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, buti 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 sometimesi 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-leavesi 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: sixteentomorrow: 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 me2. january is slipping through my fingers. must not let it slip through my fingers; must carpe diem must fight back must retaliate with the recoil3. don't ever think that i ever stopped loving you guys4. 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 ashamed5. 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 conversations7. love across oceans8. 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 this10. 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 poollightsyou 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.
