April has got to be the cruelest month. Four months into the new year, and we’re riddled with a new wave of emotions we can hardly grapple with. Those that you knew you should’ve taken by the collar, shaken them roughly and kept them under tabs, but they’ve cajoled your soft spot into letting them roam free. Unbridled, they have now run amok and their rampages have left you bruised and reeling from their last blow. They caught me defenseless, ripped my heart out, served it up on a silver platter; cocktail sticks; the works.

I’m not ready for goodbye.

Promises. We’re always making them and not keeping them. We detest the faults we see in our parents and then grow more horrified when after years and years of trying to run away from those very faults they have, we discover that we secretly harbor, even nurture, those faults ourselves. The most appalling thing is, the realization doesn’t kick start any revolution or metamorphosis – we merely lament about the faults’ permanence in our lives. We don’t get better. Oh, fluffy New Age junk about 'accepting yourself'. Some things you accept, others you don't. It's about growth! Growth, I tell you!

“That’s a lot of snow,” commented Rob as his eyes flickered to a scruffy-looking mongrel crossing the road in front of them, oblivious to the night bus hurting towards it. it only narrowly mussed being hit, but continued coolly on its journey to the bin outside the off-license, which it sniffed studiously, then cocked a leg against.

“So, what’s your point?” asked Rob.

“Well, it’s like this,” replied Jo. “If Eskimos can come up with fifity words for snow because it’s a matter of life and death, why is it that we’ve only got one word for love?”

– Mike Gayle

Twice.

That’s the number of times I’ve met you on the train since then. You’re still wearing those cuffs and collars, with your wire-rimmed glasses. For a fleeting moment, I thought I detected a flicker of surprise behind them. But then again, my eyes might’ve been playing tricks on me. Your hair’s flecked with grey, and you look a shade older than the last time I saw you. Startled, I only dare to take furtive peeks at your reflection in the train door window pane from time to time. Imagine my surprise when I see you staring right back.

Twice.

Eighteen.

They say, a year older, a year wiser. It’s a year promising of more booze and hangovers, and a year of wistful goodbyes and tearful farewells, and pacts made to stay in touch. A year of academia finalities and a year before we’re stamped with the sign of approval and ushered out into the real world as proper adults. It’s a year of failures and successes; a year of knowing better. It’s a year of last chances, and a year of don’t-let-yourself-regret. It’s my last year, with Raffles.

Eighteen. It’s kind of a hard age to be, isn’t it?

Ten years from now, I’ll be 28. I’ll be working, probably wearing power suits and killer stilettos, complete with scarlet nail polish. (No desk job please.) Ten years from now, I’ll still be a go-getter, and as busy as hell. (Possibly a workaholic!) I want to be a jetsetter and go globetrotting around the world; experience life for the rich splendor it is. I want to spend my youth on what matters in life, not waste away in its laborious mundaneness. Ten years from now, I’ll still want to make a difference, and I’ll be fighting to make it happen.

I won’t use words again
They don’t mean what I meant
They don’t say what I said
They’re just the crust of the meaning with realms underneath
Never touched,
Never stirred.
Never even moved.
Though if language were a liquid, it would be rushing in.

- Suzanne Vega

Because it was lost in translation, and words just aren’t enough to transcend the hyperreality we live in. Perhaps, dear Boy, it has something to do with the fact that Men come from Mars and Women come from Venus. (Obviously we don’t speak the same language, right Martian?) So stop trying.

Now.

You know, brownie points don’t really count anymore when you keep track of every single one on a scoreboard and brandish them in front of everyone’s faces? It’s as if you were saying, “Hey! Look at me! I’ve got brownie points! C’mon, so how many have you got?” Practice makes perfect. If practiced baking as diligently as you, they could probably whip up fabulous confectionaries too. Besides, you aren’t the only one who can, so what’re you so cocky about? There’s no need to add self-raising flour to your baking – haven’t you heard? Your ego’s big enough to inflate anything.

I love it when you walk into a shop playing old-school tunes on the stereo. There’s nothing quite like the warm tingly feeling that starts at your spine and travels all the way to your fingertips when you hear those all-too-familiar tunes. Something in your heart makes you want to sing; try hitting all the high notes though you jolly well know your voice box can’t. You don’t show it, but you’re mouthing the words to the song with a formidable accuracy. It screams only one thing – you’ve heard them a million times over, but you’re gonna keep on listening.

And you said yourself
That I’m falling towards the sun
Like I disguise myself
To make you forget I’m the one
Like this was just a trap I built
And you are just a game I won
And I don’t want to run

I haven’t had a new favourite song for a long time now, and this is just about as good as it gets. I’m not your typical music junkie, and up till recently I’ve never heard of artists like Jack Johnson (read: very rare). So, forgive me if you find me overly zealous in promoting it to you.

Sometimes, life plays tricks on you. Things which are too good to be true can happen sometimes too. Just when you think that you’re at a dead end, the unexpected happens and throws a whole new light on the situation, turning it around. Other times, it is out of the sheer magnanimity of a fellow friend that is our saving grace. I’m utterly embarrassed, with the kindness showered upon me today – especially since I don’t deserve help in exiting a hole I was just too stubborn to crawl out of. Thank you, Kaixiong, you’ve just made my day week month!

I hate it when I’ve got to wait for people. The more I pace around, the more antsy I get. Foot tapping doesn’t help either. Punctuality is underrated.

The only person, whom I constantly wait for, is you. Each time, I’ll have to sit in solitary silence on the concrete slab, hoping my ipod battery lasts till your car finally peeks around the blind spot. Each time, I sing along with the lyrics, in a last ditch attempt to stop myself from worrying if I’m waiting here because you’ve really gotten into the car accidents I keep wishing you’d meet.

INUOVI Hydrashine Lip Colour; couleur des levres labbra colorate lip colour. On the top, it says HONEY 08803. Nestling inside the box, is a perfectly cylindrical tube which I’ve found myself staring back at for a long time – my skewed reflection. After toying with it a little while longer, I return it to its nondescript box and wrap it up again. Retying the ribbon, I can’t help but notice the cheery cartoon baubles with smiley faces grinning at me. It’s a month away from second Sunday, but a filial daughter is never in a flurry about such things, is she?

Dear I-Can't-Stop-Whining,

In the process, you lose some people in your life. There will be other people. Correction. There will be other, better people worth spending your time with. So, could you please just stop whining and get a life. This time, remember to get yourself a better one. Get off your lazy butt and do something about the things you find unsatisfactory. No one owes you anything, much less me. So, don’t come knocking on my door hollering. If you want something, go get it yourself! If your life sucks, it just means you suck. Period.

Yours truly,
Rng

You are invited to anonymously contribute your secrets to PostSecret. Each secret can be a hope, regret, funny experience, unseen kindness, fantasy, belief, fear, betrayal, erotic desire, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.

Mail your secrets, or other correspondence, to:

PostSecret
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I’m not mailing. Not yet. Not when you’ve just hurt me. Not when the wounds still sting. Not when you’re still watching me cringe in pain, unflinching. I’m not ready to heal. Not just yet.

I saw the note you stuck on the toilet bowl. “Don’t Use.” No frills. Brief, impersonal. You never write anything more, only direct orders. No frills. Brief, impersonal. You don’t do frills. You’re brief and impersonal, and I have forgotten what it was like to hear anything else from you besides hostile barks and the third degree. I have also remembered that I never really knew what you sounded like, because you only speak in that tone now. Maybe that’s why I’ve reduced myself to silence at home. Maybe, that’s why absence is the only way I can grow fonder.

Twice – that’s how many times we’ve met. Your face says that you’re from the hazy corners of my faded childhood, and your eyes divulge that I’m from yours too. I tried jogging my memory, but was refused entry when I approached the deep recesses of my mind. Shooting wayward glances, it’s obvious we’re both faking the veneer of nonchalance, whilst burying our noses in novels we aren’t reading. Despite your repose, I caught you peering out of the corner of your eye when I alighted. Curious, really.

I’m going to be on bus 93 tomorrow; we might meet again.

Thrice.

With tempers flaring and voices raised, the crossfire was long-lived. I hit the roof more than once, but the top prize for losing it isn’t mine to claim. It begun as innocent spurts of indignation, but as we progressed, it just snowballed into a fireball of fury. The hacks and pummels we rained down did no good – it just fed the monster our rage had already become. Red and raw, whittled to the core, and left with nowhere else to dispense its intense disappointment.

Winning’s not everything. It’s the only thing.

So, you have no right to say it’s okay.

I can’t keep count of the number of deep breaths I took today. It felt like reality was fraying at the corners, and if I didn’t keep a hold on my sanity it’d fly away with the birds in the sky. There was a huge weight pressing on my lungs, and somehow no matter what I did it remained resolutely insurmountable. Somehow, it continued its cancerous growth and infected the air, everywhere. It was too much to hold in two hands, my head or my heart. I was drowning, and gasping for air and asphyxiated in fear of going under.

Since I was five, or probably teenier, I’ve suffered from acrophobia. It’s probably got to do with my sister’s penchant for flinging my dolls out of the window in her rage. Sweet revenge in childhood days, before the games between us moved from the sandbox to the printed pages of the report book. Today attests to their firm roots deeply entrenched in my life today. When the bus maneuvered a bend on the highway, my heart skipped a beat as a peered down at the roads snaking beneath mine. For a moment, I was afraid I’d topple over the edge.

No one knows where she’s going

She’s sitting in the corner of the room, with knees drawn close to herself and arms wrapped around them in defense, like a caterpillar in metamorphosis. Frail, she looks like she could be whisked away by the wind or coaxed away by the bluster of the morning gale. She can’t remember anymore, eyes searching for an inkling of what went down. These few days have been nothing, short of shaky drags on her cigarettes and long, deep drags across her porcelain skin.

No one knows where she’s going. But I know she’s going mad.

Someone told me today that finding someone you like is just like striking lottery. It’s a one in a million chance, and you don’t even get to meet a million people in your lifetime. Perhaps you will, but that’s not the point. Assuming you’ve just struck lottery. If that certain someone likes you back, then it’s just like striking lottery all over again.

If that’s the case, we’ve just won the lottery. Twice. Shouldn’t I be euphoric that I’ve struck it rich? Shouldn’t I be astonished at my own good luck?

But I don’t and I’m not. That’s the problem.

We have shared our morning days
And gone through all rainy nights
Even in the darkest of nights
Stars still light up our way
Tomorrow is a beautiful dream
A dream that will be fulfilled
Cross the bridge of rainbow
In search of the gold
For here we stand
Our dearest friend
Sincerely from our hearts we wish
May streams of sunlight
Shine like rays of hope
Hand in hand we work and strive
For the best things in life

Written by us. Sung by us. To live. For life. For love. For me and for you.

Lest we forget.

It seems a little odd that we should be debating about Monet and Salvatore Dali in such drab classrooms, with chalky whitewashed walls and primary school style desks – the cold industrial interior coupled with the pastel trimmings isn’t exactly artistic. The silence that hangs in the room belongs to the awkwardly inert, not the warm soul-soothing stillness that you get in a museum. It’s hard to imagine the rich splendor of their works when all you see is a pasty white face framed with gold-rimmed glasses, in her uniform of with pencil skirts and sleeveless shirts. Kills it, don’t you think?

PART I

She took one last glance at her long flowing locks of gold, before she nodded at the hairdresser and squished her eyes shut. Ten minutes later, she walked out of the shop £50 richer with a pageboy crop, leaving her precious hair for someone else’s wig. She hurried across the street, stopping short at the watchmaker’s display window. Thank God, she thought, it’s still here. Walking in urgently, she placed the grubby £50 note on the counter, and bought the last set of leather watch straps available.

This, she thought to herself, would be his best Christmas present.

PART II

He stroked the watch-face for the last time, before handing it over to the watchmaker, grimacing at its new home in the display window. It was a fine antique watch, and he walked out £50 richer, having nothing to tell the time with, leaving it for someone else’s wrist. Breathing a sigh of relief, he entered another shop. Thank God, he thought, it’s still here. Without any delay, he bought the last display set of ornate combs. Imagine, how pretty it would look in her long hair.

This, he thought to himself, would be her best Christmas present.

I’m tired. But it’s a gratified fatigue, the kind that you get after running 5 clicks. My empty strength isn’t the giant creature it once used to be, restless in its gridlock. Instead, it’s a tamed beast, waiting to slip into deep slumber. I haven’t done this in a long time, and it sure feels good to have self-validation rain down upon you after a long spell of drought. It’ll be dreamless sleep tonight, and I’ll get up tomorrow, feeling so contented that for a moment or two, I won’t want to be anywhere else in the world but here.

Dear Geraldyne,

How have you been? I’ve always been curious as to what became of you after I (your best friend) exited from your life. Geraldyne How Xin Wei. That was your full name. You wore pink translucent hairbands, and lived in a house with maiden’s hair fern and a tank full of guppies. Our favourite game was fivestones, and you ate wanton mee without wantons. You had only one brother, that last I spoke to you. That was 6 years ago. I’ve always been curious, but not curious enough to find out. So, how have you been?

Yours,
Rae

Stars come out if you stare hard enough; I wonder if you threw them out like darts, the light from your eyes. When I crossed the gate back home I saw the sky, in deep velvet with a sparse sparkle. I thought about it collapsed, spread thick across the lawn. This could suffice as a carpeted walkway down to heaven. Crossing it carefully until the sky springs back as morning comes; I watch as the deep red dye that come with dawn seeps through it like a chromatograph, where this blanket of crumbled crystal combusts with the sun’s warm hues.

Hello people! It's a mite early to be discussing this, but what the heck. Anyone game to have an Ocomm trip overseas after our As? I know some of us don't mind going to Hong Kong ^.^

2 weeks to invest!
Matt

This came in through my email today. My heart jumped a little, partly from surprise and partly from sheer disbelief that fantasy has translated to reality. Partly, also (I suspect), from elation that I’m not alone in missing our hearty camaraderie and the times we’ve spent together. Delayed gratification ain’t the best, but it’s good enough for me.