Psychic Memories
Dawn is a breath away, and I greet the cool Friday morning with a heart as full as the moon that floats high above me, my companion throughout the dark and quiet night. The many problems that plague me have been brushed aside for a few days, and I chose instead to immerse myself in happy thoughts and sunshine as long as I could hold out. Now as darkness floods my room, the many problems rise from every nook and cranny that I've shoved them into, and together they seem unbeatable. I am expected to be everything I'm not. I'm tired of the lies, I'm tired of lying, I'm tired of all these things that pierce me unseen. R has cut me off from his life; for him we've said our goodbyes. I don't quite know what I've done to incur his wrath, and that makes it worse. I would like to flush out the memories that are filled with J. Remove them completely. Ignorance, as they say, is bliss. He is light itself, the complete opposite to my natural element. Therefore the attraction remains strong, something that both time and distance cannot dull. Perhaps he has found his wings at long last, and if he flies away again, then the tears of blood shall flow once more. I am tired, but I know if I close my eyes now, the nightmares will come galloping throughout my mind and ravage my soul. Not that it isn't already ravaged and broken, but then again...
I don't know why Angel has been so cold to me as well. I'm so afraid my past might be catching up with me, and I'm terrified of what I might remember next. I don't want to remember, I don't want to know anything about my younger years. I am who I am now, and that should be enough. Why is my mind tormenting me this way? Why can't I just forget every horrifying vision, every terrible memory, every painful experience? The few that have surfaced still frighten me in ways I cannot truly understand. A few have been faced down and confronted completely, but there are so many that lurk unseen in the corridors of my mind. I wonder vaguely if it is possible to completely forget. I'm listening to Foolish Games by Jewel now, and my fingers are already subconsciously moving in tune to the piano keys. Mr Lim has offered to move my old piano for free, together with Yammy, so I can have two pianos. I cannot bear to part with my old Challen. We've been through all my ups and downs, and my mum told me three days ago that she would always wake with a light heart in the mornings whenever she heard me play on the piano. And I remember. I remember creeping down to my piano at six in the morning when I thought my head would explode.
I don't want to be this way anymore. I'm happy with who I am now. I don't want my past to catch up with me. All that pain should just stay in my history, entire libraries that should never be explored. Yet it does, when I least expect it. The oddest things trigger my memories. A familiar scent; Esther's perfume. A playground, where I used to sit and wonder detachedly at why people smiled, why families could laugh and talk and connect, why people looked so happy.. My fear, my pain. Hiding away from everyone and everything, pretending to be sick so I could skip school and stay home to spend all day with my piano. Everything comes at me at the strangest times, for even stranger reasons. I cannot remember much, but what I do remember pains me badly. There were people who tried to reach me, of course there were. But back then, I trusted people even less than I do now. The realisation that I was an extremely cold child hits me full force, you know? Emotion was weakness. You never ever said how you feel, because you weren't allowed to. You weren't whole. My thoughts, my pen, paper and piano were all I had. I didn't want anything else, I didn't have anything else. I didn't fit in because I wasn't...like everyone else. I'm not just talking about the gay issue. I wondered about many things. I wondered about religion when my peers were talking about the latest music bands and stuff. I wondered about my purpose in life when my classmates were frantically studying for their examinations. I sat under a warm sturdy tree at the far end of a mostly abandoned field in school when everyone else took a break from studying. I brought along a tiny notebook and a pen with me at all times, everywhere I went. Everything I felt, everything I thought went into it. I must have had a hundred notebooks in those two years alone. Scribblings went on for pages. Odd, disjointed thoughts that came to me as I sat in silence. Always, even in school, I felt alone until I went home and sat at my piano. I was fiercely protective of my piano, and my privacy. Everything else could be taken from me, but these two things were highly prized.
*pained* I went out occasionally, to sit in gardens and wonder why I felt so empty. I snapped and growled and snarled at everyone who attempted to reach me, and finally they sent me to Esther. I don't remember why. The first time I met her, I was frigid. I remember that. Only after a few sessions did I warm up to her quiet, gentle character. I couldn't tell her, though. Why I felt so alone and cut off from everyone else. I read extensively, trying to find answers to questions I couldn't quite formulate myself. I gave her one or two of my journals, written in French. She cried when she read them, although I didn't understand why at the time. I told her about the recurring nightmare I had when I was younger. I used to dream that my parents were wolves who were going to eat me. I think I was five or six when the dreams first started. Eventually I refused to go to sleep, only surrendering when I was too exhausted to fight my own body. I didn't know why at the time. There were many things I didn't know back then.
Love was alien to me, I couldn't give or receive emotion at all. Sure, there was anger. And plenty of fights. With classmates, with family, with lovers. A big chunk of my memory is missing, and I only remember that when my parents moved us to another place, I was transferred to a new school. I skipped classes completely, embittered by my continued emptiness and desperate to find peace in my own self-imposed solitude. I was in pain, and I didn't know why. My parents eventually found out, and during the first year in my new school, I was a complete zombie. I'm sure most of my friends will remember. Back then I still carried my miniature notebook around. It was battered and worn down to the spine, with pages and pages of scribbles, with loose pages everywhere. Thoughts and theories, my vague wonder at the atmosphere of my new school, where everyone seemed to know everyone else.
That first year, I got my heart and soul broken when I trusted the wrong guy. I was beginning to feel emotion, something which surprised me. I'd never felt that way, when he lay in my arms after I played Canon in D for him. He was in tears, and I felt my heart melt as the broken boy wept silently in my arms. Still I retained vestiges of coldness, especially towards everyone else. But he taught me how to love, and more importantly, how to trust. The fact that he ran out on me doesn't matter, because it taught me how to deal with heartbreak, something which I'd never experienced before, even with Alex. It took me a year and many fights with everyone involved before I finally healed. That in itself was an eyeopening experience. The first instance where I loved someone, and got my heart smashed. I realised then that there was so much I'd missed out on. Friendship, for one.
During my second year, I made some friends, and clicked instantly with some people. I learned why some people disliked each other on sight, I learned that people in general could be mean for a hundred different petty reasons. I learned that friendship could go so deep the completion of each other's sentences came easily. I learned that friends defend one another without being asked, as when Kelly overheard some schoolmates gossiping about my sexuality. I learned many things that weren't included in our curriculum. Gradually I changed. I didn't realise it at first, but then the teachers started stopping me in corridors and commenting on how different I was. "You smile now" , "You're looking happier". Sometimes I'd look in the mirror and wonder who I really was. I'd wonder if I was real, if I was really feeling these things that I'd only ever read about before. I didn't know, but I was addicted to these emotions. I'd never felt them before, and I was curious. Happiness was almost a daily occurence, as was the emotion depression, and euphoria. I learned also to resent, to hate, to observe the emotions of others, to label all these emotions that I'd never felt before.
In my notebook, I'd written down all the words to describe feelings and list down all those that I thought I'd experienced. I had deep discussions with Seif about the existence of God and our positions in the universe, and I felt alive. I could talk about everything and anything I wanted to, and he would listen gravely, and give me his opinions without disregarding what I said. For a year, I adjusted to all these strange experiences that other people take for granted. By the second year, I'd already begun eating regularly, although sleep still eluded me on some nights. School suddenly became an adventure where I could answer almost all of my questions. My friends were divided on the topic of God and religion, but they accepted each other's faith without hesitation or prejudice. Right off the bat, they knew that I loved my piano to bits, and that I wasn't exactly the snobbish airhead everyone else assumed I was. That kind of acceptance was new to me, and my integration into social circles in general was laughable at best, and completely humiliating at worst. Often, I would say things that were painfully direct. Sufian in particular suffered from my lack of experience and restraint. Seif didn't like him, because he tried too hard to fit in with everyone. I didn't like him because he didn't like me.
There was one particular incident that sticks in my mind. Space in our Malay class was limited, so usually everyone just sat in their own cliques and left the others to find a space for themselves. I think back then Seif was new to the school, so he was still trying to find someone to connect with, and Sufian had already begun to annoy him (and everyone else in the Malay clique). Sufian tried to push me out of my seat next to Seif and make me sit alone, when I snapped at him, "No one wants you here. Why don't you just go and sit by yourself?" He reeled away from me, and I remember wondering vaguely why he looked like I'd smacked him when I hadn't moved an inch. That was my first lesson on the power of words. Seif was silent, although he looked mildly amused at my outburst. I think a connection firmed itself between us after that.
We started hanging out more often, and I was surprised to find that he had similar thoughts and ideas. We had both drawn cartoon sketches of a character called Tempest who had supernatural abilities, although his controlled time and mine controlled the weather. Small stuff like that amused me because they evoked a strong emotion in me.
If only the good would outweigh the bad. *sigh* That was a lengthy post, even for me. I've ranted and raved, and now the sun is rising. I think the darkness has been held off for at least another day. The day will come when all the suppressed memories will rise as one and attempt to drive me insane. Will I be strong enough? Will I still have people who won't run from the demons that stalk me through the pages of time, through the corridors of my mind? I pray I do. But in case I don't, my piano is all I need to survive an onslaught from my own mind.
Don't leave me, guys.
I don't know why Angel has been so cold to me as well. I'm so afraid my past might be catching up with me, and I'm terrified of what I might remember next. I don't want to remember, I don't want to know anything about my younger years. I am who I am now, and that should be enough. Why is my mind tormenting me this way? Why can't I just forget every horrifying vision, every terrible memory, every painful experience? The few that have surfaced still frighten me in ways I cannot truly understand. A few have been faced down and confronted completely, but there are so many that lurk unseen in the corridors of my mind. I wonder vaguely if it is possible to completely forget. I'm listening to Foolish Games by Jewel now, and my fingers are already subconsciously moving in tune to the piano keys. Mr Lim has offered to move my old piano for free, together with Yammy, so I can have two pianos. I cannot bear to part with my old Challen. We've been through all my ups and downs, and my mum told me three days ago that she would always wake with a light heart in the mornings whenever she heard me play on the piano. And I remember. I remember creeping down to my piano at six in the morning when I thought my head would explode.
I don't want to be this way anymore. I'm happy with who I am now. I don't want my past to catch up with me. All that pain should just stay in my history, entire libraries that should never be explored. Yet it does, when I least expect it. The oddest things trigger my memories. A familiar scent; Esther's perfume. A playground, where I used to sit and wonder detachedly at why people smiled, why families could laugh and talk and connect, why people looked so happy.. My fear, my pain. Hiding away from everyone and everything, pretending to be sick so I could skip school and stay home to spend all day with my piano. Everything comes at me at the strangest times, for even stranger reasons. I cannot remember much, but what I do remember pains me badly. There were people who tried to reach me, of course there were. But back then, I trusted people even less than I do now. The realisation that I was an extremely cold child hits me full force, you know? Emotion was weakness. You never ever said how you feel, because you weren't allowed to. You weren't whole. My thoughts, my pen, paper and piano were all I had. I didn't want anything else, I didn't have anything else. I didn't fit in because I wasn't...like everyone else. I'm not just talking about the gay issue. I wondered about many things. I wondered about religion when my peers were talking about the latest music bands and stuff. I wondered about my purpose in life when my classmates were frantically studying for their examinations. I sat under a warm sturdy tree at the far end of a mostly abandoned field in school when everyone else took a break from studying. I brought along a tiny notebook and a pen with me at all times, everywhere I went. Everything I felt, everything I thought went into it. I must have had a hundred notebooks in those two years alone. Scribblings went on for pages. Odd, disjointed thoughts that came to me as I sat in silence. Always, even in school, I felt alone until I went home and sat at my piano. I was fiercely protective of my piano, and my privacy. Everything else could be taken from me, but these two things were highly prized.
*pained* I went out occasionally, to sit in gardens and wonder why I felt so empty. I snapped and growled and snarled at everyone who attempted to reach me, and finally they sent me to Esther. I don't remember why. The first time I met her, I was frigid. I remember that. Only after a few sessions did I warm up to her quiet, gentle character. I couldn't tell her, though. Why I felt so alone and cut off from everyone else. I read extensively, trying to find answers to questions I couldn't quite formulate myself. I gave her one or two of my journals, written in French. She cried when she read them, although I didn't understand why at the time. I told her about the recurring nightmare I had when I was younger. I used to dream that my parents were wolves who were going to eat me. I think I was five or six when the dreams first started. Eventually I refused to go to sleep, only surrendering when I was too exhausted to fight my own body. I didn't know why at the time. There were many things I didn't know back then.
Love was alien to me, I couldn't give or receive emotion at all. Sure, there was anger. And plenty of fights. With classmates, with family, with lovers. A big chunk of my memory is missing, and I only remember that when my parents moved us to another place, I was transferred to a new school. I skipped classes completely, embittered by my continued emptiness and desperate to find peace in my own self-imposed solitude. I was in pain, and I didn't know why. My parents eventually found out, and during the first year in my new school, I was a complete zombie. I'm sure most of my friends will remember. Back then I still carried my miniature notebook around. It was battered and worn down to the spine, with pages and pages of scribbles, with loose pages everywhere. Thoughts and theories, my vague wonder at the atmosphere of my new school, where everyone seemed to know everyone else.
That first year, I got my heart and soul broken when I trusted the wrong guy. I was beginning to feel emotion, something which surprised me. I'd never felt that way, when he lay in my arms after I played Canon in D for him. He was in tears, and I felt my heart melt as the broken boy wept silently in my arms. Still I retained vestiges of coldness, especially towards everyone else. But he taught me how to love, and more importantly, how to trust. The fact that he ran out on me doesn't matter, because it taught me how to deal with heartbreak, something which I'd never experienced before, even with Alex. It took me a year and many fights with everyone involved before I finally healed. That in itself was an eyeopening experience. The first instance where I loved someone, and got my heart smashed. I realised then that there was so much I'd missed out on. Friendship, for one.
During my second year, I made some friends, and clicked instantly with some people. I learned why some people disliked each other on sight, I learned that people in general could be mean for a hundred different petty reasons. I learned that friendship could go so deep the completion of each other's sentences came easily. I learned that friends defend one another without being asked, as when Kelly overheard some schoolmates gossiping about my sexuality. I learned many things that weren't included in our curriculum. Gradually I changed. I didn't realise it at first, but then the teachers started stopping me in corridors and commenting on how different I was. "You smile now" , "You're looking happier". Sometimes I'd look in the mirror and wonder who I really was. I'd wonder if I was real, if I was really feeling these things that I'd only ever read about before. I didn't know, but I was addicted to these emotions. I'd never felt them before, and I was curious. Happiness was almost a daily occurence, as was the emotion depression, and euphoria. I learned also to resent, to hate, to observe the emotions of others, to label all these emotions that I'd never felt before.
In my notebook, I'd written down all the words to describe feelings and list down all those that I thought I'd experienced. I had deep discussions with Seif about the existence of God and our positions in the universe, and I felt alive. I could talk about everything and anything I wanted to, and he would listen gravely, and give me his opinions without disregarding what I said. For a year, I adjusted to all these strange experiences that other people take for granted. By the second year, I'd already begun eating regularly, although sleep still eluded me on some nights. School suddenly became an adventure where I could answer almost all of my questions. My friends were divided on the topic of God and religion, but they accepted each other's faith without hesitation or prejudice. Right off the bat, they knew that I loved my piano to bits, and that I wasn't exactly the snobbish airhead everyone else assumed I was. That kind of acceptance was new to me, and my integration into social circles in general was laughable at best, and completely humiliating at worst. Often, I would say things that were painfully direct. Sufian in particular suffered from my lack of experience and restraint. Seif didn't like him, because he tried too hard to fit in with everyone. I didn't like him because he didn't like me.
There was one particular incident that sticks in my mind. Space in our Malay class was limited, so usually everyone just sat in their own cliques and left the others to find a space for themselves. I think back then Seif was new to the school, so he was still trying to find someone to connect with, and Sufian had already begun to annoy him (and everyone else in the Malay clique). Sufian tried to push me out of my seat next to Seif and make me sit alone, when I snapped at him, "No one wants you here. Why don't you just go and sit by yourself?" He reeled away from me, and I remember wondering vaguely why he looked like I'd smacked him when I hadn't moved an inch. That was my first lesson on the power of words. Seif was silent, although he looked mildly amused at my outburst. I think a connection firmed itself between us after that.
We started hanging out more often, and I was surprised to find that he had similar thoughts and ideas. We had both drawn cartoon sketches of a character called Tempest who had supernatural abilities, although his controlled time and mine controlled the weather. Small stuff like that amused me because they evoked a strong emotion in me.
If only the good would outweigh the bad. *sigh* That was a lengthy post, even for me. I've ranted and raved, and now the sun is rising. I think the darkness has been held off for at least another day. The day will come when all the suppressed memories will rise as one and attempt to drive me insane. Will I be strong enough? Will I still have people who won't run from the demons that stalk me through the pages of time, through the corridors of my mind? I pray I do. But in case I don't, my piano is all I need to survive an onslaught from my own mind.
Don't leave me, guys.
posted by fallen angel at 5:01 AM
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