Emily in Paris - A Hundred Percent

I have my own boundaries when it comes to relationships: it has to be a hundred percent. Love shouldn’t be shared, and it shouldn’t be effortless. I always give my all to the one I’m with, and I expect the same in return.

I thought this was the fair and right approach to relationships. I believed so strongly in my own values that I began to assume others must want the same things I do. I even encouraged my boss to believe she could have someone who gives a hundred percent, instead of settling for being someone’s option or side dish.

It shocked me to realize later that not everyone is interested in serious relationships. Some people don’t want to give their all or expect a hundred percent from someone else. They just want to have fun, without the commitment.

Now, I wonder if I’ve been wrong this whole time in my own perspective to see that not everyone thinks like me. Was I being naive or even ignorant to believe that everyone should give or receive a hundred percent? Maybe the idea of giving a hundred percent isn’t the right mindset after all.

✍️: October 19, 2024

P.S. I have started rewatching Emily in Paris recently…

A Guy - and His Music

 

In late September, I met a guy who I had seen long ago on the internet before we matched on a dating app.

He barely communicated with me by text. Many times, I felt like I was ghosted. But when in person, our conversations went easier. We had a few things in common: we love traveling through forests, taking photos, listening to Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne and being open about who we are, including our sexual identities, which made me feel even more connected to him.

One thing I noticed was how music seemed to be a part of him. It was always there, playing softly in the background, yet somehow it became a part of the mood between us. On the first day we spent together, he asked me what my favorite song was. I mentioned Taylor Swift, and he turned on THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT. We wandered along the riverside, the music quietly accompanying our conversation.

He had a beautiful smile! I love it when he gently smiled at me and looked away, as if he was trying to hide his shyness. I was shy and hid too. I just hoped my checks didn’t turn red.

As the day came to a close, I found myself wondering if we would meet again. I asked him, “Are we going to see each other again?”

“Yes, we will,” he said.

He gave me a warm hug before we went our separate ways, the memory of his smile and the music lingering with me as I headed home.

An Empty Book

 

I had been waiting once for 5 years for just a title for a book I wrote, only to realized that it would never be named.

I don’t think this is a good idea to move to a new book without ink stained. I don’t have that special ability to read out of the blank. I can’t intuit the story out of an empty page. It’s like wandering in a busy street knowing no where to go, yet I just can’t stop moving. I have to paddle till I run out of energy before I finally fall to the ground and can no longer defend.

I should have been at least explained or shown. I have the right to know what was going on when I was also involved in that matter.

I know that when it comes to loving something, I have to fully trust in that, but not an unwritten book. I don’t have faith in thing I can’t see or feel. I was told the book was written this way or that way, but all I saw was nothing. I wanted to believe too, but I couldn’t do that blindly.

How about me closing the book and putting it back to where it belongs to for people who is actually be interested in emptiness. I think this would save a lot of time for both parties…for the book and me…

His Art

He texted me every morning

And called me every night

I wondered where he learned all of this art

 

I told him I love his mustache

and he kept it for me the third time we met

Guess this is his art

 

He left red-mark on my chest on our first time in contact

I asked for more

He gave me more

This is his another art

 

He opened the door

he said sorry

Asked for consent before he touched me

I swear I loved these arts!

 

I loved when his body got a temperature

When we both were on my bed

He kissed my lips, my cheeks, my nose

My hands, my shins, and my forehead

What a beautiful art!

 

He made me believe in the art I used not to be into

He made me believe the art was real

I believed his art was real

Forever Monday

He used to be my favorite Saturday when he spent most of the entire day with me in my room. Now I just want it to be forever Monday. I’m scared he would keep that day for someone else beside me, and what if they make him happier.

I want it to be forever Monday, the day we both are so busy with work life. I wouldn’t think about him, and he would probably be too busy to hang out with someone new. I’m scared if it was Saturday, would he bring his new favorite person to the place we used to be together? Or would he visit their places just like he used to be at mine?

Sometime I looked into the mirror, I found myself searching for red marks he left on my chest on first of October. The red marks on my pale skin. The Saturday we first came into contact.

He was my daydream I would always love to share with everyone else even now we are no longer together. Sadly, I was described as a nightmare to his 2022. This statement just breaks me every time it pops up into my mind. He made my 2022 the best year of all time, and the most broken moment at the same.

Now I’m wishing it would be forever Monday.

I sensed it

Accepting the fact he didn’t love me anymore was hard and devastating, but to pretend like I didn’t know he was changing just so I could extend the relationship a bit longer was even worse and indirectly made me felt like I was disgusting. I couldn’t just be that selfish to watch him forcing himself to be with me. I’d rather let him go even thought I know it would break me to pieces.  

When it came to loving someone, I could feel and notice every little thing in detail. It wasn’t my intention; I just instinctively intuited the things. I noticed his tone of voice, word by word in texting, topic during the conversation, face expression, eye contact, and even how he touched and kissed me on our last evening together.

That evening at mid of November 2022, he didn’t kiss me the way he used to anymore. Normally, he started it. But this time, it was only me. I felt like I did all the work alone, and he was reluctant to even just respond. I could immediately perceived, he had changed. I didn’t know him anymore. Like totally someone new to me. I wondered if he was still mine, was I still had all the consent we both had agreed the day before.

I had asked him for a hug before we left the house. I hugged him tightly. I know it was for the last time, just like the atmosphere on June 02, 2018. And I was going to miss him really bad. I was going to remember his body temperature, his smell, and his heartbeat on that evening for a period of time.

 

March 17, 2023

Too Attached

I wonder if I was the only one, or was it everyone to feel this way too? To feel like being too attached to people, or places, or things. I wonder if being too attached is self-sabotaged? Was it only unkind to myself, or was it something I unaware of that the fact it was also toxic to people around me? 

Was I being too much? Or was I being too childish to feel like I couldn’t be any better without them? Or was I the only one who seem to don’t understand how this world works? Or am I being sick?

I can feel easily excited and damaged over little thing. They could just come into my life a few days before, but I could feel as broken as I had known them for year whenever I know our connection would no longer be the same, or when I came to aware there is no way I could ever be able to talk to them in a way I used to anymore, or even just to stare at. Like I could be annoying to them or indirectly making them feel uncomfortable in a certain way.

The thing is I can’t stop thinking about them. I don’t know why, but it seems their shadows keep running in my head non-stop. I perceive it only adds more suffering to my own chest, but how do I not feel it that way? It’s like everywhere and everything I’m going to or doing right now is reminding me of them. 

That attachment is totally killing me.

No Title

As it has always been said, nothing is last forever. If we rely too much on the external things, we are going to perpetually and repeatedly be suffered.

Things come and go, we humans need to learn to let things be the way they suppose to be, willingly and without constrained. When they come, give them the best out of ours. And when their presence is no longer there, be okay to accept the fact our moment together comes to an end.

I know watching things we love or we crave for slowly fade away is hard, it's heart-wrenching. I've experienced this too, too many times. But we have to be aware that our life still go on, and it isn't over yet. It is just one moment/event that is terminated.

That is time to move on and start over something new. Let unwanted circumstances be a lesson for next move. Don't ever give up on yourself.

P.S. RIP, Unknown...

✍️: March 01, 2023

⚙️: it’s all about a guy who committed suicide recently

Coming Out

December 05, 2022

Coming Out - the heavy truth is finally exposed

Being a homosexual is weird somehow, for it seems it is a must that we have to come out, to expose our own gender identity to certain people, whereas we have never heard or seen those heterosexual people do. It’s unfair, but this world has never been fair since the first place. The majority have always ruled the world, when minority has to live in fear and been constrained.

Whatever, in another angle, coming out is like a special day for people like us, when we expect to finally be able to be who we really are after our announcement. Thought we don’t have to stay in closet anymore. We don’t have to hide ourselves like we are those wild animals who could be killed or captured whenever they are out in public.

Yet, the things straight people could have never understood, we are taking risk for this; for choosing to be true to ourselves. We are facing rejection. Possibly, we could lose people we love, our parents. And horribly, some of us could have been locked in room alone for a period of time or forced getting cured, for they thought we are sick.

Anyway, to unable to live the life for who we really are is a loss, the loss of our identity and happiness. We are human. How can we live a life by instinct just like animals do? Nor are we a robot. We don’t need remote control. We have our own thoughts and decisions. We need to take this risk standing up for ourselves. That is why we need to come out. I’m not saying that all of us have to come out for our identities. Make sure if we are safe enough to do so, both place and time. We don’t need to come out if it harms our security.

I have made decision for so long, for when is suitable for coming out to my parents. I have never meant to hide them. I just feel like it sounds stupid to suddenly come up to my parents and told them “Mom/Dad, I love man.” Like I have said above, I have never seen any straight people doing this crazy thing before. But, for whatever reasons, I don’t want them waiting for my marriage which they keep asking for years till now. I don’t want them expect me for more than what I am.

I don’t wanna keep holding on my secret to my coffin. I don’t wanna see my parents waiting for something I’m sure it would never happen. I don’t wanna live a life full of lie. I don’t wanna avoid eyes contact when I talk about my feeling. I don’t wanna use word “They” to replace the person I call “He”. I don’t wanna tell my parents that he was just my friend when the fact he was someone special. I don’t wanna stay silent when my parents’ opinion go against people my type. I don’t wanna leave my closet just to standstill, but to fly away and free coming back...

Questions I got from my mom:

1. How do you love? (I think she indirectly referred to thing on bed.)

2. How do you have baby?

3. Why do you break up with your exes?

4. Aren’t you afraid you would get murdered? (I laughed at her question at the moment hahaha!)

Mystery Guy

It was Saturday morning when I saw a guy. He worn coral, and I was in my favorite color. I was with a very close friend of mine, but he sat next to someone I believed he was his boyfriend. I was just like backpedaling to where I hadn’t begun yet, or perhaps I was veering off.

It was in a deep part of the living green coat of the earth where my heart was racing, but I didn’t dare to make a move although I then realized they both were just friends. Like there was hidden wall at between, I clearly intuited it was there. Many times, I lingered my eyes on his back as he walked pass and he never once turned around just to check on me. That was despair. But I couldn’t stop peeking at him. I saw his curly hair, back ears, white cheeks, pale neck, and his long fingers. 

We didn’t see eye to eye at the moment. Although I wanted to learn about, I chose to distance, to disappear into thin air the day after. Perhaps, that was the only way I could save my heart from falling to pieces again. I didn’t want new hope just to lose it later, and I didn’t want to wait for another decade so as to move on again.

Little did I know, I dropped my little red and round shaped at somewhere I didn’t aware of. It was like miracle! He found it, and he got his way to return it back to me a week after. Who knows? It doesn’t follow me anymore, but him. I guess it’s his now, but I’m happy for that… 

📸: September 10, 2022 - 14:27 

✍️: October 06, 2022 - 00:34

Friend?

You said let’s go a few step backwards 

To a friendship thing

I said I’ll follow your decision

I’d stand where the line was drawn

But I’m wondering if we were just friends for the whole time back then 

Why am I broken now

Why I feel like the whole heart is getting cold

And it’s empty 

Yet I know no where it has begun 

And I know no where it is lingering now

All I know 

It’s like trying to collect all of those broken pieces 

And wishing to put it back 

Just so I can heal fast

Write: August 30, 2022

Promised

You said I don’t need to tiptoe 

You would bend down for me

You want pictures of us

Perhaps, they’re our feet

You promised me September 

You prove me never

You said you love me that night

Tomorrow came, you said we could be friend instead 

I was fake being okay with that

Said I follow you 

You said you don’t wanna hurt me

You want me to be happy

Yet, you just slowly made me feel like I was the fault 

I believed I was really the devil 

✍️: August 28, 2022 - 13:32

Your Tale

 

You said there was a white dolphin

Swim around the man's boat

The man enjoys watching as it jump up and down in

l asked if he could swim

You said he couldn't

He couldn't swim

You said he would build the aquarium

Just so he could watch it swims daily 

Turn out the man has cut off the line

He built the wall

He allows no dolphin in

Now it breaks my heart

The man hurts the dolphin

Yet the dolphin still waits for when the man comes as promise

Were he speaking the moon?

✍️: 21.Aug.2022

Get Lost

 

Sometime, I have no idea whether I'm just starting a new page, or I'm closing the chapter. I don't know if it is just fake laughing, or I'm actually laughing at my fooliness.

Sometime, I've read the same sentences again and over again. I'm not sure the fact I don't understand the lines, I'm trying to figure them out, or I love reading those lines.

Sometime, I wonder if I'm getting lost, or I just love observing. If I'm being curious, or it is just my excuses to speak and to hear.

Sometime, I draw the circle, and I'm the one who erase them. I built the wall, and I take them all down.

Sometime, I think I'm moving too fast that many people ask me to slow down, yet I always feel like I'm one step behind. I don't want people to wait for me, yet I would be happy if they actually do.

Sometime, I could sense I'm getting lost, but what if I don't get lost? Would I be found? Or would I still be drifting?

July 26, 2022

23:18

Destiny

 

If we bump into each other, It's a destiny. If we come to part, It's a destiny. But if we hesitate, there is nothing to do with destiny but our own choice.

If I feel right, even if it's one time, one day, or one week, it's enough. I feel no regret. I'm glad at least it came across my lifetime.

If it was wrong, I should be the only one to blame on. If this is called karma, I know I deserve it. I would reject nothing. I deserve this punishment. I deserve all the punishments.

July 27, 2022

00:45

Eternal Summer - 2006

Eternal Summer - Taiwanese film 2006

The most heartbreaking moment was falling in love with our very best friend in our youth. The hesitation and dread kept us standing there and watching them eventually faded away from a circumstance which once used to be known as normal to us with someone new. Someone they had just known.

They were the one who changed, but we suddenly became a stranger to our own environment. We hated where we lingered, and we just craved for disappearing.

But what if they weren't changing? What if they were just growing? What if we weren't actually the same? What if the pain we hid behind our smile was held long enough till it pushed us away and found no right way coming back again...

Tonny: A Life Journey

 

An innocent life became a stranger to new environment overtime. A life that was abandoned again and again for his aggressive attitude. Tear dropped when a life came to realize he was unwanted for the second times at the age of four. He was handed from one person to another.

I could sense his dread and loneliness when he hid under the red hammock, a place he just saw for the first time. He was shaking and his eyes were checking on the glass doors. He seemed to expect his owner would come and pick him up soon, so he could be home. But he had never seen the one he waited for ever again.

Later, a drifting life learned to love and belong to his brand new atmosphere. He might not perceive the fact his new place and people were trying too. They tried to understand him, and get along with his aggressiveness. He might not intuit that those were the people who would never give up on him.

It looked like he started to enjoy his new life with his new owner for 6 years and 8 months now. They shared him their bed. They gave him toys and new clothes. They bathed him daily. And they always brought him along whenever they traveled.

Who could knows what's coming next? Yesterday could be a clear blue sky, and today it turns rainstorm. A happy and strong living creature you just saw a moment before could now their life were taken away forever, and nothing on this world could replace that missing spot.

But that is a journey of each life. We just can't pin the distance we aspire for. The good and bad just head straight to us from nowhere and without a warning. Whether you want it or not, when it comes, it will come.

May my beloved Tonny rest in peace. And if another life was real, may he be a nice human, a lucky one.

June 06, 2014: first met

February 25, 2021: last seen

The Mask

In order to look naughty and more like a bad person, performers tend to draw their eyebrows a little higher than their natural shape. And on some kind of traditional show, artists have to wear giant or devil masks so as to be identified as mean characters. At back stage, the bad and good guys put their masks off and have a good smile for each other.

In real life, thing opposes from the show. The harmful ones seem to love wearing a smiley and innocent face. They train to behave kindly and socialize. They paint their black-face white and their bronze to gold. They even act better than a real good one. But once their true face get exposed, the scene would go plot twist. They would rush to devastate everything just to be able to put their new mask back on.

Just like a tragedy in mid of 2020, it has indicated that ambition and greed were powerful enough to turn people into anything, or perhaps it just uncovered the truth which laid under their fake skin for decades. The thirst of wealth and fame had pulled an angel mask down and remained satan instead. The most trustful and respectful people in life could also switch sides from a kindhearted butterfly who only consumed nectar to a hungry worm who aggressively cut  the whole plant to death for its own stomach.

It was shocking and hard to believe at first, for a person who is going to own a coffin today or tomorrow still need so much of credits and properties that they become shameless and inhumanity in doing anything, even to sabotage their closest one just to own something they do not belong to. It was like a hard strike for the victim where they went stunned and unavoidable.

Would people really like to cultivate that well premeditation for almost a lifetime just for today accomplishments, or does the possible occasion lead them to be a proud scam who hide under an innocent layer?

witnessed this tragedy at middle of 2020

photo was taken on January 2019

the mask was made by Chin Ayuthhyea

write this on December 11, 2020

Travel Alone for First Time

Going abroad alone was scary, and it worried me the most. Because I did not speak English well enough and the place was new for me too, I was afraid I could not move farther or even just to reached the point I had set.

In mid of 2018, I had to travel to Indonesia, and that was my very first time traveling alone and that far, 3000 kilometers away from home. I had experienced a lot of things that I had never done or encountered before. It excited and gave me nerves at the same time.

I could not forget those moments when people were so kind and willing to help me when I was stuck and not knowing what to do next.

I remember once when my first flight stopped in Malaysia. The airport, KLIA2, was so big, and I was so dumb being unable to find a way to a place to stay even though people were trying to gave me direction. Luckily, I met a man who I believed he was a pilot (base on uniform). I asked him for direction, and he walked me to that accommodation.

Another time was when the plane landed in Makassar, Indonesia. I was keeping my backpack on the plane shelf, but someone pushed it deeper during they tried to get their belongings before they left. I was not so tall that I could not reach my backpack above anymore. It was out of reach! I watched people left one by one as I was waiting for a cabin crew to help me get my stuff, for they were way taller then me! Yet it seemed no one came my way or even to peeked at me. Then there was an Indian guy walking from far, and he smiled at me. I had not said anything yet, he just reached my bag and handed it to me. How nice he was!

Maybe I had seen and heard so much bad news about people that somehow it frightened me, yet there were really plenty of good people out there. Perhaps that positive incident I had bumped into that year would later encourage and push me to repeat that same activity in another time. Just sooner or later.

Tong: Memories - from my very gay perspective

Photo: TVmaze / Jung Woo left side - Doo Hyun right side

So I had just watched "Tong: Memories", a 2016 Korean TV series. It was about school guys who fight back those gangsters who intended to bully them. Amazingly, they won all the time, and that make those gangsters hate them even more.

But during the show, I could not stop myself from feeling the gay vibe in that series! I felt their bromance along the show! It is sad they were not!

It was like a couple. When Doo Hyun was jealous of Jung Woo's fighting skill, and he tried to ignore and avoid Jung Woo, but Jung Woo still managed to see him at his class. (Babe! Can you stop being mad at me?) in my thought! xD

That was so cute when Doo Hyun punched Jung Woo in the face, yet Jung Woo remained calm and talked nicely to him. Just like a gentle man tried to compromise his mad girlfriend! haha

It was way too nice when Jung Woo came to save Doo Hyun at the last minutes of the fight, although Doo Hyun acted like he did not want to be friend with Jung Woo anymore.

I secretly wish they had a romance relationship instead of friendship!

Sea Shells

Walking along the beach in an evening was a wonderful moment, and more interesting for beach that was full of sea shells. So, we could pick some of them home for souvenir, for ourselves, for reminding our good old day, for we could find our feeling back when it is getting faded somehow.

The sand there was not as smooth as the sand in my country. It was made up of bigger gravel (it was not too big but bigger than where I was from), the broken corals, and sea shells. All were in and on that sand. It hurt my feet to wander around on them on some areas.

An older brother who looked my age was leading closer to the beach, when he started to pick his first snail shell up and hold it in his hand. I was thinking if I should pick some by my own or should I ask him to pick one for me so as to keep as souvenir. Beside speaking it out, I was walking pass by many beautiful shells I loved, yet I told myself not to collect even one of them.

"Here, it's beautiful!" Said he, and he handed it straight to me. OMG! xD hahaha

My hand was faster than my brain! Yeah, I took it from him. "Yes, it is!" I replied.

'Does he just ask me to hold for him? Will he take it back? Nuh, I don't care. I will never give him back anyway. It's mine now!' I thought. And then I put it into my shirt pocket, while he was looking for another one.

This photo was taken on May 29, 2018. This writing was written and uploaded on my Facebook on September 02, 2018.

Change

If changing makes us happy, then do it. For no matter what, people would still complain about our life. And it is their problem, not ours.

If we happen not fit certain beauties standard, we would get called ugly. If we wear makeup or fix some parts out of our natural look, they would call us plastic.

In fact, we need to remember that people only have opinion towards thing they had paid attention to or jealous of. Absolutely, that thing must be so bold, and it reminds their insecurities.

Don't change to fit someone's opinion, change for our own need, change to fulfill our own purpose.