Telling It As It Is
18 Oct
Dive beneath the surface to distill the essence and you will see, as I am sure you already have, I am a simple person with simple needs. “You make me laugh,” I said that of you early on as you said the same of me, and that answers in brief what you asked of me today. The long answer is not by any means simple, nor brief — try as I may, but I can’t explain away my love, _my love_. My writing wants to pretend to but does so very badly, but if you will let me have another go�
I’ve known _love_ by many names in many incarnations. To studiously avoid names like ‘drama’, ‘fucking soap opera’, ‘melodramatic’, and other terms pertaining to the dramatic arts (specifically the soap operas and tragicomedies), leaves me with not much else. Quite evidently then, to have woken up next to the same person happily and contentedly for days on end at first, then weeks, and now.. months, and much more, is an alien concept. One with which I’ve no quarrel with.
More often than you do I find myself thinking: what is a girl like you doing with a girl like me? But since you’re concerned with my version of the truth then shall we start at the beginning?
You made me laugh, that much I have said already — _laugh_, not in that superficial manner we are all accustomed to doing in response to a silly joke told by classmates or a malicious one about somebody else’s loser ex. Instead, a soulful, hearty one which can be a tiny chuckle at times and a loud guffaw at others, in both private pleasure and public propriety. Months later you continue to, every single day; my cheek muscles have a perpetual ache from how these days they’re perpetually in certain positions and directions.
But it all started when I fell for your voice, I remember the day quite precisely, and every day hence that I was enamoured by it. I was dragging my feet, generally sulking at the state of affairs — obscured by the shadows cast and the leafy environs — when I picked up _you_, your voice, laughing as you did, and later singing as you did. Even two bars’ worth was quite enough — it was so smoky, in a jazzy kind of way, and so sensuous in a I-want-you-now-now-now way. I remember thinking my God, when she does an Ella I’m going to die. You did, eventually — I didn’t quite die, as expected, but I did swoon a lot, and blushed even more.
If you really must know, in even greater detail: it’s got something about how you talk art to me, and how I’m impressed by everything of which I have absolutely no clue. Riverside, many times, after long walks and drinks — I spoke of literature and poetry, and you replied in art, reminding me a little of my ancient neighbours speaking in Cantonese and being replied to in Malay, and understanding each other perfectly all the same. The little nudges and ‘accidental’ brushes forming the backdrop of the start of something beautiful.
Cut to present day, as my lover, girlfriend, and my best friend — it is you I go running to for everything from desperation to elation; complaint and reward; uplifting and reality checks; for no good reasons, too.
I still can’t explain away my love, but it’s got something to do with how from the arctic cold of air-conditioning, to the electricity-less outback of rural Southeast Asia, I am always comforted by your calm breathing patterns as you bury your head in the arch of my body, how you always manage to hand me a tissue two seconds before I start tearing at a movie, how with you I am complete myself, as I’ve never been with any other.
No matter how tyrannical you are about the state of the kitchen sink, there’s no getting away — unless, of course, you choose to. But as for me, “they can’t take that away from me”, and that’s that.
/sappy
