Descend

There is something oddly comforting about sitting in a room as it slowly gets dark. Too lethargic to get up and switch any lights on, or rather, not feeling the point in illuminating the corners of this rented apartment, I let darkness creep in. Perhaps it allows us to feel as if we're not really here. My presence doesn't affect this space, let it get darker for all I care. This is what the room would be like if I wasn't here. It feels peaceful, detached, calming. 

Last night I heard voices screaming in my head as I toss and turn at two in the morning. They screamed deafening pleas of panic and frustration, of loss and loneliness. My heart pounded as my breathing got increasingly labored. I was simultaneously freezing and burning, I was both shivering and paralyzed, I was both starving and nauseous. The oppressive silence of the room drills into my skull as I heard myself begin to sob. 

Without thinking, I reached for my phone. The glare of the screen sent piercing stabs into my tear stained eyes. I had already dialed the extension for an international call, but then stopped myself before I hit the green icon.

Deep breaths. 

I lowered my phone back down, fearing what awaited me at the other end. I don't know if the sound of your voice would lift me or plunge me deeper into my apparent lunacy. I don't know if the call would even go through. I don't know if I can still expect you to be available for me at any hour. I don't know if it's right for me to put you in a position where you can only worry from afar. 

It's almost a month. I thought it was supposed to get easier.

The Eye Doctor

Not once in my life have I willingly stepped into an optometrist's, begging for (and paying for) an eye exam. Growing up with notoriously bad eyesight has given me a Pavlovian response to eye doctors: Every time I enter a spectacles shop, I swear I still hear the exasperated sigh of my mother, worried and frustrated about my increasing short-sightedness. Other kids hide report cards, I hide letters from my school requesting me to go for eye check-ups. (Not saying that I don't hide report cards. I've been falsifying report cards using photoshop, printing it on official school paper with the relevant letterheads and giving that to my parents to sign since I was a wee little kid. But that's another deviously evil story for another time.)

The US has the weirdest laws. Case in point: In the state of Wisconsin, it is illegal to serve apple pies in restaurants without cheese. Another example: It is illegal for vendors to sell contact lenses without a doctor's prescription. And what does a doctor's prescription cost in the US, when it is offered as a completely free service in Singapore? A whopping $105, just for a guy (who isn't even in a white doctor's coat, I might add) to tell you something you already know. I used to just circumvent this utterly pointless procedure by ordering my contact lenses directly from the UK, but dire circumstances involving my last two pairs of daily contacts forced my hand. With great reluctance, I scheduled an appointment with an optometrist to have my eyes looked at. 

My main source of reluctance wasn't actually paying the fee, it was the fear of hearing more bad news from the doctor. The 'little red house on a green hill' that you have to focus on through that machine has been haunting me for more than ten years, and I hated having to pay for that ordeal again. Fuck the little red house and fuck its magical focusing and unfocusing trick. 

"How does this ... compare to this ..." The optometrist dials his alien ware left and right. I despised his chart full of random letters and I despised his condescending tone. "Ooh, you were using the same degree when your eyes are not of the same degree! Ooh, you're screwing up your eyes by doing that!" What a know-it-all. 

He should really be more specific with his questions too. "What's the difference between these two?"

"Well, the light diffuses in a way that makes it appear more aura-ly," I elaborate. 

"Just ... tell me if it's clearer or more blurry." He sighs. Well excuse me for trying to give you a more concrete answer. You should really be catering to preschoolers if that's the caliber of answers you're looking for, doctor-man. I squirm uncomfortably in his 'big-chair', as he calls it (probably a medical term), craning my neck to look through the eye holes of the device that's clearly positioned too low for me, straining to guess the row of gibberish.

"P, Q, T, 2, %, #, @ ... ?" Nope, he wants me to try again.

"I, D, K, L, O, L?" I didn't think so. He's getting impatient and starts looking at his wristwatch. The final contact lenses he ends up giving me may or may not be randomly grabbed from a nearby shelf. If there's one thing I'm getting out of this is that I should definitely consider becoming an optometrist myself if this is all there is to it. 

As it turns out, I needed slightly different powers for both my eyes, a bit higher for my left and a bit lower for my right, but was using the average power of both my eyes in the past. Does that really harm my eyes? Who can really say, for sure. What I was doing in the past definitely makes sense mathematically. The plus side is, I no longer have to put myself through that again, now that I have a US doctor's approval (however much that's worth) to purchase contacts. Awesome, now I'm free to finger and poke my eyes however I wish to.

Quelqu'un ma dit, en anglais

Someone told me that life, everything he knows

It would all pass, like a withering rose

Someone told me that time is only so brief

Making fools of us, making fun of our grief

But someone said to me

That, you still love me

Someone said to me, that you still love me

Is this possible?

Someone told me that destiny is mean

Gives me a taste then takes it from me

Seems that happiness can only be found

By the ones willing to crash to the ground

But someone said to me

That, you still love me

Someone said to me, that, you still want me

Is this possible,

Is this possible?

I'm not making this up, he really said it to me

It was midnight when he appeared to me

I'm still hearing the voice, but it's slipping away

“He loves you, it's a secret, don't tell him I told you”

You see, someone said to me

That you still love me, he really said to me

That you still love me, please say it's possible

Someone told me that life, everything he knows

It would all pass, like a withering rose

Someone told me that time, is only so brief

Making fools of us, making fun of our grief

But someone said to me

That, you still love me

Someone said to me, that, you still want me

Is this possible?

An Instructional Manual

Throw yourself into decorating your new apartment. Attack every inch of empty space with vigor and cover them up with framed versions of everything you love. Make sure there isn't any place for your eyes to rest on, lest your mind starts drifting to less desirable places. Gleefully snatch up burgundy towels and bathmats, hope to create a poor man's version of Barbra Streisand's bathroom filled with her favorite colors. Spend up to $150 on items you deem 'necessities', because every apartment deserves a welcome rug with a mustache adornment and the word 'bonjour'. Spend another $150 the following day because you need something to keep yourself from spiraling into a deathtrap of old memories.

Attend the first day of class. Be amused at how the most interesting thing about the lecture are the beautiful stone walls that remind you of a dungeon cellar. Struggle to stay conscious despite the professor's best attempts at hypnotizing you with his unbearably drone-y voice. Laugh along to his jokes to make him feel better about being a 65-year-old teaching a class of youthful students with brighter futures than he. Laugh along to convince the people around you that you're still capable of laughter. Laugh along to release endorphins, because you read somewhere that they can cure heartbreak. 

Show up to the first party of the semester. Stand uncomfortably by the side and marvel at the seeming statistical improbability that all these idiots made it to college. Wish you didn't have to be this negative, because everyone's here to have a good time. Pretend the alcohol you're consuming is doing anything for your mood. Stop thinking about how you were the one who got on that plane and left the people you truly fit in with so you could come here and pretend. Tell yourself that this forced social immersion isn't the only way to keep yourself from feeling more alone than you ever had in your life.

Continue to text inappropriate content to the one you've agreed to walk away from. Force yourself to contain your excitement at any sign of a response. Look around the room and imagine what your life would be like if the two of you lived together. Picture how you would arrange both of your possessions in a harmonious yet individualistic manner. Know that you can never force someone to make that kind of change for you. Hope that one day someone might want to. Steadfastly refuse to let go.

Tell yourself you would survive another week. And keep going.

Rosy Roses and Violet Violets

Roses are red
Violets are blue...
Except when they're yellow
They both can be white too   

 

Roses can be rosy
Violets can be violet
Any color you desire
There's one for each palette

Sometimes they are lavender
And lavenders are lavender
So if violets are lavender
What are violet lavenders?

If you wish to bid farewell
Or deliver a death threat
Nothing like a jet black rose
To induce a little sweat

Peachy roses are peachy
Sincerity it conveys
Just gotta find the one girl
Who wouldn't laugh in your face

Roses are dear
Violets are cheap
If I spend a little more
Would you let met watch you sleep

Red roses and blue violets
Deathly unoriginal
Here's a pretty hybrid rose
Red-blue hue for my lovely beau