SKID ROW

but what is grief,

if not love persevering?

I’ve had quite the week. Or maybe the month. The year? An entire life? Yesterday I met my cousin Hazwani, and I told her about having seen Lucas with another girl on his Instagram. We went to The Projector, it’s the only independent cinema in Singapore, and Lucas liked it, aesthetic kid that he is. We used to like going there together, of course it was the location of our first date, and many more after that. Hazwani and I took pictures at the photobooth in The Projector. We laughed over our silly rhymes, pretending to be “writers” like Lang Leav and Rupi Kaur. My cousin is truly one of my best friends, I love her, she’s seen me through so much, through everything in my life I guess, but it did make me miss Lucas, who was my best friend for close to two years. It was raining heavily yesterday, I slipped on an open staircase and fell five steps down, breaking the fall with my bum and left arm. My arm is bruising, and both my cousin and I were completely shocked for a while, but I told her I’d get over it. I’m not too bothered by physical injuries anymore, I think it’s a lululemon thing. My arm is bruised, it takes two or three weeks to heal, it goes away forever. What worries me is my heartbreak. You get heartbroken, you spend three nights sobbing. You think you’re done. But then you see your ex with someone else. It starts all over again. I miss Lucas. I don’t know in what capacity. Yes, I took him for granted when we were together. I enjoyed his company, being my partner, he was also my best friend. While we were on lockdown, it was his money that went towards my therapy sessions. He never treated me like I needed to be fixed, he’d just let me be however I had to be, let me go through whatever I had to go through. He was really good for me, and I know I loved him, but I don’t know if I knew how to love him. When I was young, my parents would have violent fights, and they’d make up, and I thought that was love. Their fights would involve one of them telling me to throw away a peace-making gift from the other, and the other one telling me I’d better not throw it away. Their fights were the kind that resulted in one of them smashing in the windscreen of the other’s rented car. My parents were not stable people, I don’t know if I can say they are stable people now, and I’m clearly not stable either. I miss Lucas being dependable and stable. I don’t know if I broke up with him because we weren’t compatible, or I’m not equipped to love. Why do I crave love from people who barely give me any attention? I’m an emotionally attached person. If I can feel for people in third-world nations I’ll probably never get to visit, if I can harbor feelings for someone I met in LA five years ago, if I can still recall the romance I had with a man I spent two weeks in New York with, you’d best believe my memory will not let slip a man I spent two years being best friends with. He was a solid, dependable, soft, funny, loving and considerate man, and I will always love him. If anything, I just hope people know I loved them, I love them, and I tried my best to love them. I know not all relationships are meant to last forever, I know sometimes you just have to enjoy things in their season, but I just want to know whether I had the right reasons, I just want to know my reasons. My heart hurts, and my body is banged up from the fall. I cannot stop crying, and I want the stages of grief to be over. I’m in pain, everywhere and I just want to know when it will end.