being jolted awake from afternoon naps with heart pangs accompanied by randomly shuffled memories that aren’t really supposed to mean anything anymore but still do. it’s having a fist punch of emotions to the face when you’re in the backseat of a car eating rm1.60 chocolate ice cream bought from a 7eleven by the road to trick your body into producing dopamine an hour before midnight, the sad excuse for spontaneity reminding you of better times. it’s staring at the curtains of your room in half-lit darkness with the last song you heard (i’d do anything for love [but i won’t do that] by meat loaf thanks to 104.4 lite.fm) replaying in your head as the soundtrack to your own movie of memories. it’s forcing yourself to sob in the dark to dislodge the block in your throat so it can be replaced by a more manageable block in the nasal cavity by cry-snot so you can sleep unperturbed. it’s the sour feeling in your stomach, travelling all the way through the oesophagus to reach the mouth, leaving a blazing sour trail. it’s missing people, places, routines, the smell of petrol when pumping your friend’ car with fuel, the sound of medleys of laughters – the best sound in the world, a selection of music, god music, even the atrocities of waking up too early in the morning and sitting for papers, all very specific like photographs printed out with the date and time stamps on the back. it’s the INTENSITY!!!!! you yell into the void because the intensity of emotions is not matter and aside from all the bolding and italicizing and underlining, cannot be felt by anyone else but yourself. it’s despite knowing that it’s not true, choosing to believe anyway at this point of time in my life that the pinnacle of my life has passed and how can i move on from what cannot be reclaimed, when there is nothing to move on to?
it’s this pretentious piece of shit writing at 2am because nothing i write can take the rawness away, can take these sharp intakes of breath, none of it
michelle teoh 