Your salt habit

"Your smile, the one that lights up the darkest room. Your laugh, the one that wrinkles your nose. Your little hop, the one you do when you're walking too quickly. Your voice, the one that melts the hardest hearts. Your salt habit, where you add salt to every damn dish".

from a letter to a girl in 1998

The wrong mother

I have a friend who keeps trying to find the reason why we want to fall in love. That's all fine and dandy, but trouble is, he likes to tell me why he thinks we want to fall in love. And then he asks me why I think we want to fall in love.

I tell him I don't know much about that, but I that I know he's making one big mistake after another, and that everything he does with a view to falling in love is akin to a lost lamb trying to ingratiate itself with the wrong mother.

Meeting you, and getting to know you by way of long, long telephone conversations has not added an extra dimension to me or my life. Life's pretty ordinary still. Work is work, sleep is sleep, and telephone conversations are nothing out of the ordinary. Though your sense of logic, pride, propriety and fun baffles me and your combination of self-assuredness and clumsiness charms me, and I could say it's got me, hook, line and sinker and all that, I couldn't say more.

And that sucks.

And although I've been pining for, thinking about, confused about and missing you for so many weeks now, I couldn't say more.

And that sucks.

And it's all because I don't want to say more. And it's all because you're the wrong mother.

And that sucks.



{Also posted on Singapore can Romance itself}

The Colonel's Bucket

So what if it was at the KFC?

You didn't say no when I asked you to marry me, and I was dead serious. So what if I didn't have a ring for to put on your finger? You didn't say no, and I was dead serious. I was dead serious even if it was a spur of the moment thing. I was madly in love with you and you didn't say no.

I would've forgotten about my asking you to marry me at the KFC, but ten years to the day I did, you took me out to the very same KFC, bought me a meal, and said Happy Anniversary.

I mightn't have asked again, but you know what? You still haven't said no.



{Also posted on Singapore can Romance Itself}

The two-timing slut-bitch

iTunes is playing: Never Make a Move Too Soon - B.B. King - Live at San Quentin

I was sitting in the police station, sobbing as I explained to the police officer why I was hiding near the drain near your house.

I thought you were kidding when you said you preferred more mature guys, you bitch.

I thought you were kidding when you kept talking about the spunky lawyers in the firm you interned at. How they spoke well, how they dressed well, how they were well travelled. And how one of them had that fancy Maserati we had seen on the road before.

Good thing I found out when I waited for you to come home from the 'girls' night out' you went out on. I would've leapt in a flying rage at the two of you as you kissed goodnight, but I my mind started plotting slow revenge instead.

So slow, an hour must've passed before your neighbours called the police, who came round in five minutes and hauled me away.

Good thing the cops were kind enough to hear me out, and they laughed at me only a little before they drove me home in a cop car.

I wasn't charged, and I promised them I wouldn't ever go near your house ever again because you were a no-good two-timing slut-bitch. And no-good two-timing slut-bitches get their comeuppance in due time.

You got real fat and ugly and married your cousin, last I heard.

{Also posted on Singapore can Romance itself}

One Ferrero Rocher with a small purple ribbon

On Valentine's Day you brought a Ferrero Rocher tied with a small purple ribbon and placed it on my desk in class. You gave several to your girlfriends too. How was I to know it was supposed to mean something to me?

I said I had a sore throat and therefore had to avoid chocolates. I will remember your crestfallen look forever.

We still went out that afternoon, taking the new MRT to town, going up and down escalators in shopping centres, looking at things till it was way past time to go home. And when we finally started to make our way home, you left your hand close enough to mine for me to hold.

I got home, put my things away, and because I had a sore throat, I took the Ferrero Rocher with the small purple ribbon and put it on my desk, and kicked myself for not opening it in class and eating it on the spot.

I could've held your hand! I could've kissed you!

Damn that sore throat! I could've fallen in love with you that day.



{Also posted on Singapore can Romance itself}