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Have you ever sat down to shower?
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Welcome. Take a seat- yes, hold onto the rails when entering ~The Jacuzzi~. Yes, it’s pronounced like that. That’s the joke, it’s just a flooded shower. Fine, you can stay outside. 2 metres square isn’t a lot for the bunch of us.
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So. I was in my early sec school years, when I was still a kid, but rapidly losing that weird innocence. I used to put a pail over the drain cover and run the shower, where it’d flood the bathroom a little bit and I could just sit in the mock bathtub, pretending to be actually well-to-do. To me, being well-to-do was being part of a family that owned a bathtub. Of course, this came with the associated costs of wasting water and I grew out of it quickly. Also, disgusting. There was a period where I realised there was a largish tub we had that could do the part of that, but I outgrew it within a month.
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You know the word “sonder”? It’s a word that describes the realisation that everyone’s lives are as rich and complex as one’s own. It’s not an “official” word, but words are just a series of letters strung together that people agree define a concept and that concept is “the realisation that everyone’s lives are as rich and complex as one’s own”. Anyway, a full, rich life is a bit difficult to visualise. I end up thinking, “woah, they had to deal with wet shoes today too?” and the thought experiment goes to waste. You could break it down even further and ask about their shower routine.
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What’s your shower routine like? Everyone’s vulnerable during a shower aren’t they? But so, so isolated as well. No one’s expecting to be watched. Everyone’s just… Themselves. Warts and all. No cool hair, no fashion. See? Look at this. It’s a keloid. Well, it’s like I’m Wolverine, that I heal too quickly so I look like I’m growing mushrooms. I don’t wear singlets any more.
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Sometimes a shower is just “get this scum my body made off me” and sometimes it’s where people fuck to reduce clean-up and sometimes it’s a luxury.
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I turn the heat up to two and the tap to full. I flinch, either because the water is already hot or still cold as it strikes my calves.
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Sometimes, I put my phone on top of my water heater and blast “The Definitive”.
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I enter the stream, with my sweaty running attire. I sit, cross-legged. I’m in my personal waterfall and I am a meditating monk-child.
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I feel the clothes clinging onto every inch of my skin, heavy. Sometimes, I mouth the lyrics. I don’t sing them. My brother rarely sings and I judge him, then I feel bad because I’m judging someone who is enjoying himself.
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I scrub the bit around my ankle with my pointer finger. Eraser dust. The flakes mean I’m getting cleaner. Sometimes, this doesn’t appear because I’ve already did this clean a day or two ago.
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Being nude frees you of judgement. Mom’s been trying to get me to meditate for a long while. But meditation never felt like a thing I wanted to do, because it’s just sitting still and not thinking about anything. But showering, sitting in the shower is meditation.
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I hear water hitting skin, tile, hair. I hear the computer fan that Dad installed at the top of the door. And so I hear nothing.
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Nothing but you, the warm LED glare, the computer fan and the channels and streams and creeks of water all over your hair, skin, folds, lashes and keloids. No water bill, no love, no hate, no judgement. Just rub that dead skin off, get the suds in every nook and cranny. Squeaky clean, as they say.
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No using your phone, nobody to rush you (yet) and no need for any of those -phins or -mines or -tonins. The world waits. Just you and the white noise of water on water on skin on floor.
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The towel’s over there, your clothes are over there, everything will be where you left it. Lock the door on your way out.

There is something Wrong, something so, very Wrong, when everything I do I question the authenticity and the What am I Doing Here.

People begin their life after university. Mine ends; I live life as a trainee in a hexagonal comb, moving onto the next cell when the previous is full. There was a day, I was acutely sure, when I walked up the slope outside the Central Library, when I realised I would never be able to imagine myself when I was 32 because I was so far gone and so hateful of the concept of myself and having to live another day, and I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but we seemed to have arrived at the very stop, how peculiar, alight if you need to.

You asked me if I was okay and I wasn’t so I said I wasn’t, and that it was because I spilled 7 dollars worth of Long Island onto my pants and yours, which I was still bummed about.

We talked, and I swore to you twice that I envy you,

I envy you, my heart trickles with mercury as I write this,

I envy your love for yourself, my heart palpitates and my breath shallows,

I envy your desire for a tattoo around your rib, my eyes wet and blur,

I envy that you’ve found yourself, my smile tightens but my eyes crease,

I envy that you’ve gone up to talk to her, I almost but do not weep and the hipster glare of Haji Lane smudges and blurs and mixes until you can no longer be seen,

And I envy you because you’ve gotten better, and who am I then if you’re better

?

I type to you, “because, God, I wish I were that brave” and I mean it, I meant every word of it, and you don’t know this because I’m sitting on a steel bench with my mouth gasping for air, desperate to not drown under the weight of not knowing what to do.

In a few days, I will stand on stage with a fake gown and a horrible prerecorded accent, in a few months, I will stand on the same stage in another gown and a mortarboard and a degree and in a few years, this will all be forgotten, I am bloody sure of it.

But for now, it is real, it is really, really, real, and God, what am I to do with this horrible horrible person I am left as?

I’m not done with this post just yet, but I am tired enough to turn in and forget about why a hidden tattoo on your ribs drives me into a heartwrenched shock.

Today, during our CNY visit at our Second Grand-uncle’s place, I had a long chat with my cousin Richard about jobs and then his relationship and then Tinder and then Coffee Meets Bagel.

Another cousin, Kang Zhen, was there. In my memories, he was a boisterous kid with crooked teeth and a bubbly laugh. I remember hitting him and tripping him on purpose, a couple of CNYs ago, because he was being a little squirt.

I don’t know exactly how he was a little squirt, but the idea that he asked for it was a small enough padlock to compartmentalize that memory. I wondered if he remembered how much of an ass I was, because I don’t remember that he deserved my violence.

He wandered over, now a gangly teen with a sharp jaw, and I asked him if he was Sec 2, when which he replied quizzically that he had just finished his O’s. He gave me a grin, one that seemed to say “I remember you played with me when I was younger.”

I lost my mind over the whole relationship thing, going on a little ramble about how I was 24 already, and that 24 was two zodiac cycles too much to not have had a girlfriend. I wanted to fuck up properly before I hit an age before I was reasonably expected to be mature. I wanted to fuck up while the dating pool’s warm, inviting and not the dregs of people who couldn’t find dates because their baggage is just over the limit, mine included.

I ended up feeling more depressed than I’d ever felt in months, which I’m sure isn’t entirely true, but I’m not there holding a gauge to my sadness, am I?

It’s not my fault they’re all lesbian.

Rae once called me an empath, a word used to describe people who have extrasensory attachments to other people’s feelings.

Being both a staunch disbeliever of astrology but a sucker for being special, this term gave me an odd bipolarised case of dismissive pride, which only seemed to be exacerbated when she rejected my advances during Valentine’s 2017.

I feel responsible for people’s feelings. I’m crushed in an impasse if they’re 127-hours-ed into a rock and a hard place. Sometimes they pick up smoking, sometimes they cut themselves, sometimes they just want to die, and all of that manifests as an odd trickle of mercury through the heart.

I understand that the metaphor is lost on every human alive, so here’s the tell and not show: the sense of impending doom. The very same one that exists to remind your monkey brain to run for the hills upon hearing a branch snap in the topsoil. Coupled with empathy, the thing that makes you yawn when others do – don’t quote me on that – I feel like shit every fucking morning. Anxiety. And depression when you can’t help.

It’s the worst tin-can-with-string ever. Don’t get me wrong. I love you all. Friends who are going through the worst of shit. I’m so tired of seeing you all in pain. I have no reason to be upset, myself. But here I am, eyes a metre away from a lit phone screen, typing dryly and inconsistently.

It’s the same harpoon to the heart I get when people dismiss my Spotify playlist or call me out, and the same pleasure I get when people laugh at my improv and say thank you for talking to me.

Validation is the topsoil of the desperation, and my next goddamn therapy session is 2 weeks away.

They’re not your cuts. You can just be there. That’s enough. Do what you can and just stop the knife when you see it. Listen to your own advice; it’s always gonna be okay, they love you, they’re gonna let you know. You don’t need a resolution right now.

Good night.

God. What? You want to give up? You’re a weak fucking bitch, aren’t you.

It’s literally week 1, Shao. Just week 1 and a little night class or two scares you? What would you do with that time anyway? You don’t play games any more. You have “lost interest in activities you once loved”, haven’t you?

You’d certainly hang with others. You can’t miss out. You really don’t have the money to hang out with others… You do, but it’s not your money. You should be working. But fuck it, you couldn’t plan your graduation modules properly and now-

What? It’s not about- She snapped at you? Why? I’m kidding. I know why. But this why meant, like “Why’s she your entire world?” Why not some random… Ugandan’s opinion? So her individual opinion means absolutely who you are? So you thought, with your brain zapping like a toaster in a tub, that you’d come out of helping untangle another mess of wires, completely unscathed? You fucking bowlhead, what the hell did you expect? Yes, bowl head, get rid of the fucking bangs-

Fuck, wait. You’re crying? I didn’t- God, what the fuck, you’re just a projection- I-

Okay. Stop- just stop tearing up- and don’t write about it- Jesus. Fine. Whatever. I promise I’ll stop shouting at you inside your cavernous skull, if you promise to start trusting. Her. And yourself.

It’s not a big deal… uh… Things will be better! Don’t let it cling to you like smoke cancer to your lung things. I-

God. I’m so, so at ease at helping others feel better, but when it comes to you… It’s impossible. Jesus. Christ.

Jesus fucking Christ. You used to be better. So much better. What happened, Shao? What happened?

A cold wind topples you over. A sentence knocks the wind out of you, a text cramps your heart into a vice, an obsession strikes your brain into a jar, you’ve gotten fat, you’re wrong all the time, you’ve lost three things this week, you you you. What the fuck do you want? Does the world revolve around you or not?

Wait. You know what? Fuck. Fuckit. Fuck it! Go to sleep. Follow your advice for her. You shitty fuckhead. Gym tomorrow. Sweat it out. You got that at least.

Baby steps, baby steps. It’s your advice. It’s easy, right? Do it.

Talk to me when… you don’t have that shitty pout on your face.

So I’ve been in Ipoh the past few, with 8 other friends. Stage friends. People whom I love, situationally, every Tuesday night, in the three most stress-free hours of my university life, four years in a row.

There’s also the whole thing about going on trips with friends, and the whole thing about being weird in these trips. This time, I cracked the whole weird situation thing. Bear with me. I mean, I don’t have to tell you that. You’re not a hostage. You’re not stuck in here with me, I’m stuck in here with myself, and you’re the cop behind the one way mirror.

I was the problem all along, duh. The audience throws their hands in unison.

My theory, which really only applies to me, is the incredible, incredible fear of being left behind/disliked/isolated.

I start off in awe of my new surroundings, excited, lively, cock a doodle doo. Then comes the part when the tide recedes, when the first hint of dissatisfaction from someone else leaks through. I found myself shutting up after a taxi ride, learning that if I said nothing, then voilà, nobody would ask about it and you’d be perfect. Of course everyone asked.

This continues in a weird cycle where the last vow of silence expands to take up a larger slice of this fucked-up pie.

Besides, what have I gotten from Ipoh? I’ve bought three bags of biscuits that I’ll never eat, two leather bracelets that renew my belief that I’m committing to “being myself”, whatever that means and twenty (originally thirty) packs of gum.

Okay, I’m bummed out about other things so I’ll end this long overdue post here.

On 2355H, New Year’s Eve 2018, I stumbled onto the Padang in a last minute decision to catch the fireworks, as some part of a desperate tradition.

The sky lit up as a band of jocks yelled “two… one” and this year, the crowd was smaller from this new, distant location.

It looked like watching a graduation from miles away. I didn’t need to be there, it’s something familiar to me, but everyone else is enjoying their time while I’m spectating the spectators.

“I don’t know what the fuck I want” was my mantra last year and probably this. My religion is self-undiscovery.

Maybe my resolution this year should be to weaponize my unfortunate list for short haired girls, which ends with an incredible lack of applause when, as it turns out, that they’re all lesbian. It’s a Venn diagram with a circle with what seems to be a thick outline.

It’s not my fault. And if it wasn’t embarrassing enough, I’m going to blame it on Mom because it probably has something to do with her having short hair for my formative years. Absolutely necessary disclaimer: I am so glad that my Freud-oriented mind had not imprinted itself onto the alternative, that is incest, or other fetishes, such as bestiality, furry porn or paedophilia. Believe me. I’ve had cats crawl onto my lap and I prayed to whatever deity would listen that I wouldn’t get a chub from it. Don’t get me started on children. Thank God I hate children.

I’m sorry. I’m practicing gratitude. Common technique to help depressives gain insight, y’know? It’s kinda contrary, though. Try to be thankful for the little things in life. There’s an entire implication, which is because you’re an ungrateful asshole whose mind defaults to being sad just because your mind’s survival instincts are unchallenged.

Did I mention the gratitude thing? How much do you think you can repeat how grateful you are to be their friend until they decides this declaration comes with the contract? It’s pathetic, Shao. Roll on with the times. Let it be, and show your love in other ways. They’re gonna rub your head when they’re tipsy because they aren’t usually that expressive about their fondness. You’re gonna rub theirs when you’re both sober because the table in between prohibits a hug. And buses here can go everywhere as long as you can wait long enough and as long as you think it’s worth it to listen to them face to face. And it is, but only if you do it not to rein in a friendship. That’s distrust. Don’t distrust. They’re there the whole time. They love you for you. You should trust that. Put down the sacrificial knife.

Alright. I’m running on two hours of sleep and then some. Fumes. We slept in a row at the chalet. I think sharing a terrible sleeping spot with a bunch of friends is the human equivalent of a cat letting you touch its belly. It’s especially vulnerable, in a crane shot zoom out, friends surrounding us kind of way.

We’re going to Ipoh tomorrow, some of the stage friends. I’m afraid, to be honest. Group travels have been shit.

It’s been 7 years. Really?

that’s alright, I mean it’s a bit too soon to say “Never”

But 7 years?

it’s OK I laugh pretty much on the reg right

Things still overwhelm you.

well look, everyone else’s hiding it

But you don’t see overwhelmed people.

that’s because they’re hiding it, keep up

Sounds like an excuse to me.

im telling you it’s not true k dont overthink it

Well, everyone else is all getting better right?

yeah

And you’re doing that little dance where you tell them you’re happy for them?

yea so

Isn’t that a bit fake?

fuck

Like, why do you need to say it?

idk i just want to know that they know that’s how I feel

Yeah, that’s not very honest.

doesn’t matter if it helps right

They’ll find out at one point, that’s when things go bad.

yeah not good I hope not

You still get anxiety from “hanging out “, not very pure, now is it?

I actly cant really explain this

Watch out.

hey if the result’s positive it doesn’t matter

Is that something you’re telling yourself to make things better?

idk probably

…

what do you think I should do

Drink. Write.

I alr do tho

A post where you talk to me.

what.

Like a chatroom, gonna be a little cheesy though.

who to

Me.

yeah, who

It’s been 7 years. Really?

I feel like I am one with the cotton shirt I’m wearing. This great, sticky, prickly, down-your-collar, sweaty, mildew, dank cotton shirt.
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I’ve my own misgivings about MBTI, but the Mediator is one pigeonhole I’ve often been slotted into and I ashamedly agree with it.
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The Mediator! One that desires balance, one that desires no conflict, one that is an idealist set up for disappointment. Thanos would probably have been a INFP. (I draw the line at classifying fictional characters under Hogwarts houses)
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It’s the thing that makes me respond to insta stories like a dog with a tennis ball. Cute!! Oh god you can drum?? Play fetch? Wow!! You’ll be fine! ❤️ Looking good! Cute! Ayy bruh! Etcetera.
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It’s the thing that makes you apologise to others. Please like me. Please don’t leave, I swear I’ll behave this time. Please don’t lose interest in me first, let’s just lose interest in each other, together, at the same time. Please. I’m begging you. Please.
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Or, let me find out that you’re human and are mistakeful, and let that crash your pedestal to basement 12. But you probably won’t care because I’m probably not that important to you. Let me cry in front of you. Let me shame myself. Let me use myself as a punching bag. Let me grovel. It feels like a syringe into flesh, metal, bloody, foreign, sticky. Good.
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People call the act of apologising (first) “human decency”. Humility. Or weakness. Self-loathing.
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I’m the guy who steps into the circle, arms outstretched like a priest, woah woah woah, hey hey hey! Take it easy!

I’m sorry, mom. I didn’t like how you reminded me, minutes before my drum purchase, that I wouldn’t get to go to Thailand without that kind of money. I didn’t buy it. And I told you it was my money anyway and we reached the mrt anyway so I alighted before you could say anything.

I’m sorry, Rory. You were stressed and I made it sound like it was an easy job and maybe that’s why you were mad. I tried to give you a hug. I’m stupid. Dumb. A fat baby.

I call apologising a quirk. No, I guess I just want to call it a quirk. Job benefits, comes with being an INFP. Okay, self-loathing works too. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Can we be friends again? Please. I’m sorry. Fetch?
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It’s one of the rare things out there that is either your fault, or it isn’t, and sure as hell, it always is. If it’s your fault, you can control the conflict. You can say sorry. You can end this.
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You. Are. In. Control. Holy shit. That’s what I’ve been after this whole time. Control.
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Jesus Christ, this mildew smell’s been on all my clothes. Horrible.