[▲] DEMIGODS - POETRY

outro

describe an experience that has hurt you and how it has changed your life 

                                                                                                                        - free writing essay question from a school test

There is an unmistakable twinge, a poignant tug at my heartstrings whenever I pass Bedok station, on the Mass Rapid Transit line. There is a shift in the air when someone cracks a corny pick-up line, one that mentions one's heart going "Be-dok, be-dok" at the sight of someone they love. It isn't wrong to say my heart did go the same way once. Funnier so, because I pass the station every day to reach home. My heart does not beat at this station. Some days I feel an overwhelming everything, some days just a hollow nothing.

As I approached my adolescence with steady footing, my path crossed with a dear friend, again. There was plenty of re-discovering ourselves in a two year gap that had torn us apart earlier. A friend I could pour my heart out to, whether it was late night text messages or through my habit of doodling on sticky notes. I saw him as someone who accepted me, for who I was and what I stood for. Finding a friend like this may sound simple and cliche even, but knowing and realising that this connection exists within you and someone else, can hit you, hit you with a gravitating magnitude, so much that you are more prone to falling.

Ensuring that my knees did not buckle when faced with such adversity, I continue to revel in that friendship. Nothing more, nothing less.

There came a time where our merger hit a diversion - a promise of 'see you again' behind the weighty 'goodbye' broken because one held on too tight, tight enough to strangle.I came to a conclusion that I would never find someone else that I could fit so well with, breeze through the most awkward topics with, chatter about the triviality of many aspects of life and delve into deep thought with, and with that agonizing yet endearing conclusion,

my feet trod softly on a different, more individualistic path.

That was the last time I had seen you, a ruffle of brown hair, eyes gleaming with hopeful melancholy, platform doors closing at Bedok station as I stood on the other side, train doors closing, my face blank. A clean slate, a fresh new start. I was on the way home yet somewhere, somehow and some times, I had found a home in you. One that provided me with warmth and shelter once. That was the past.

Because one day I figured I was too comfortable, like things were all made for me, as if things like these could exist. How could I be so desensitized to the world's agonies, the world's triumphs, joys, humanity? There is no adventure in comfort, and because I was born to break barriers I broke the very ones you had built for me, vowing to keep me safe when I was the very reason danger existed.

Walking alone does things to a person, I feel, it may change one for better or for worse. Unfortunately for you, it was the latter. On the journey there were some parts I had to walk alone, and you didn't let me. A stab of disappointment, as I realised you no longer held the same respect you had for me before.

I was an object, of happiness that you desired to obtain and mark it your own, but I believed I was none of that. You don't need me to be happy, and I didn't need you to feel joy either. Love isn't giving happiness to another person and receiving it back from them. To me love was teaching the other person how to find their own happiness, and if they have learnt to do so on their own, love is to make their happiness your own happiness. Finding happiness in their happiness, that is what love is, to me. However you thought happiness could be achieved, like an object of desire. Joy is a state you decide, not a state you achieve.

When I look back now I have no qualms nor regret that I had broken down and disassembled what you trapped me with. You didn't love me, and I didn't love you. I am sorry. How could I love someone else if I had not loved myself yet? Impossible.

No doubt, I was seared with lament and pain, branded with hellish inferno, hurt. There was even once I believed I was the piteous victim, pleading for clemency. That was a time I had no love for myself, for anyone at all. 

From rock bottom I could not fall down any further. With time, I built my foundations again, starting from the rudimentary bricks. With every ounce of belief I had gained from my ventures, a path was paved. Unapologetic, I began to stand up, for myself and it proved firm grounding when I continued my journey down a path I had paved for myself. For no one else, leaving no time for someone else to decide my worth.

My heart still clenches when I pass Bedok Station, where your home is, where my home of a person once was. Some days, I feel that hollow nothing, other days I feel that overwhelming everything. Yet now there is that: Hurt is inevitable. There are new truths I have attained on my perpetual journey of life, those that I am eternally grateful for.

The most difficult process of discovering these truths was the part of application, applying it to what I know. Whether to groan at the situation, leave it unsolved, or strive forward on this journey, resolving circumstances and leave behind the clenching feelings of heartbreak at Bedok Station.

(I am eternally glad I chose the latter.)

I still pass by Bedok Station every day, on the way home. Forget the clenching of my chest, I've done that.

Because now I only hear the beating my heart, steady, pounding. Alive and warm, with the home I have built for myself, right here.