Tag: heartwarming

Unwarranted Pleasures

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Something unusual is happening – the good kind, but also not quite.

Every grey, filthy pavement turns into crystal-clear brooks where she can spot colourful pebble-sized quartzite, granite, and marble as she plunges her feet into the frigid water and make her way downstream to go after where the stream flows. All careless and rude pedestrians are now friendly-looking tiny animals out of a children’s storybook or Disney and Pixar movies alike, exchanging conversations in languages she’s somehow familiar with. The dull, boring skyscrapers are shifted into vast blooming meadows with blossoming magnolias and dahlias and lush greeneries wherever one’s eyes gaze at.

It is quite a scenery for everyone to enjoy and appreciate. Daylights are longer and day-to-day mundanity feels lighter. She even smiles a lot more often than what she generally allows her to.

But it makes her uneasy whenever she tries to figure out why.

She hates that she’s absorbed in guilt rather than contentment. She feels wrong whenever she stares at a particular something and laughs, but also weirder that she has to keep forcing herself not to put on too much of a grin. Besides, what’s with all these excessive joy and giggles anyway? I hope it’s just hormones, she wishes. But I don’t think so.

It rained quite a bit today, the kind with patchy drizzles and a hint of petrichor; and she hated what it reminded her of.

Two cities, miles apart, unbeknown to each other.

Why can’t it feel right to feel good? Why does it feel undeserving for her to be happy? Why is it not as effortless as it used to be to appreciate mutual fondness?

What are we even?

The Untouchable

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Your twenty-sixth birthday went past, all the transient romances ceased, your adolescent lust turned into a hunger for a more timeless bond.

Never before you met a soul so impeccable; whimsical words born from their fingers, constant supplies of their contagious laughter radiated into the air, all the sincere goodness they touch the Earth with, their grace covered with elegance, all the exemplary qualities everyone wish to steal,

all sublimity you can barely touch. When boundaries are as high as discrepancy, bigger than numbers, stronger than faith,

all that is solely out of your reach. Even skins, even the tip of their fingers where affection is preserved for too long,

and a whole lot of other things you wish you could caress.

Are they worth the aching?

Moonlit Midnight of Men Murmuring

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1:01 AM and somewhere across her room, someone is responsible for unnecessary assumptions passing into her head.

Why, of all implausible excuses she keeps fabricating by herself, this particular one turns out to be the most provoking?

Observation doesn’t seem to be of any help. She needs to ponder. Deep. Into rooms where perception and feelings are stored for long, for she has always been way too afraid to get close by.

But the answer has always been complicated and difficult, either to translate, or to appreciate.

All she knows that some things linger. And remain. And never escape.

Gentle pats on her head, awkward arms around her, the curly edges of ivory hair blown away by the afternoon breeze,

the fairest colour of skin she has ever witnessed,

all that she saw, all that she felt because.

Slight details she would rather disremember about.

Somewhere across her room, two bodies are inside each other’s, yet it doesn’t scare her. For the only freedom she owns is her own train of thoughts, as her heart is sealed with loyalty, and her body is bounded with promises.

She just believes there’s a space for her,

always. Even between the adhered surfaces of two skins against each other that night.

She’s an remedy he wouldn’t unhand.

Not now.

Stadiums Shrines

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In a world where the fine line between white and black is sometimes undecipherable, there gets to be some time when everything becomes just clear and readable—in absence of the gray or blurred intervals. Spaces between your eyelids and that couple of brownish circles. Silvery dust flowing away from my face every time I breathe. Sheets of papers with your terrible handwriting on them.

Among things that are white, those are the ones I enjoy spending time to look at the most. Where truth be found, and things are absolute, with no transitions. Eyes that don’t hide lies, scattered dots showing where the atmosphere flows, and writings of non-fiction that are disguised in novels or fairy tales. Unlike snows that melt, the walls between our rooms that crack, or the back side of those photographs of your face which eventually turn to yellow.

Somewhere along the fine line, I can see the other side where things are all the contrary. Black, and unlit. Like the total eclipse of your heart before this story comes to life. Or the conservative mind of mine before our lives intersect.

In other word, the past before us.

A 7:AM of faith in expectancy revived

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Expectancy is harmful, indeed. All this time we wish upon humans who were odds-on to be made from stardust, yet not shooting stars. They do not have wishbones placed under their skins, nor walking with horseshoes. Humans are just to whom our hopes and wishes drift, along with promptness of accepting that they may not grant the whole lot—they are just creatures of no good luck charms, no wish makers as well.

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Oneiric

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After straight four hours of watching people wearing satins passing entrances.

/their own kind of today/

Adolescents standing on the dais wear bright sweatshirts, some with knitted vests, as well as harem pants with monochromatic chiffon shirt, all hymning twee to dreamwave if not shoegaze to lo-fi tunes with whimsical lines they have curated the list before—sometimes the bands do not mind doing Scandinavian folk for special order—and her (second) favourite person on Earth at the moment is the boyish-haired girl with xylophone. Filigrees with white to peach blossoms all over the hall, befitting the magenta-coloured flamingo installation near the doorway. Kids wearing pearly tulles to adults wearing ivory brocades surround the portico along with sous-chefs dishing up cannellonis from table to table.

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Errer

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In times of yore, I used to fall for the idea of wanderlust. Stations moving behind night train window, eyes of spouses longing for immediate arrival in every corner of the airport, the smell of salty water slowly vanished within merchants’ old-fashioned perfume scent on cruises—all of them were all the kind of constancy that I kept witnessing each time. And I felt good, as well as alive. It was as if the entire humankind was within my neighbourhood and that all voyages were just routines that kept me sane. It was as if I never befriended the word “hometown,” or “settlement,” or “stay,” not even a chance to know the meaning of.

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Longship Noir

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Slices of cold toast next to pairs of patterned socks, stranded in the corner of the ruffled futon. Few creased notes on the wall prompting how many weeks remained before departure. Windows opened behind untied draperies conveying waft from elsewhere. The loose end of a daybook with picturesque illustrations and few lines of children’s storybook. Empty cartons of almond milk, outmoded jumper with particular men’s odor, colourful inks from leaking pens, Dutch dictionary’s pages found in shreds, bleached trousers hung above fridge; everything was as misplaced as the summer downpour that is occurring outside. Cellphone thrown at the edge of her hammock, suddenly vibrates.

“Hello, there.”

And she just knows rainbow would betide even after cloudburst.

 

iii

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Puji-puji tentang rumput yang disapa oleh kado kiriman dari langit, pipa-pipa di ujung atap rumah yang diminta bernyanyi riuh bersama anak-anak awan, rambut-rambut yang basah setelah dirangkul tanpa jeda oleh malaikat dari angkasa yang mengharap pertemuan dengan Dewi Bumi. Ruang-ruang di antara rusukku kini dihias dengan krisan dan bakung tempat kupu-kupu bermain hompimpa sehabis gilirannya kilat dan gemuruh.

Setelahnya,

diam-diam kukirim doa dan salam paling bersahaja untuk Sapardi Djoko Damono dan Cholil Mahmud yang telah berkisah tentang hujan yang sentimentil di bulan Juni dan Desember.