Solace in Perfect Beauty

Blankness. Blackness. The streak of light that arrows through my left foot, that with its loyal pair freezes in all its indolence coupled with the sogginess underneath, blaming the scorching air that pierces the virtually muted room. The still motion disgusted by the sole arthropod doing its rounds on the ceiling. The dust that finds the darkest corners as its home parades itself as a quiet killer. And the intensity of silence that amounts only to the sound of eternal tick tocks and the faint honking of cars a hundred feet away. All these set me in a subtle trap. I feel the immobilization on this varnished wooden chair is as long as an unfortunate series of events.

Distraction approaches its rebirth every time the faculty of memory involuntarily scans the unforgotten times of me and you. And it is as tasty as more than half of the grocery store’s bitter gourds.

I remember you.

Those crazy times I pursued the youthfulness of you, embraced by the summer air in the same breath as those cold nights, were never a mistake. It was during those times when I realized that a bland being could love, be thrilled by your distant presence, where my pupils dilated like never before, be sometimes shy by your nearness, and be hurt by that fire that resulted in a throbbing Romeo. Those rainy times I penned those love letters by the window, were silly nonsense, but a child is always blameless and only his adulthood finds fault in its absurdity; we laughed together when we reread those eight years later. Those playful times we chased each other running barefoot on the solitary hill among the wide plains conjured our song. That beaming time I touched your delicate milky face as you adored drawing your favorite TV character, and those aimless scribbles meant our simple happiness.

But that happiness indescribable inside our light chests flew miles away years ago, unidirectional like it could never come back. It was gone to nowhere, to never our land anymore.

Never will I gaze again at your beauty that transcends living on a borrowed time. And when seen from every angle, it is like a candle that never melts. It glows, lighting up a dark room, in all its perpetual glory, wiping the sadness away.

Image: Joo Chiat Road, Singapore