Butterfly Chaos

What you gave me

(South Tangerang, 4 years ago)

Snail

Tuesday afternoon, 3.04 pm.


You know G, I’m listening to your song now.

I wonder what are you doing now? Are you walking somewhere now with your feet deep in the snow? Because the rain is pouring almost every day now in Jakarta and despite all the differences, I imagine the sky would be just the same. Cloudy, misty sky, a color of broken white, a hint of sad romance in a faraway land.

Oh by the way, the sky was beautiful last night.
I don’t like it when it’s too clear. Or simply cloudy.
Last night was a sky with subtle patterns of clouds, forming soft strikes from one end to another, twirling in beautiful curves, a dance of vast universe.
I feel at home looking at it.
A strange comfort.

And look at me now, doing my daily pages in the middle of working hours.

(Kebayoran, 4 years ago)

Listen to Me

My mind feels like it was going to blow away any minute. Multitasking is never a good thing.

Please, please, please, listen to me.

Listen to my subtle voice carried by the unheard wind.
Listen well. Think of the universe. Think of the connected, moving particles, older than the universe itself. We are not separated. We are forever connected. We have always been connected.

Clear your head, space out like you usually do, and try to hear me. Find me in the deafening silence when you’re alone and no one’s around. No music, no dancing, no spotlight. Just you, and the silence.

Listen well, and find me there.
I am there. In the snowflakes falling on your head and clinging to your hair when you walk under the open early winter sky. In the drops of snow melting from the leaves you see in the trees around you. The cold air of winter that you try to grab with your hands. The promise of spring afterward.

Listen well, G. Please, listen well. I am there.


(South Jakarta, 4 years ago)

Calling You

I wish you’d hear the smallest sound my dreams make.
Calling you.

(South Tangerang, 4 years ago)

When The Sun Rises

Every time I tell myself that this is a new day and the thought of you will fade as the sun rises. Every single time I learn that just like the sun, the thought of you returns. Every. Single. Day.


(Kebayoran, 4 years ago)

Does It Ever

One of those days I spend alone sitting at my front yard, waiting for the sun to set.
Wondering, does the color look the same from where you are standing?
Does it ever, look the same, from the place where you stand, walk, breath, talk, laugh, sleep, and dream?
Does it ever?

(South Tangerang, 4 years ago)

When Morning Comes

Every morning I’d wake up to a strange realization on how quiet it is inside my head. I’d spend the first few minutes sitting on the edge of the bed, thinking about you, and all the feelings I have about you; the feelings that never stop pounding loudly in my chest, the feelings that have overtaken all my logic and reasons, replacing it with something unidentifiable yet overwhelming. It’s funny how distant and strange the feeling seems to be in the morning. I wonder, what could have possibly happened during my sleep that has erased all the chaos, leaving no trace but subtle feeling of a déjà vu, so subtle like a thin transparent fabric on your window. It has died down over night.

At that very brief moment, I thought I finally got over you and all the impossibilities. It feels relieving at the beginning. Then I’d start to feel a sense of loss. I’d wonder would it felt not thinking about you every day. How would it felt not longing for you.  How would it felt to finally stop dreaming and get my feet on the ground. How unpleasant everything is if I stop dreaming and let logic takes over. How unpleasant it would be for not having you sitting silently at the corner of my mind, listening to all the tales I’ve been telling myself in my quiet moments, hoping that you’d hear, somehow. And then I’d get off my bed, feeling there’s a part of me cried for having to say goodbye to the feeling that (I thought) has ended, and at the same time relieved for finally being able to see things clearly again and continue my life.

And then, just when I finally step my feet on the floor, preparing to start another day, the feeling comes back, sweeping over me like a wave in the ocean. Waves that have reached the shore. Small, slow, uncertain to where to land, where to stop, where to hit, but keep on going nevertheless, dancing their way to the shore, sweeping everything on their way, erasing all the reasons and doubts that have been thrown at the end of the shoreline by confused souls. Drawing a new shore line. Cleaning up the surface, leaving nothing but the sands, no foot prints, no signs, no trace at all, nothing to show that once there were marks of doubts of pains of tears there.

And with that, once again I surrender to the feeling. Embracing the sight of the clean shoreline, instinctively letting in the taste of the air of a new day through my nose and into my lungs, running through my veins, and becoming the breath that I breathe for that day, before it ends and another day arrive tomorrow. And it will start all over again. And it goes on. And on. And on.

(South Tangerang, 4 years ago)

One chaotic rainy afternoon

I remember Murakami, and the Wild Sheep Chase, and how everything is so chaotic yet so lonely.

(Central Jakarta, 4 years ago)

I Can't Name It

What would you call a feeling that gives you a warm sensation creeping down from your chest to your stomach when you think of a particular person?
What would you call a feeling that stretch your heart from head to toe, and stretch it even further, far, far to the furthest impossibility, only with the slightest thought of the person?
What would you call a feeling that always gets you thinking of that particular person when you see a beautiful path with the color of autumn, or a beautiful house with a soft, dim light and a sofa with old cushions, next to a long wooden paneled window looking out to the garden full of trees and flowers?

Tell me, what would you call a feeling that makes me think of you at the sight of that beautiful serenity of a comfortable, safe place to return to… The images of home…


I cannot name it.


(Kebayoran, 4 years ago)

Meringue

Dear G, we are spreading the pink meringues on the paper tissue now. We are trying to get the chocolate ones but they were put at the bottom under the pink ones (and no one wants to try the pink ones, you know how it is, chocolates are far more appealing).

So here they are finally spread, all pinks, against the white paper tissue. They looked so cute, with all the tiny dots of red all over them. I love meringue. I always love the way they melt in my mouth.

Dear G, this is nothing but another nonsensical thoughts appear out of nowhere. You don’t have to read it. You’ll probably never read it. You might never even realize that it has been written and posted here, all these things about you. But if one day you read it, you don’t need to cringe, or frown. And you don’t have to like meringues.

It’s just me. With another nonsensical thoughts appear out of nowhere. Yet even the most nonsense things seem to be triggering the thought of you.

Dear G, we are spreading the pink meringues on the paper tissue, and I suddenly wondered, do you actually like meringues too?
But again, it’s okay, you don’t have to like it. I was just wondering how you are doing now.


(Kebayoran, 4 years ago)

Mid Afternoon

I’m sipping my coffee now. No, I’m not thinking of you.
I’m just sipping my coffee, sitting still on my chair at my cubicle, staring at the monitor, catching up with the morning news streaming like waters.

Really, I’m just sipping my coffee. I’m sipping my coffee, typing words and words and numbers into the screen, talking to my colleagues, making some phone calls to some clients, texting some friends, moving on with life.

I’m not thinking of you.
Just like the other days before this, the days when my mind was not too occupied with the thought of you, I’m just sipping my coffee.

No, I’m not thinking of you.


(Kebayoran, 4 years ago)

Melancholy

I was talking to my brother on the phone yesterday. It was a small talk about small unimportant things, simply to catching up with each other’s life. Somewhere in the middle of the conversation, I started to wonder, what were you doing at the moment? Were you talking on the phone with someone too? Was it your sister? Or your parents? Or perhaps your friends? Some important people in your life that you don’t see every day? What were you talking about with them? Was it the small unimportant things in your life too? Something along the line of what are you doing for the weekend? Something like how life has been going so far? Something like have you heard about auntie something and her daughter cousin something? Was it the same small unimportant things of everyday life of people like me? What kind of life is the life you’re living?

All the questions brought me to a realization that I know very little about your life. That there are so many unimportant yet interesting things in my life that I want to share with you. The unimportant things that decorate the simple, uneventful life of the people like me. Wouldn’t it be nice to share them with you? Wouldn’t you love to hear that? Have you ever wonder what kind of life that people like me is living?  What are our everyday lives made of? What are our small talks on the phone consist of? The small unimportant things in my life, are they actually the same small unimportant things as yours? Do you ever wonder how life looks like, how life feels like, here in my part of the world? Have you ever thought about them, as much as I do about your world?

Then I felt tears forming in the corner of my eyes.

I think I miss you. In the most impossible way that could possibly exist. I miss you.

(South Jakarta, 4 years ago)