Friends with Benefits

1

2018

I woke up with stained eyes again. 

I wished I kept count of the days since you left but I knew it was unhealthy. 

You were my very first love and the first man I wanted to settle down with but at age 17, who knew what commitment meant?

So at age 17, I had my first heartbreak and at age 18, you left me because I was too difficult to handle. 

You left me void, you left me to drown. You triggered every dysfunction I thought you healed but the only thing you did was to aggravate my sleeping wounds. You awoke the devil in me and you left me in flames. 

At age 17, I made my first mistake of letting you define who I was. I made the mistake of carving a home for you when I should have made my own abode. I let your love hold my broken pieces together when it should be me. 

At age 17, Brandon Chan, you taught me what it meant to love myself before I could love someone else. 

For a few months, the pain was unbearable and my nights crawled into mornings and at the break of dawn. I saw another day of affliction seeping into my life. 

For a few months Brandon, I thought we would work it out and you were my hope of getting my life together but your truth was suffice. 

I just fell out of love. 

You never lied and that was when I realised my hope should never be you but myself. 

2019 

I got on my knees and prayed. 

March 27, this time I remembered the day you left. 

January to March, you drained every part of my soul and you took the very thing I held dear in my heart. 

You set a price and you made me pay, when I could barely afford the rent. You evicted me and eradicated every memory we had, especially the promises you made. You left my time in the bin and you held on to my last shred of possession, refusing to return. 

At age 18, I lost the one thing I swore would never leave. 

At age 18, I made the second mistake of compromising my values when you should have respected them. 

If intimacy was important to you and your love for me was genuine. You would have made one compromise I wanted, boundaries. 

But at age 21, you only wanted everything for yourself. You wanted the tides to flow in your favour and you wanted my heart to submit to your demands. 

At age 21, you thought you loved me but you deceived yourself and me. Now you had robbed me of my innocence. 

At age 18, Jason Jin, you opened my eyes and you taught me what it meant to love. 

I cried for three days and I knew it was time for me to love myself again and to heal from the trauma and pain you inflicted upon me. 

Three days, and I knew one day I was going to find a man who will understand what it meant to love and be in a relationship. I knew one day the man with me would make time for me, respect my decisions, love me in my unaesthetic forms and compromise to make it work. 

Any excuse could have been better than: We will never have time for each other. I am going to University and with your school commitments, we will never work. 

The truth would be better Jason, than to see you fall in love with someone with the same phase of life as me two weeks after you left. 

2019

I hurt. I healed. I broke again. 

Wandering in this world for a sinful christian like me, the only hope I had was for God to be merciful enough to love me. The only strength I drew from were prayers that kept me going. The only way I learned to love was to understand I needed to have everlasting love in my heart. 

But I strayed. I ran. I rebelled. 

Still, the only hope that kept me through the painful years were prayer and quiet time. There I found strength. While others sought shelter in different things, I happen to find mine in the arms of God. 

But at 2019, I met you. 

Carter Ng, initially you were the one who was suppose to hurt for the anxiety you brought upon the life of my friend. 

But the evil my heart bore came running back to me and I was the one who ended up hurting because of you. 

2019, we were supposed to be friends with benefits and I was perfectly fine having no strings attached but you drew our first string and from that moment on I never reaped benefit. 

From the long talks and calls Carter, your stories and heart tales softened me and that was the moment I fucked up.