Roxanne

It felt like one of those moments that you would only see in movies. The whole thing would only make sense with the angled images, adjusted colours and carefully selected music.

It had been 10 years since I stepped onto the warm carpeted flooring of 83 Millenium Court, the flat I occupied for nearly two years in my early twenties.  I was 22 when I lazily threw my belongings into two suitcases that were quickly filling up. Normally, I would have packed my stuff weeks before a trip, practicing my mother’s strategic packing method that had been etched into my very brain from all the memories of travels in my childhood. It was out of character for me to not have everything ready the night before the flight. My one-way, 16 hours flight back to Samsara. But unlike the trips I’ve had in the past, I was not looking forward to this one what-so-ever. Plus, the throbbing headache courtesy of one of the worst hangovers I was having did not help at all.

I make my way upstairs, to the mezzanine level of the flat, and noticed that my landlord had put in a new sofa in place of the old faux-leather one that was falling apart every minute I put my weight down on it. 

It was becoming worse and worse throughout the two years I lived there, but it was at its peak when I was fighting through every caffeinated day of working on my final project as a miserable PR intern.

The soft water-repellent fabric brushed against my skin when I sit sideways and put my legs up. It feels so much nicer than the prickly shedding faux-leather bits. I close my eyes and let myself sink in for a bit, the long hours of travel are really starting to hit me now.

“Roxy?” A croaky voice from downstairs stopped me from dozing off. I can’t believe I let Isaac come over on the very first day that I landed here. I should have known that I will be spending the day sleeping my fatigue off. “Wow. You really are back.” The croaky voice was staring at me on the edge of the stairs and a stifled ‘hi’ was the only thing I managed to reply him with. My eyes traveled to a paper bag hanging on his wrist and a carrier with two red paper cups in his hand. 

“Eggnog latte. Still your favourite, I assume?” his voice again.

There’s that feeling again, too. I stepped over to him and took the cups away from his hands. “I don’t think I’ll ever find anything better.”

Provence

No one pulls off a dark grey suit better than David Perreault. Amelie watches him as he exits the black Range Rover into the lobby, tapping the back of the car before it drives off. The knots in her stomach started twisting when he checked his cuff links and makes his way into the foyer, passing people who were sipping their afternoon pick-me-ups and puffing smokes in front of their faces. He smiles at the woman who was getting ready to open the door into Provence for him. Heads turned when he stepped inside. A group of middle-aged women sharing a table gave him their looks and started whispering between each other. A couple of smartly dressed people from different tables took a couple of glances at him. Amelie can’t be sure if they were struck by how ridiculously tall he is, or because they recognized who he was. 

He paused as the door closed behind him. She should probably wave at him to signal where she was sitting, but the sight of his impossibly blue eyes moving across the room to find her was a vision she’d like to savour. A moment too soon, his gaze locked into her muddy brown eyes. She tilted her head and simpered, and he made his way over to the four-seater table on the far-left side of the room. 

“Sorry you had to wait,” he kissed her lips quickly as his arm flung round and squeezed her back. More people glanced at the two of them, as if communicating their thoughts with the way their eyes pierce or look up and down.

Once he took his seat, she told him that she had only waited for 15 minutes and slid the menu across the table.

“Just a heads up, their coffee is kind of terrible, so don’t get your hopes up or anything. Croissant is good, though, I think you’d be able to tolerate it, but I wouldn’t touch the salad on the side,” she warned David as soon as the waiter left after taking their orders, keeping her voice low just in case. 

He nodded and took his gaze across Provence. “I can see why you like this place so much, Milly. Cool temperature, not too crowded, comfy cushions, lots of sunlight, and Victorian-esque interior. It ticks all your boxes.” 

She lifts her eyebrows, hoping the blusher she put on this morning would hide the rosy flush that emerges underneath. Ten months is a long enough time to get to know a person pretty well and it shouldn’t surprise her that David knows a lot about her by now. Yet she still finds herself in the delicate balance between being uncomfortable and smitten every time she realizes that he knows her beyond everything she had told him, like the small, trivial things that she makes a place comfortable enough for her to sit and do her work. 

There are a lot of other cafés and bakeries that look just like Provence in the city, but a lot of them are packed with people dressed to match the place. Women in impossibly unwrinkled blouses and men wearing an entire house on their wrists. Loud noises from their two-seater cars proved to be too great of a distraction for her to come back with her 13-inch computer clutched tight in her arms. Plus, they never have enough plug sockets.

When David was digging into his croissant fourrés, he reminisced on the best one he ever had, served in a breakfast buffet at a hotel in Osaka.  Amelie told him that she finds it hard to believe that in 48 years of his life, with most of his childhood spent in Montreal and a half-French mother who baked pastries every weekend, that he only came across the best croissant last year. In Japan, no less.

She narrowed her eyes as she took a sip of her latte out of a paper straw that has started to become soggy. “Are you sure it wasn’t because we had just met the night before?”

le roman de la mort.

It started as a great tale of romance, and it was him, her solace, who prevails in the end. Their journey was a whirlwind. Painful, complicated, unnecessarily dramatic, ending in an anti-climactic. Together at last, they lay hand in hand, as she sigh her last breath at the sight of his horror and irretrievable sorrow.

She has come to meet her death and the best thing he could do was to let her.

Windy.

A time once lived faithfully
vivid and full of energy
passionate and untamed,
slowly fades away
sliding into somebody’s unidentified history.
Now just a part of forgotten memories.

Lived it then, have faith that it will continue still.

Like a recurring dream, an out of body experience.
As fragrant as it first transpired,
utopia.

The air grew bleak
the atmosphere went somber –
It came back.
An unforgiving nightmare this time
the kind that could kill in the sheets.

A hide out in a concrete jungle

When I lived in Cardiff, I used to love to go to cafes that are located inside of shops. There were a few in particular, like the coffee shop above Waterstones book shop in the city center, or the Starbucks located on the second floor of Next and the house coffee shop on the second floor in Marks and Spencer.
There is also the coffee shop inside of John Lewis, near the Cardiff city library.

I have always loved finding my own peace and quite in the middle of hustle and bustle. To read a good book, doing work or simply just browsing on my computer, sometimes even with a friend or two. I have always enjoyed the atmosphere in those cafes.

They are usually quite spacious and they tend to get busy during the weekends or public holidays, but on the week days, I would be able to choose the best seat in the house.

Most of them also have big glass windows overlooking the busy streets of the city center, which amps up the cozy atmosphere.

Now, why am I writing all of this down? Not sure, if I’m being honest.
But I have found that writing does not only let me express my emotions, but it somehow lets me relive the feeling of being in those cafes. Just a simple warm, cozy and safe feeling. Nothing too deep, but just simply… content.

25. in cursive

I can’t be sure, whether I’m being selfish or just simply foolish.
There seem to always be a thick, blurred line between the rights and the wrongs
between the do’s and the don’ts
between the yes’ and the nos.
I’m used to being told what to do,
so what I’m told is right became my reality.
Have I lost the ability to differentiate?
Have I missed out on the window of being a well functioning adult?
My daydreams are what people think normal life is like
I live and breathe in my own nightmare.

“Welcome to 25, darling,” he whispered and rolled out of bed and picked up the phone. His side is cold still, and I lit up my last cigarette.

 

Most of us are angry
Most of us are strangely
More alike than we’d like to believe

Most of us are empty
Most of us are simply
More alive in the scenes of our dreams

Then there’s you
You’ve got something I’ve been wanting,
You’re so new

You’re my salvage, you’re my balance,
You’re so new

Most of us are hurting
Most of us are searching
Someone to love
Someone to understand

Most the time I’m fighting
Multiple voices residing
In my head

Then there’s you
You bring silence to my violent truth
Yes, you do

You’re my salvage, you’re my balance,
You’re so new

New Balance – Jhene Aiko

 

I could have been a Princess, you’d be a King
could’ve had a castle and worn a ring
but no
you let me go
and stole my star.

Princess of China

Don’t turn your love away

I am guilty of not trying hard enough to love my self most days.

The truth is,
We don’t always feel like we deserve love
even if it comes from our very own being,
so much that we forget how to channel love
from our hearts into our own heads.

It so much easier to love a best friend, a significant other, a pet, even a memento, but we couldn’t even look at ourselves in the mirror for longer than a couple of minutes.

It’s sad, it’s scary, but it’s the truth.

Start small, treat yourself today.
Buy that ceramic mug you have been wanting, eat the scrumptious apple pie you have been craving.
These days, the world is so unforgiving, the least we can do is to steer clear from being unkind to ourselves.

Scraping for Clues

Tell me

how does it feel to be so terrified
of the place you were meant to seek love from

to be so emotionally beat up
in the place you suppose to seek shelter in

to have an impossible amount of hatred
towards the bed you’re suppose to sleep in

You are them
and they are you

When time is no longer an accepted concept
nothing can ever separate the sun and its heat

so tell me

how do you take out your thoughts
from your own head?