Of Wishes and Dreams

Within those long nights when everything seems to go wrong
I had these strange dreams that keep recurring
That I hid behind this certain thicket fence
And see the world through different eyes
It rushes and left me alone silently watching

I need someone to help me figure these dreams out
What they mean when they kept rushing right through my life
And let me playing with my tears before they dried in the sun

It seems like years
I don’t think you will ever be coming back for more
At first I was afraid to set you free
Even when I know that’s the way things should be

Now let me kiss away the pain of our old memories
And stop trying to make sense of everything
Just look beyond ourselves so we can survive
Through the dreams and reminiscences

If you still have doubt, let the night decide
Because I still have this one wish,
To kiss you tenderly to sleep

And I Remember Our Last Kiss

There will be no kisses tonight because
we are no longer lovers like we used to be

You know damn too well you’ve broke my heart and
I can’t understand why it felt like the fireworks blew up above our head and
its lights shone down on us

You promised me that you would
never kiss anyone who doesn’t burn you like
rays of sun at midday

I still remember our last kiss like our very first
and I would like to keep the memory of that first kiss
as it is

A Father I Have Known

Up on the mountainous northern part of the mineral-rich and fertile island
There laid this little village inhabited by less than one hundred people
It had neither electrical supply, convenient store nor a gas station
The closest ones were forty minutes ride by car from that little village

The small old wooden houses in that little village were spread on the mountain
Going from one house to another to visit the neighbors need extra physical work
Walking minutes to hours on the dirt roads, because there’s no other way than that

So it was not to anyone’s amazement when the little village was bit by bit left crumbling
Witnessed by its natural inhabitants, the underage kids and the elderly who could say nothing

Just like my father who left the little village even before he turned thirteen
Because he had his own dreams, to build his own better future
Riding in shiny motorcycles and living in a brick house with big glass windows
Instead of sweating and straining his muscles cultivating the rice fields
And struggling with low temperature at nights that freezes your breaths into dews once you exhaled

Because back in the time when the Dutch still colonized those fertile lands
Of the mountainous northern part of the mineral-rich and fertile island
Everyone wants to be like the people in the big cities

Just like my father who saw those big cities
From the thirty-five millimeters celluloid projected on large white fabric functioned as screen
Together with his peers and hundred others on that big grassy field
In the little town thirty minutes ride by car from his own village

That’s what people did back then to have some fun
That’s how my father got his inspirations and dreams for a better future
That’s also where and when he saw my mother for the very first time
That’s also why he left his parents in their old wooden house up on the mountain

Because he had his own dreams and he had fought to make them came true

So here I am now standing
Mere couple of years before turning thirty
And recently realized that
Probably, I was one of his many dreams but
Obviously he never told me that in words

He didn’t have to do it so simply because I already knew

Everytime I came home and hugged him
He hugged me back
The mutual feelings shared without any words being exchanged

I know I have to make it right this time to pay him back and make him proud

Note:
The old photograph posted above was taken from a Singaporean's blog.

In The Darkness, You Stay

Words are never enough for me to say how much I miss you
Because you flew away from here too soon
It made me feel alone now without you

Yet every night when I close my eyes
I hear your voice so sweet and melancholy, just like an angel

Your words, they sing through me
Your voice, it brings you back
Here in the darkness of the starless nights
Back to where you belong

You are here even though you are gone
And I know that
Inside
You will always stay

As I Lay Me Down to Sleep

Recently, I always fall asleep in Jack’s company.

But in many nights before that, it was either with Whitney or Charlotte, or sometimes, Sarah.

Am I becoming gay?

Oh dear, of course ... not (necessarily)!

In good company of Sarah at nights just before I go to bed always reminded me of Billy. Con Te Partiro. Even that day when we had our breakfast under the brightly morning sun, the hotel’s internal loudspeakers played that song serendipitiously. As if it was played simply for our benefit on that very relaxing occasion. And that was also became the single-yet-main reason why I decided to change the tune and let her joined others in the CD shelves.

Sleeping with Charlotte reminded me of Louise. Simply because to me, she has The Heart That Mattered Most. But where is Louise now? We lost contact a year before I graduated from Uni. Does she live well with her aunt by migrating to Canada right after graduating college? Did she complete her master degree in arts like she planned to? Did she manage to get a decent and kind husband just like what her mother has hoped her to find? I don’t know answers to these and many other related questions, and I just don’t think I want to talk about it, at least for now. Because it’d reminded me of how forgetful and ignorant I am to her. That was why I threw Charlotte under the others inside the musical chest.

Moments before I closed my eyes at nights while being in romantic company of Whitney on Valentine’s week always reminded me of Cintaku, my Love.R, who works far across the sea. Cintaku is the one special someone who turned my world upside down. The one exceptional person who could make sparkling little diamonds rolling down my cheeks while listening to Chris or Titi. The One, like Shakira sang compassionately, I need. If only I can say that illustrious line from Dorothy to Jerry, “You completed me” to my Love.R, face to face, in person, everyday …
But Whitney also reminded me of some regretful things of the past.

So, in such desperate effort to keep the memories at bay, I decided to change my sleeping company. I turned to Jack - a better substitute from George whom I slept over with couple of nights ago while working late way until past midnight. Jack had me thinking of how happy I could become if only I could live a life like his:
Surrounded by everyone he loves.
Doing everything he wants and enjoys his life to the fullest.
Riding the waves at mornings and writing love songs at nights.
Making banana pancakes while playing ukulele and watching the rain fell outside.
And not only sitting, waiting, wishing for his love to come, … at last.

As I lay myself down to sleep, I fell in love with Jack’s way of treasuring “how it is always better when we’re together”.

So this is for you, Cintaku, Jack's 'Better Together':

But if all of these dreams might find their way
Into my day to day scene
I'd be under the impression
I was somewhere in between
With only two
Just me and you

Under The Darkly Night Sky

I have been walking lonely down this empty street tonight
I don’t know what is wrong with me
I have sung Fix You for myself to hear
But this voice trembled harder long before the end
The clouds cover up this darkly starless night sky
I don’t know what is left of me
Somehow I just don’t know what is right with me

Tried to keep my distance
That is what I have done lately
I have besmirched all our memories
But there will always be a trace of you inside me

I still remember some ups we had
You and me laughing at Spongebob and Patrick and the peculiar inhabitants of Bikini Bottom
You tried impersonating their quirky voices just to make me laughed harder
But the ones that tickled me much were your innocent childish smile
And those deep wells on both sides of your cheeks shown each time

And I fell in love with your calm assuasive clear eyes
How they led my battered and bruised self found the serenity within your soul
I will never forget how you pulled me towards you hugged me closely saved me from walking carelessly too close to the edge of sanity
And catered me security
And made me confessed indirectly that it was with you that I fell so much in love of this kind for the very first time

And then you whispered in your sweet husky voice,
“Don’t leave now. Because I need you just as polar bears need Arctic’s ice.”
“Let me in. Because I want to share this warmth within me so that you’ll never again feel that winter in your soul.”
“Hold my hand. Because you’re too precious to ever let go.”
“Stay with me. Because I love you as the night loves being accompanied by the stars and the moon.”
And each time I cried inside, you just knew
“Hush now. I don’t want you shed your precious little diamonds.”

I believe God sent you all the way from His beautiful Garden
As a true sign that He loves me that much
And how I felt so much blessed

But maybe those darkly starless night skies were changing you
Nights before we could ever met for the first time
And even though they put radiant diamonds in your eyes for me to admire at nights before I fall asleep
I will never understand why the same darkly starless night skies gradually changed your heart
To be as cold as those stones on the bank of the solitude lake we visited last monsoon

And I always thought we were going to make this through
You love me love you what else do we need?
“Nothing, just the two of us,” that was your answer the first and also the last time I asked

Yet still I wonder naively,
What things will hold together the loose knots of our relationship?
How I wanted to hear if first from you before holding my hand and lead us walking our life
If in the end you me go,
How many days am I going to regret you?
How many tears am I going to shed for you?

And how vast those darkly starless night skies I am going to look up to and not thinking of you?