{ and we'll play summer on repeat;

Thursday, January 29, 2009

hello, old friend. 5:50 PM

"tell me all about it"

he said

"why you feel empty

what makes you feel hollow

tell me; i'm trained in counselling from a module in my forensic psychology course"

forensic psychology? i wanted to say

you mean you help

disturbed corpses?

but i'm not dead yet.

and i know sometimes that may be hard to believe

and i know you think my smile's out to deceive

but i'm not dead yet.

livewire and kicking with the highs and the lows

i'm not dead yet.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

hello, old friend. 11:53 PM

So let’s dance, this night, let’s paint this town red with the city lights.
With the wind at our hair, the throttle to the floor, that’s right, the wind at our hair.
Some place we can go to decide if we pulled off something that you didn’t even care to do.
----

OFFICIAL I-HAVE-TURNED-SEVENTEEN POST.

24th January '09:
Seventeen came swiftly.
I had intended to be a real rebel and switch off all beeping devices and get to sleep before midnight rolled around but Fate put a friend's voice on the line and the phone beeping with messages, warm under the pillow,
and so I lay there tangled in the sheets thinking oh well, i wasn't tired anyway.
"happy seventeenth!"s at 12:oo and me rolling over on the pillow with a happy sigh at 12:13 and musing to myself that maybe normality was okay after all, but only in small doses, and only for small events, like turning seventeen.

Woke up a few hours later to a barrage of enthusiastic FB wellwishes.
Thank you, everyone who texted/called/FBed/typed out the whole of the happy birthday song for me. I love you guys.

oh and to the oh-fourckers: you lot are swell, crumbly apple pie and icecream makes the most amazing lunch, and thank you for the sirplize!
pics as promised.

----

ventured outside to get on my way to the Singapore IGGY Meetup.
Now I usually hate the sun with a vengeance but today it seemed friendly, somehow. At the busstop, I kicked up my heels on the silverseat with Phantom Planet singing through the earphones and a driver whizzed past, stuck his head out of the window, grinned at me and yelled "yeeha!" and I tipped my trilby in response, cowgirl style, and laughed right back.

lunch at marche.
iggy bonds proved strong. i guess we all can't help that we're of the same wavelength.
the guy at the counter wore a nametag that read "Jai" and we burst out laughing and offended him so he refused to take a picture. Jai Patel, are you reading this? it's IGGY fate. we miss you!

they made Lisa and I wear the Marche "baby picky" bibs. :/

"...it came from outerspace."
ramyia and the scary white halo.

you guys, the chocolate cake was heaven and yiherng, you don't get hints very fast. :P
love you lots.

Bride Warzzzzz:
was officially THE best chick flick i've seen in eons.
It's like Parent Trap meets House Bunny meets good photography meets Plot.
And we saw a girl who looked UNCANNILY like Lydia at the cinema, too. not exaggerating. again...IGGY fate.

went to the 7-11 store and spent about half an hour (yes, we have no lives) scouting for and lining up all the IGGY snacks and then taking pictures with them and Ramyia and her damned cows.

IGGYians and their IGGY snacks.

IGGY snacks. again. yes we have no lives.

The Birmingham IGGY kidz went bowling and hit the streets in their wooly hats and glorious big overcoats and black boots
but we Singapore IGGY kidz do it differently-- think brunch where the tropical light hits the windows and makes them shine and brightly coloured little shorts and sundresses and trilbies and crashing the mall.

today, we declared love on parade;

------

24th Jan: Dinner @ the Craggs' + Random CNY-sy picz that ended up in this section cuz I've got nowhere else to put them:

turning seventeen, apparently, has not made me any less geeky.
basement games FTW!

the scary mannequin in julia's room that made me jump about six feet in the air when i flicked on the light.
i swear...!!!

-----

25th January: albeit being seventeen with the sexy six/seven/eight/still haven't got a name for us:

originally intended to be a pic of the lipstick jungle grlz' feet only to show how different we were, etc etc but then i got the shoestore guy to stick his foot in too and he and deb look like solemates, no?

black and white girls. always.

boon pretending to be a car.

manda: (holding camera) "cara; look emo!"
cara: (looks up) (bursts into hysterical laughter)
= FAIL.

look deb's found her twin!

seventeen's not sweet but we find ways to get along.

All of the boys and the girls here, in Paris.
Sing to the night without sight, but with madness.
I can't keep up, I'm a wreck, but I want it.
Tell me the truth, is it love or just Paris?

Friday, January 23, 2009

hello, old friend. 5:15 AM

and you love like the best of us--
----

no,
no major epiphanies or sudden revelations or big headlines to share, but
i figured this would be my last post as a sixteen year old
so i might as well make the best of it.

HELLO, UNIVERSE.
this will be the last time i look at you with sixteen year old eyes.
don't exactly know what the big deal about sixteen is, anyway.
i still have the same pseudo-amber-brown streaks in my hair that my mum swears was done up in a salon but she doesn't know how the sun kisses me to sleep sometimes
i still have the same hands. psychic's hands, they call them, though apart from a sometimes uncanny intuition i can't tell tarots apart from tea-leaves
i still have the same little rituals... every now and then the OCD kicks in and i take the shorter, jaggier path instead of the long smooth one because if i don't then Somebody Will Die/Grave Things Will Happen To Your Family/summat along those lines. still haven't been able to ducttape shut those little mind mouths.

although i admit that some things have changed.
some people say that I did.
i don't think that's entirely true, though. some parts of me have changed, yes, and indefinitely too but ME, I, MYSELF: i haven't. i could dye my hair lily-allen pink and get six piercings in each ear and go around in black nailpolish and drag and i'd still be me. i could wear little black lace-up oxfords and skirts with high waists and go around quoting mathematical formulas like they were Tennyson poems and be a complete elitist snobbish obnoxious dolt and i'd still be me.
simply because i'm the only person who CAN ever be me. and either way, whatever changes, whatever happens; that is the one constant i can always depend on.

[/end ramble]

...wow.
obviously (almost) turning seventeen has done nothing for making my paragraph lengths more concise.

OH MY GOSH AND:
thank youuuuu Shuyi Serene RJ Kat Qiu Gwen Janice Gayle (well, we were joint almost-birthday girls but it's still counted) for the surprise birthday party @ The Tea Party today.
I swear I never saw it coming. Apple pie and icecream and good company = great way to spend the last day of being sixteen. ily guys, picz will be up soon on the official Cara Is Seventeen And Dying Of Old Age post, i promise.

today: sixteen
tomorrow: seventeen and expectant, iggy s'pore meetup cum cara's birthday cum lisa's belated birthday!
sunday: daddy comes home!, birthday celebration with the lipstick jungle grrrrlzzzz and hopefully with the whole Clique Six/Seven/Eight/we need a new name, srsly.
monday +++: CNY visitations officially begin. dundundundunnnn.
"wahhh you so big now!"
"so pretty, aiyah! looks like her mummy!!"
"got boyfriend yet or not? remember education must come first arh!"
"law school? wah very good very good! aiyah you in NJC-- sure can make it one lah."

...okay so my relatives don't ACTUALLY talk like that but you get the general meaning.
but on the bright side: ...mandarin oranges! i love those things. i'd scoff all the ones meant for relatives if i was allowed to.
am also mildly interested in discovering which new cousins i'll acquire this year. i find out about new ones (by then mostuv them're in their twenties) every year, i swear each year my family expands and expands without anyone actually having to have babies.

okay okay steering back to the topic.
SO.
Seventeen.

*silence*

1. every day you become less and less real to me
2. january is slipping through my fingers. must not let it slip through my fingers; must carpe diem must fight back must retaliate with the recoil
3. don't ever think that i ever stopped loving you guys
4. pillars. you are my pillars. i've cradled arms around you and sunk angry broken knuckles into your sides but what it comes down to is that i need you. i love you and i hate you and i need you and i'm not ashamed
5. sometimes in your silences your careless words the affected insouciance i see a little of me in you and that worries me. don't. one of us being cynical and jaded is enough as it is.
6. parasites and reluctant phone conversations
7. love across oceans
8. hallmark girls. once a week is enough to keep us strong. hold us firm. carry us through. we wrote our confessions on a book that travelled the world and now here is mine: you make my sundays so much brighter.
9. i am strong enough to take this
10. because when sweet sixteen's over, silent seventeen makes you invincible

...and thus these are the things that usher me into Seventeen.

sixteen,
you made me sparkle made me glitter made me bright in the nighttime poollights
you broke me. crumbled me to my knees. made me cry out names Time and New People had rendered useless at the godforsaken hours of the early morning and watched with cool amusement as my legs churned the stillness and carried me over the finish line and onto a stretcher with pale voices floating around, around like disembodied angels and I reached for a hand that was no longer there. no longer mine to hold. to call for.
you made me reckless. affairs of the heart and disillusionment have a way of doing that to you and people are particularly susceptible to it when they are sixteen. learnt how to live "la vida desperation, la vida sixteen" because when we're young we're all greek gods and goddesses. immortal. invincible.

sixteen you retraced your footsteps and gave me love.
that was all you gave me.
all i needed.
and when the sadness comes i hold that promise close and lie awake with hope because i believe morning will break.
and it does. it always does.

sixteen
...so here's to you.

goodbye,
i won't forget.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

hello, old friend. 7:47 PM

and in your name; there is healing
----

the following
is a random doodle Kat and I came up with yesterday, because we were bored during a free period and decided to write something three words by three words each. it's a weird little incoherent little story but there's something about some parts of it that i like. here we go.

----
Once there was a girl with long brown hair. She liked to watch planes from her balcony in a Paris apartment and eat ice-cream off her boyfriend's nose. Her boyfriend, though, never seemed to care about the way she sang out of the window when people walked by. When night fell, they'd walk to the local brothel and rate all the legs they were served.
Tragically, she only sparkled after getting drunk.
Sometimes he'd desperately pull her hair to get to the bear behind her jeans zipper. They never tried catching glitter in the dreams they ate by the vague brown coatstands. They went by the mortuary and danced to mysterious squeaking noises coming from the squirrel that hadn't been near the toaster.

"you know, sometimes I blow into lonely strangers' pinwheels. Are you thinking I'm crazy?"

"Not as crazy as the time you ate some boy's Mercedes because he told you your eyes were hollow."

"...are they hollow?"

he didn't reply.
Instead, he kissed her withered lashes and promised he'd die before her. She frowned and pulled away.

"why did you wave to the other bicycle rider last night? she wasn't even as pretty as your first pet dog, Sasha."

"don't you dare call my sister lethal. I swear that if that police car crashes into her, my final wish won't be for you."
his lips twisted into a smile.

her arms snaked around his neck.
"...liar."

teeth flashed.
---

on another note,
sexy, superb, scintillating (???) seventeen in two days.
I'm not going to lie. Seventeen's a lot different from sixteen, and I'm not talking about the one year difference.

if sixteen was, like, BABOOM!!!
then seventeen's, like... fizzle.

and that's the depressing reality of it.
of course you have bands like Metro Station trying to make people feel better by coming up with songs like "Seventeen Forever" but the truth is I don't even feel (almost) a year older.
Seventeen feels like slipping through the gaps.

Oh well.
Seventeen it is, then!
and come what may.

if I can just get through what today has in store (ominous music goes here) and get to tomorrow,
I'll be safe.
At least for about a few more days until hell hits again.

"oh don't worry you'll be fine, just give your best."
people say it like it's the easiest of things, like it's supposed to be a reassurance;
but has anyone actually really stopped to think about it and realize how terrifying a concept "giving your best" can actually be?
= infinite pain, people. until your threshold breaks.
i'm not sure about you, but that unnerves me sometimes.

oh well.
clarification: not emo! ...just rambling.
once i learn to live one day at a time everything'll fall into place and maybe 2009'll end up being the fantastic year for Aquarians that Cosmogirl, Glamour, Sugar, etc etc claim it'll be.

ALL SYSTEMS GO YEAH YEAH YEAH.

"I know what you are learning to endure.

There is nothing to be done. Just make sure nothing is wasted.

Take notes. Remember it all, every insult, every tear.

Tattoo it on the inside of your mind.

In life, knowledge of poisons is essential.

I've told you, nobody becomes an artist unless they have to."

Saturday, January 17, 2009

hello, old friend. 11:09 PM

As the winter fades I'll slowly become what you hate.
You'll say that I'm pretending, chances are this road will lead us different ways.
---

Today somebody reminded me that I hadn't updated in eonzzzz so
here
is your update.

Yesterday: SAA X-Ctry Championships. 1 X reservoir --> ie 4.3km.
It was all right, I think; I ran what I could but I'm not sure of my timing yet. The dustcloud that was kicked up by the drumming of a hundred hundred feet at the start line was IMMENSE. I kid you not. It was a Sahara-worthy sandstorm within itself; it was literally "eat my dust, n00b!"
Muse was on constant repeat in my head throughout the whole thing:

"i want it now
i want it now
give me your heart and your so-ul"

and it sang skipped repeated. over and over and over.

"give me your heart and your soul"
"give me your heart and your soul"

I'd forgotten what actually racing felt like-- the white hot burn; the pain; the transcending into a whole new self when you can barely feel your own face and your own breath sears in and out through your lungs and somewhere through the static you reach in through the delirium and will your legs to carry you through.

so yeah.
Welcome back to the Real World, Neo.

I had the run of the laptop that night so I logged on and Joe and I talked till his library closed.
because we're cool like that. and also because tectonic plates suck.
Oh, for Pangaea!!!
Thennnn I talked to Tyler and bloghopped and read internet poetry and attempted (pivotal word: attempted) to do up the OM script but it didn't work and I was left staring at the one line I'd typed out on Microsoft Word: "...WELCOME TO SINGAPORE."
Which technically wasn't even an original line; it was Chow Yun Fatt's.
Bummer. :/
I NEED INSPIRATION RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW. I'm talking big; talking epic; talking lightning-bolts-flashing-across-a-darkened-sky. Because at this rate, OM isn't gonna stand for Odyssey of the Mind any more-- it's just gonna stand for 'Orrible Mess.

...and to You: I'm sorry about you-know-what but you should have known better; you said it yourself before; I'm a hard one to break and you know it. I love you but your neediness terrifies me sometimes.

Today
I was actually three minutes early for church
applause please.

Deb Manda and I took a lovely long busride (r/ship drama! i swear we're absolute magnets for the stuff) and went down to the Esplanade to see the Museum of Broken Relationships.
I'd have donated something as requested but it ended up being too much hassle.
Some of the exhibits were really odd. Love DOES make people do strange, strange things. Sometimes I thank my lucky stars I'm not back into the whole scene because honestly sometimes it just drags you down.

...Oh, don't get me wrong.
I'm not one of those cynical, love-hurts-don't-do-it kinda people.
I like a good rom-com as much as the next person.
I just...well. I just think it can be pretty scary sometimes, how love can take a perfectly strong, perfectly complete person and make you so dependent on another heart that it can break you.
Buuuut then again love has its pretty side too, I know, because I've been there, we all have, and so we all know how it can be so beautiful it blinds.

----

so i was thinking about it last night and i started wondering why i was chasing something so fleeting. something so transcendent
and not even a palmful of sand to show for it. at least that could crumble in my hand i could let it run through my fingers and trickle through the incessant hourglass but this?
this is not what i asked for. not what i bargained for. not what i deserve.
let's face facts sweetheart it was doomed from the start and the end's nowhere in sight.
i'm sick of counting down the hours and lying awake while you're asleep and dreaming
or maybe lying awake staring at the ceiling because the chase has worn you down too.

tell myself it's not too late
that there's still time to
back
out.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

hello, old friend. 6:58 AM

BECAUSE I'M STILL BREATHING

Hello world
I know you're reading this
even if you never ever leave any tags anyway.

Today started off terribly.
Believe me when I say: I hate tectonic plates.
3.17PM rolled around and then I realized that it was actually possible to hate tectonic plates more than I actually had a few hours ago.

Downed cold black coffee and went for training with Mayday Parade blasting through the earphones and in a disgustingly moody mood.
(honestly sometimes I do think that if I met myself on the street one day, I probably would have no patience with myself at all)

At that moment all I wanted to do was dig a hole and crawl in and pull the darkness in behind me. NOT run a timetrial and have to die and die and die over and over and over again on the track. I may love running but I hate racing against the clock. And the awful day hadn't changed my opinion, either.

As it was, our workout was 16X200m. Was a little apprehensive at first because it was a speed workout and c'mon 'fess up we all know I'm no Usain Bolt. I'm more of a "hang in there and keep going" kinduv person and yes that's much less on the Kool Factor but hey who gives a damn, honestly.

But.
Training actually (surprisingly!) turned out well.
Actually, to hell with "well"-- I loved it.
So I'm not a born sprinter and neither am I some fast-runnin' lightning-strikin' baseball-playin' run-through-a-forest,-catch-a-baseball-in-midair-and-make-it-back-in-under-a-second vampire, but
there was something to be said about just cruising down the track. letting the wind carry you. feeling your muscles slide. lengthen. pump. push off against the pavement;
there was something undeniably beautiful about that feeling.

i guess there'll be some days when I feel like absolute crud and some days when I'll remember just what it is that I love about being a tracker.
Today was one of the latter, and I'm so glad.
God knows I needed it.
I really did.

so yeah.
I think things're getting better.
and they'll keep doing exactly that.
I've got some of the old fire to fall back upon and Mr Whitby as a Lit teacher and I will get my Blackberry fixed and I will not bomb my race
and I will learn to leave yesterdays in their photoframes
and yeah I might/I probably will/oh who'm I kidding I definitely WILL get sad sometimes but I'm going to hang in there. hang in there. hang in there. because that's what I do
and keep moving forward because there's gotta be more than this.
things will get better.
they've got to.

"she wasn't bitter.
she was sad though,but it was a hopeful kind of sad.
the kind of sad that just takes time."
- the perks of being a wallflower

Friday, January 9, 2009

hello, old friend. 5:54 AM

i miss the way we were supposed to be.
before distance and time got in the way and screwed us over.
before they left us with felt tip marker "xx"s for assurance it was real and little blue online pop-up men for friends.

i hate the way
no, not the way- the truth, the fact, the reality that it's 2009 and I'm supposed to be moving on
but i'm not.
everyone's out there doing beautiful things
but i'm sitting in the dirt and digging with broken fingers
because X marks the spot but Time's a pirate and he got the diamonds a long time ago

this isn't how the story should go.
they say that when you find people you love you should hold onto them and never let them go
but the sky had a claim on you
and we couldn't fight the big silver bird with metal wings.

it rained that day and i wondered if you were crying from your plane windows...

-----

DEAR GOD:
please put me on a plane and fly me to Birmingham!
I don't care if it's on Tiger Airways/Jet Star and I have to ride a budget plane for 12 hours with a baby yelling in the row behind me and if I don't even get to choose between chicken or fish
I'd parachute there if I had to
but they don't do budget flights to England
and I don't know where to get parachutes.

on the bright side:
1) webcammed with tall joe last night.
The 'rents took an impromptu getaway to Saigon so I pretty much had the run of the house (and the otherwise password-locked laptop) so I stayed up till 4AM doing...yeah well I can't remember exactly what I was doing but anyway.
He wore his IGGY cap and I scrounged around for my big oversized Jack Sparrow one from Disney World and wore that.
"that is officially the coolest hat in the world!!!"

2) I tested out my calling card today and dialled to Tamworth (IT WORKED!)

me: "HI OMG IT WORKS"
me: "...."
me: "omg I forgot about time differences!!"
me: "what time is it there?"
joe: "...uh. 4AM."

...sorry. :/

Flashback: weird memories of me sitting on a snow-covered bench in Breckenridge, holding the phone to my ear and hearing the voice of someone half a planet away even though they sounded so close; like they were just next to me
...yeah. deja vu, much?
only this time I had a little trouble deciphering the British accent because I've been out of touch for...a month
my gosh
...today, one month ago, iggy started and i remember lugging in my fantastically gargantuan luggage bag and flashing a tentative half-smile to the strangers in the canteen and how none of them returned it and all of them just stared and i ended up rushing to my dorm room and doing a frantic self-inventory in the mirror to see if i was still human or if maybe i had something green and leafy growing out of my head
but how in the end we ended up becoming just like family. one big default, loving, wonderful, unforgettable family

...oops. going offtrack.
so back to the topic: talked about how wrong it is for someone (*pointed look*) to make so much sense in the morning and about bad days and phone static and tana and saine and GOSH this is so unfair
God only knows how many times I've picked up my phone on reflex and tried to search for "toni jackson" or "joe" or "konyin" or "jag" or "insert iggyian's name here..." under my address book to send them a text.
which is why Lisa and I always end up bombarding each other with IGGY-related text messages. everyone else has flown away so now all we've got is each other. okay so maybe this is just me. maybe she's moving on but I guess I'm not doing such a great job of it.

the other day I sat on my bedroom floor and pulled out my pink iggy file
(which i hadn't opened till then. hadn't dared to, because memories gather like dust) and
slipped out the blue mask and the red mask i'd kept from gala night.
(upon seeing joe in his red mask: "...you're my personal zorro for the night!"
"i get the blue one! i get the blue one!" and me dancing around the table and rearranging all the masks so i could get the blue one so it would go with my dress
lydia complaining that hers clashed awfully with her outfit and toni grinning in her golden one)
cue: a perfect storm of tears

mum found me half an hour later curled up in my blankets on the floor and listening to lovedrug:
"so fall in love while you can still hold your head up high
and pretend that you're alive again
it's friends that leave you here in the end, so hold your head up high
and pretend that you're alive again."

...okay sorry i do realize that i am unattractively wallowing in stale self pity.
but it's my blog anyway so who gives a damn, right?

but honestly
how'm i supposed to start a new year when half of me's in some suitcase in some hallway at the other side of the world?

okay is currently: dialling old numbers to hear old voices
because the murky-looking glasses they handed you didn't stop the static and sleep doesn't come easy when you don't belong on this side of the world. in this timezone.
anything to feel sane again, right?

i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you

and tonight i need you more than ever.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

hello, old friend. 11:17 PM

breathe in deep and say goodbye;
---

...I've been stalling on the update for a long time coming, just because it's like if I don't actually blog about the end of IGGY, then maybe somehow it wouldn't actually have ended.
:/
Okay. That made more sense in my mind, but yeah.
08 post'll come after this.
IGGY end update, coming right up.

IGGY PART THREE: IE END OF IGGY: IE NOOOOOO.

So.
Pre-gala, as always, we girls of Level Two (hands dwn the coolest level, so in your face!) got gussied up and I helped everyone with their makeup and even had time to do my own.
"just think, girls- this is the last time i'm gonna be able to help you with your makeup!"

we walked, hand in hand, towards the Gala Dinner hall, and then suddenly everyone and everything loomed up towards us and it felt like one of those teenage movies; when we suddenly caught sight of the guys (all spiffied up and lookin' sharp) and they glanced over at us and grinned.

the first person I saw when I walked into the gala hall.
"CARAAAAA"
"SAPHIIIII"
"*HUG*"

wifey and me.

angels and a devil.
no prizes for guessing who's who!

joe tries to steal a kiss from sid.
(hey, i thought you were MY date for the gala!)

dysfunctional family (as always, minus julian) all spiffied up for the gala.
(note how particularly flushed and happy Joe and Sid look here.)
(also note this picture was taken right after the illicit kiss picture.)

the best pair of roomies around.
period.

my wugui and me.

lee, joe r, andrew.

maahwish and cara.

my (failed) attempt at a picture with julian.

recreating our muszclez poze.

lookin' sharp!
i love this picture we look so ritzy.
i'd trade him my feather headpiece for his hat.

womanizer, womanizer...

kieran, konyin, michael.

"Maggie Q! Maggie Q! Can we have a picture?"
...gotta love Ben.
Bond pose, on request.

...and again.

i'll always remember that night.
it's weird, though, it was beautiful, in its own way- but at the same time I still remember glancing up at the clock every ten minutes, praying for the countdown to hold still in a freezeframe so we could stay like this forever.
I finally really know how Cinderella felt.
I kept looking out at everyone and wondering if I was the only one feeling this way-- feeling this sense of dread; of a lack of time; of an impending end and a definite mortality to the magic that had woven a still small steady thread through the past two weeks.

In the midst of all the laughing eyes and sashaying hips and hands being thrown into the air like proud banners, I held onto one of his fingers and we ventured to the sidelines
"i need to sit this one out"
because the walls were starting to close in
and the clock wouldn't stop counting us down.

"you know
this is probably the last time we'll ever be this way again"
"...i know"

read finality in your friends' eyes
eyes that've become so familiar, you've started to call them home.
the words "the last time" ricocheted off my lips and bounced off big bronze cathedral bells and it's a wonder the sound didn't make the room crumble. it's a wonder no-one else heard them
except me
us.

i don't know.
i could read the same wistful longing/pre-empted nostalgia in your eyes but something told me you didn't quite understand
not the same way I did
i guess it comes with experience and God knows i've had experience with goodbyes.

digressing...
a new song came on. and you grabbed my hand and said "we've got to dance to this one" and i didn't really want to but I went along anyway and we joined the rest of the wild limbs careening on the dance floor.
I'm glad I did.

one last song.
Everyone joined arms and hands and swayed (sing: bohemian rhapsody!) and I didn't know the words so I just swayed along and mouthed "watermelon, watermelon" over and over again (because they say that when you forget the lyrics you should just do that because somehow it'll look like you're singing the right words...) and looked around at the hall, at everyone, at the bright flushed faces and the brighter eyes and the beatific smiles and once again the little voice inside of me screamed out, "don't they know it's going to end?"

-----

LAST DAY OF IGGY.

- we played irish snap again, just for old times' sake.
toni lost. and kept losing. nothing new there.
we were blasting Bon Jovi and Paramore and Nickelback's "Photograph" over my iPod speakers and all the while I was looking around and trying to commit all this to memory: all the faces, every hand gesture, every flick of the hair, every self-conscious grin, the screams as everyone rushed to slam down their hand and Toni missed it once again.

"it's time to say it, time to say it-
goodbye
goodbye"

last looks around the room that'd housed two human hurricanes for the past two weeks.
wheeling our luggage downstairs and me closing my eyes because this felt too real.
going onstage and reading my poem out loud and knowing that somewhere out there, in the audience, Toni was probably crying softly and Lydia and Beth were probably getting red-eyed.

looking at this, you'd never guess that i'd been all crying just before this picture was taken.
s'the magick of joe and sid.

tana and saine (though we didn't realize it at the time)

our last SM group picture ever.

fasttrack to the scene at the canteen:
last goodbyes = chaos.
me rushing around trying to hug everyone; the faces of friends streaked with tears as they lean over to hold you tightly and it felt like a drowning man's hold.

"look after my bra, will you?"
"i will"
...yeah, the little things we do.
i am now one bra short so saphi you'd better be grateful for it.

i've lost count of the number of times i darted back and forth, saying my goodbyes, and then turning back to say goodbye all over again.
this is how it goes: you hug the same friends once, twice, thrice, five times. kiss them on the cheek. tell them you'll see them again. yeah, you'll meet up again. this isn't goodbye, it's called "just not seeing each other for a while" and of course, yeah, we'll keep in touch- you've got facebook, don't you?

wash rinse repeat: press play and the scene shuffles to the very last goodbye
and you finally realize:
this is it.

I walked over to Toni and it broke my heart to see how she was hunched into a little ball, in her chair, tears and mascara streaming down her cheeks; with Lydia hovering around her, misty-eyed and not quite knowing what to do because the goodbyes were hurting her, too.

"bye Lydia. I love you sooooo much. I'll miss you"
one big warm final hug.

Beth was sitting in a chair by herself (she'd used my waterproof eyeliner that morning, just in case) and she leapt up and ran to hug me
"you're leaving?! no i'm going to pack you up in my suitcase i'm not going t'let you leave!"
...God knows I wish she wouldn't!!!

turned back to Toni; tapped her gingerly on the shoulder.
I craned over to glance at her and I could tell she'd already shut down. wasn't quite there.
so I did what I could: i kissed her once on the cheek, gently, and then whispered into her ear, "goodbye roomie, i love you"
and then turned to leave.
my last image of Toni is of that: of her curled brokenly in her chair with mascara stains on her cheek and it breaks my heart, even now, to think of it.

bumped into Joe on my way out of the canteen.
deep breath; last goodbye.
"gosh- there's so much to say to you but now that it's actually goodbye, i don't know what to say!"
"that's okay. i don't know what to say either."
...so we hugged. one big, long, last hug and then as i turn to go our fingers kinda hooked together- like they'd realized this was the end and they didn't want it to be-
-and then i pulled mine away and gave him; the room; everyone; iggy winter u 08 one last smile, a special smile, a Goodbye smile,

and then i turned on my heel and fled around the corner where nobody could see me
and that's when the tears started flowing.

so your heart doesn't know where mine's been
I'll never let your heart go where mine's been, love--