was my calling but it was just another house I had to change. I'm not 6 anymore but clouds still look like cotton candy and my hand doesn't seem to stop reaching for them.

I have never seen the inside of my heart but I know it looks like goodbyes and faded photographs, it smells like jasmine and strawberries, all the pages scattered inside have hugs and faces and glances and there is regret, so much regret for the stuff I did and didn't do. And time seems to be running out. I wish I was still 6.

[where-the-heartache-is]

Where is it?

The end of missing someone.

Where is it?

[where-the-heartache-is]

There it is.

The wanting.

In those eyes.

In that smile.

[where-the-heartache-is]

A Lack of Colour.

There she is. Standing at the edge of the balcony, the bright red horizon of the glittering city laid out in front of her. And he stands a few feet behind, letting her make the horizon a little more divine for him.

She’s turning around. His heart skips a beat. Like he’s about to see her for the first time, all over again. Like all their past and all their present have all raveled up to create this brand-new moment.

She’s smiling. This red dress suits her quite well, but he can’t remember ever seeing it on her before. Her lips are too, tinted red. A soothing, true red.

He walks up to her. “It’s so good to see you. It’s always so good to see you,” he blurts out. She smiles wider, a prolonged blink to portray her silent concurrence. She knows the effect she has on him.

His fingertips brush down her arms. It’s almost surreal, watching her from so close. Her smile stays on, incessantly. Her rosy, buttery skin is a touch he didn’t realise he had missed so much.

He clutches her hand tight. The sky starts getting hazier – almost like it’s moving around. The red-tinted horizon, too, starts feeling further away, out of focus.

“Come back home,” the words slip out of his mouth ever-so-softly. Like a plea, a pure form of solicitation. Home hasn’t really felt like home ever since she left.

She simply smiles wider. Her eyes squint, a light pink tinge glistening the tears welled up in her eyes. “You don’t realise it, do you?” The question comes with a tighter clutching of his hand.

And before he knows it, she pulls him by the hand as she falls back. They’re spiraling down what seems to be a thousand-storied building. He feels like he’s falling through a spectrum, watching the tranquil red of her lips fade, as everything becomes lesser and lesser saturated. The pretty horizon that was beaming with bright red lights were now all blurred out, like the universe was bursting at the seams. And in all this chaos, all that is static, is her. Her beautiful smile plastered onto her face, as she pulls him closer and closer to a never-ending abyss. He braces himself for the consequences of the fall, feeling an adrenaline rush like never before, but not a good one at all. One last look at her, everything’s now black and white; her face, her hand, his hand in hers, all that that’s there, all that he can see. He closes his eyes tight, and feels fear engulfing him, for the first time in years.

...

His body jolts as his eyes unlatch, he feels like his heart is beating out of his chest. He sits up, finding a subtle hint of the light of morning making its way into his room through a tiny gap between his thick curtains. It’s been four years now, but this one dream doesn’t fail to leave him a reminder, at least once a month. A bitter reminder of the vastness of his feelings for that one person, of his failure to hold her back when he should’ve, of all the colours in his world that she took with him when she walked out the door. He reaches out for his water bottle kept on his side table; the recurring dream never fails to leave him with a thirst. As he gulps down the water, he realizes how this thirst goes beyond just water, becoming one to be unquenched… perhaps, forever.

[where-the-heartache-is]

You'd be surprised at how quick people are to forget.

[where-the-heartache-is]

Before We Go (dir. Chris Evans, 2014)

[where-the-heartache-is]

When you talked earlier about after a few years, how a couple would begin to hate each other by anticipating their reactions, or getting tired of their mannerisms… I think it would be the opposite for me. Before Sunrise (1995) dir. Richard Linklater

[where-the-heartache-is]

Clementine the tangerine.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) dir. Michel Gondry

[where-the-heartache-is]

Yes, trying to find your old self is quite hard, but have you ever tried losing yourself?

I’ve been trying to.

I’ve tried to lose myself in a monotonous routine,

in unsettling evening walks,

in the unknown streets of other cities,

in the burning of the throat as the bitter drink runs down,

in the trace the distasteful smoke leaves in my nose,

in meaningless conversations and laughs,

in books, movies, songs.

And all I’ve gotten is coming back to the same self. 

The same scattered, distorted self.

And all this returning has made me forget -

forget to believe in the hope of ever being put back together,

in the hope of ever being some self again.

[where-the-heartache-is]

Yourself. Others. Luck. Fate. The Universe. Karma. Religion. God.

What do you blame when you're done pointing fingers everywhere?

[where-the-heartache-is]

Know.

“I- No- I wasn’t!” he exclaims defensively, almost as if he really wasn’t lying. He forgets so very easily. He forgets that one of the first things he mentioned that pulled him towards me, was the way I just knew him. As clichéd as it felt, there was something about the way he said – the way he wholeheartedly emphasized on the word “know” – that pulled me to him in return. And he was right, I really did know him too well. Every action of his; be it his subconscious hair-fixing, the crooked smile that followed every joke as he waited for me to get it, his constant nibbling of his left ring finger with his right thumb and index finger... I know exactly when which action occurs, even before it occurs.

It’s funny how perspective changes, isn’t it? Knowing him was so good at first – I loved every second of it. I loved noticing every action, reading into every habit, having that side of him only exposed to me. And the same knowledge tears me apart inside every time I look at him.

His denial is so convincing… Probably because I want to believe him with all my heart and soul. But the problem persists – I know him. I know him. His ring finger might be empty, but the mark his ring has left over the years is so very prominent – And even though he takes it off whenever he meets me, I know he does it so I’m not reminded of her presence in his life. Like an open secret, but just between the two of us.

Knowing him so well comes with the baggage of knowing just where I stand in his life. No matter how much of his time of the day is written to my name, at night, he’ll return to her. He has to. And I know, regardless of however “frustrating” she is, he wants to. The way his voice broke before he answered my question, him being caught off-guard… Tears me apart, but hey, I knew this would be happening the moment I asked.

“I wasn’t thinking of her,” he repeats in that very same defensive tone, without me asking this time. There it is again… The nibbling of the ring finger. He does it every time he thinks of her. Of course, the thought of her crosses his mind so very often – Why wouldn’t it? The “her” part of the set to the ring that’s hidden in the pouch of his wallet adorns her ring finger all the time. Hopefully all the time. Not-so-hopefully, all the time.

I smile. I know his wandering eyes, his clenched jaw. I know how the speed of his nibbling increases as he turns anxious – Sort of like he knows he’ll be caught lying. “Okay,” I smile again, looking away, knowing that the more I can feel the truth in his eyes, the more it’ll only hurt me.

“I wasn’t thinking of her, Ryn-“ he stops midway through, guilt instantly spreading through his face like a wildfire through a forest. The pain of being called her name pierces my heart like a dagger, but I smile anyway. The smile wasn’t due to being proven right, but it was because of the simple reassurance – That they may be bind together by two rings and the name of an “engagement,” but it was always going to be me that knew him the best. I’m always going to know him the best.

[where-the-heartache-is]

What an idiot I’d have to be to see the same pattern and think it’d go a different way this time.

Like just another cliched story, it had the similar plot line, just worded differently - Under the illusion of a new cover.

Since it’s a night to finally start believing that there’s absolutely nothing that can bring me down... Here’s to knowing that the same old story definitely cannot be an exception. :)

[where-the-heartache-is]

It’s just suffering now. A suffocating, caging suffering.

Nothing feels like home. No one feels comfortable or easing or even familiar anymore.

Only if ending it came as easily as the thought of ending it does.

[where-the-heartache-is]

not sure what hurts but it hurts

[where-the-heartache-is]

via twitter