they talk. i just write it down.

You ruin everything that I love.

Be glad that I don’t ruin you.

Because I can if I really wanted to.

Boy: I love you.

Girl: What?

Boy: I love you. You like music. You love songs. You love particular moments in songs. You just don’t love them, you have favorite parts in it. And you get excited hearing that part even when you’ve heard it thousands of times before. I love you for it. I love you.

Girl: Are you done?

Boy nods.

Girl: I’m going to kiss you now.

‘Look at you. You haven’t bathed. You haven’t eaten. You’re filthy and you choose to be filthy. Leave this room. Away with your movies and be grateful to be alive’.

‘I love those movies. They keep me company. Sure, I am in misery, but real people make me jaded, numb, they desensitize me from what’s genuine, what really matters. Those movies, they are fiction but they make me feel. They continuously remind me that I am no robot, I am not a zombie that aimlessly wanders through life. Those movies keep me sane. They know how to treat me well. People don’t.

People who have gone out of the country, had been alone, the alien in another culture, never fail to want to come home. While here I am, cannot wait to leave, away from home; be alone, and an alien in her own little world.

The kind of guy I like is tall, a dead ringer for Lee Pace. He hugs like there’s no tomorrow, is happy that I eat and can pinch my ‘soft abs’. He has hands that look like they’ve been used, can be nerdy and geek out on things without having to be a know-it-all about it. He’s a good kisser, knows what a shower means, and plays the piano. And he can give me a piggy back ride whenever my feet hurt.

Boy: You’re a misfit, I’m a misfit. We’re misfits that fit together! Are we still misfits then when you’ve found the one that fits with you?

Girl: Are you high?!

I knew I loved him when he said he made pop-up books. Books that contain a surprise – the literal manifestation of words and images leaping off a page.

Graham, that was his name, a master of three-dimensional creations but was disinterested in the details of the three-dimensional world.

How we met was a cliché.

It has been reenacted in films, particularly romantic comedies, time and again. The scene: Two people, a boy and a girl, are in a bookstore. They spot the same book and zone in on it, grabbing said book at the same time. Now their hands have touched, cut to scene of boy’s and girl’s reactions. It is love at first sight, you can tell, because they have not let go of the book and they’re smiling, as if in recognition of the other as The One. They exchange names, numbers, pleasantries, and date, have sex, break up, make up, and at the climax of the film, they have their happy ending: a declaration of undying love, a kiss under the rain, or a wedding.

A guy and I met the same way – almost – by grabbing the same book in the sale bin of a bookstore. We touched hands and I immediately retrieved mine, shocked by the sudden intimacy. He did not let go of the book and was able to purchase it for himself. I called him a jerk to his face because of this. There was none of the romantic comedy editing with a pop soundtrack. It wasn’t love at first sight. I didn’t believe he was The One. He was The One I Wanted To Punch On The Face for stealing the book I liked. But he got away before I could hit him. He was The One Who Got Away From My Angry Knuckles. And I didn’t want to meet him again.

I don’t say No on a whim, but with conviction.

You got my answer. If you don’t understand it, then it’s not my problem.

You can’t be happy all the time; you have to be unhappy too. You have to experience both the happy and the sad so you would know the difference. Then you can decide, you can choose which suits the situation best, whatever it is that you choose to feel. You can only fully appreciate happiness when you’ve been genuinely hurt and felt pain. Every ounce of happiness comes from a speck of sadness, wouldn’t you believe it?