[10:43 AM, 1/17/2019] Mummy 👩🏻: Strength of my heart
Psalm 73:26

My flesh and my heart may fail  but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever more.
[10:54 AM, 1/17/2019] Mummy 👩🏻: This bible verse brings me much comfort when I was in uni and scared of the exam papers that I had to sit for. I cannot afford to fail any papers as that would means I will have to stay another year to re-do that subject to graduate. My family doesn't have the money for that but God is good  and I managed to finish my degree in 3  years.
I pray that you too will find the strength for your heart in the Lord.

I thought you knew me

I thought you'd love me

the day you saw me in velvet red lipstick,
pearled neckline

i was hoping the seams would close up

choking me,
frilly skirt in your favourite colour,

and eyes that resembled your mother's.
maybe i thought

you might see through the disaster

behind this smile,
the chaos hidden in the purse of my lips,

and figured i was worth saving.

oh hey there. if you've somehow stumbled across this space, welcome.

I used to use this space for more creative writing, an outlet, an escape. somehow over the years, i started writing less, and now i'm just left with a bunch of abandoned writings in my drafts and outdated words from years ago and a sour feeling in my chest knowing that all that potential of a young girl has just, well, faded.

I'm writing this whilst seated in my favourite Starbucks, not the same seat anymore tho. and i can't help but to think wow, three years later, and I'm still here. coming here during my igs to study and cram for my exams, and lesser during my a levels, and now to work on my uni assignments. it's mostly sad to see a little girl's dreams get trampled upon. but it's harder trying to figure out where do i go from here.

mostly I understand that change is inevitable. maybe it is all with God that I ended up where I am now. but why can't I move on? I'm unsure where to go from here. what do I do now and where do lost dreams go?

2018

the year i wrote about affection as if it was crimson on a white blouse. the year i harboured thoughts in corners of my mind, overdrafting.

i caved a pathway for myself and then ruined it, built an idea of a life and then abandoned it. peeping over edges of buildings, pressing down on accelerators, carving indexes of incongruence on pulses to cover up signs of liveliness. wanting to diminish, and then wanting to expand.

giving up parts of myself pretending it didn’t matter, trying to cover up the parts that remained. if i could lose all traces of myself, could i finally be free from myself?

i spent certain nights wishing it away. i spent some wrapped in a blanket of grey, brewing tea with the bags under my eyes. i spent others with the corners of my lips curled so high, the former seemed like it almost never happened.

the apologies that spilled from my lips could drown me. memories and remembrance dig themselves into the cracks under my skin, and i could never quite retract them. all this longing don’t quite fit right anymore.

the year i tasted sunlit honey from the wrong pot. the year i left home.