circle of friends

it seems to me that relationships of equal dependence are rare.

there was a tug when i heard your voice. but when you cried, i am sorry to say that i could not respond with equal strength of emotion. i miss you. i think of you. you brought me great joy. i treasure the journey we had together. and i realise that my sentences are slipping into the past tense, as though all feelings for you were in the past. but even then, even then, i could not say that you were important to me the way you could say it of me.

i wonder how you would feel if you were to read this. and i wonder if i ought to continue. but it's just a thought, really. because i am quite certain that nothing will stop me from writing on.

it's something that i have taken to heart and taught myself to recognise while i was still on the receiving end. there will be people whom we adore and to whom our hearts are so wholly given because of the emotional support they provided to us at one point in time. there will be those who mean the world to us, but we are a passing figure, a part of the crowd to them. in any relationship where one is dependent on the other for guidance and support, the depth of emotional investment will be unequal, because the receiver will always have greater need of the relationship than the giver.

i need you more than you need me.


when she cried, i thought of that day in august when you opened the door into that small room in blk 80. i thought of how the knob turned, the lock clicked, the door inched open slightly. and you said "hello". one word. one word. two syllables of your voice broke through any restraint i could pull together.

and that february when you came back. and it was your last day (again) in singapore. i remembered how i shied away from you outside tc. i could not bear to come anywhere near you, to hear anything from you.

perhaps you will come to the same realisation as me. perhaps you, too, recognise that dependence makes a relationship imbalanced. i am sincerely sorry if this realisation causes you great pain. and i wish to say that you are not nothing to me. you do mean a lot. you are someone i really like. i empathise with how you feel because i have my own heartbreaks. i hope to become friends with you, to achieve a more balanced relationship, so that we can be an emotional and spiritual support to each other.


bangsy's girl stares at me
on her tiptoes with hope but yet she squats
keeps nearer the ground for she knows that's where she belongs.
her face turns outwards and her fingers keep hold..no,
they merely wait
for the sign, the word that is a command
and they will release the string.
it will go;
it does not belong.