There Will Be Lies

There Will Be Lies - 11-8-21

You allow yourself to trust

Not like you’re not afraid

Of what the truth really is

Or if not knowing the lies would 

Hurt more,

But because 

you want to believe you’re worth the effort

Of Someone else’s truths.

That they opened a door into

The heart of who they are

Just for you.

And maybe not just for you

But they welcomed you in

Like the special thing you think you are.

You found your peek inside

warm and inviting. A safe place to lose your earrings. Youthful and silly and bright like them.

God, you wanted to stay.

That young, hands-held-out-to-grasp-at-everything you – 

The you who learned to shun a future forever,

Cherished the new predicament you were in.

Invited the small breeze of “forever” in

Like the easiest thing you’ve ever said. 

Here lies their head on your chest. 

Here lies someone you want to protect.

The dance on the front porch, ask them to strum your song.

The conversation too cold to hold outside,

But there was enough heat between you two to 

Make you forget,

As they cupped your face, a tear on their thumb.

The Greek God in them draped your vision. 

The things Gods say to their lovers,

You received. Let it be forever. And fuck you if it isn’t. 

“Keep me here with that gaze. Don’t you dare let me rot here, trying to forget you.”

But truth is imaginary. Subjective. Created.

A derivative of a vision.

Your hand gripping my thigh as you drived.

But visions are envisioned.

The road through us

Imaginary, as hard as I fought to stay

And brave the

“None of it was a lie. 

We’re as strong as ever.”

No doubt

There will be lies

To lick the wrongs away

To silence the echoes of their existence in every world you walk in after, 

or sew together what 

Doesn’t fit together.

Two things that don’t fit together

Now fit together.

Two people

grip each other.

How easily can you lie? 

Then again, you don’t just lie with words only.

You lie with what you 

Left out. 

You lie when you want to leave

Out

The truth 

of the matter

is

You lie when you leaf through someone else’s pages,

Find the reality not at all what you imagined.

Unhappy, uncertain if the distance between you both is in your head, and if it isn’t, 

you fear you’d 

Overstay like the coward you never wanted to be. 

Let a good thing like them go?

Where might you find a them, even like them, again?

Don’t tell a soul. 

Relay to me all my half-truths.

The ones I tell myself

When I convince my own eyes

That i do matter in yours.

While the evidence is laid bare. The jury retaliates against my

Judgement. A recount. Re-ballot. Recall. 

All the truths. All the witnesses. All of them lied

With the purple-tinted glasses they wore that day. All the days

We saw ourselves together.

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[I wrote this piece in early November last year. YES, I knowww it's a sad, breakup poem haha. It's been almost three months since I wrote this piece and disclaimer, it does get very personal. One of my best friends said it was, "Very raw." And I agree. It really is.

I made the choice to leave something that had at one time, felt like the greatest relationship. But things crumbled all too quickly. There was so much fear I had days before I left. Because without ever saying he had left, it felt like he was gone. Our emotional distance permeated everything and I thought I was patient. I thought I could be happy with the new little we had as his life spiraled. None of it our faults.

Perhaps I wasn't busy enough to not hear from him for days. Just a sliver of good mornings and good nights on repeat. Perhaps I'm too immature and ungrateful at the handful of catch-up calls we had that month, his sleepiness and constant exhaustion a reminder for me to end the call quickly so he could rest.

So I left.

Even though it felt like the stupidest thing I've ever did, it was for the best. I needed to leave so I could learn and build and rebuild and re-evaluate what was good for me and felt good to me. Because what he and I had certainly didn't serve either of us. For me, I had to ask myself "Why stay in something that looked and felt like a daydream yet I was in hurt, ache, and resentment?"

I've decided to publish this piece here, because I've made peace with it. I wouldn't have published this if it was still as raw as when I first wrote it.

I hope you enjoy reading my sad feelings again. Hah. And don't worry about me after reading this! I am a very good peachy girl right now haha. More Singapore updates to come ^-^]

Where is the Red?

[out of the vault: - 11/1/21]

a quickie poem I wrote in midterms szn :)

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I locked myself away 

For an essay.

If I pull my earbuds out now,

It would only be bags unzipping, pencil pressed to paper, a cacophony of someone else’s and my own typing.

It’s supposed to be a Reading Room. 

Where is the light though? 

A new, shiny, expensive building but even the tables

Absorb light. The spaces between the bookshelves are 

Black holes.

Browns, beige, grays, brown-reds, yellow-browns.

Nothing inspires except what’s beyond the

Rectangle windows not BIG enough

To invite in

the real, fresh, warm light.

From the slivers

I see blue. Baby blue. God, you’re so pretty.

A squirrel finessing the edge of a bright red, orange, yellow tree 

Taller than JMG

Hall.

The tree is so fucking red. 

Catapult me to its branches. I’ll happily bleed out.

I see golden. Like the sweater on me, the one a friend gifted,

perhaps because there's

A sleeve torn that my forearm could slide through easily and exactly half of it frayed--

Plushy, warm, homely.

I want to pee.

I need to write my essay,

Not exist here romancing and fumbling through poetry.

Episode 75: Ngoc's Saga

1.7.22.

I'm a dirty talking Buddhist who laughs too loud for her own good. Laughs too loud during Covid times. 

Laughs too loud where it's probably illegal to laugh. Like on Singaporean trains. 

It's only been 3 days. 3 real days, since I've arrived. 

Study abroad has been both exhausting but rewarding how already, I'm seeing myself in ways I've never seen before. I'm pushing myself and learning so so much about what matters and what doesn't and how to connect with just about anyone. :)

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1.22.22.

How is it that so much time has passed already? 

Singapore has exhausted me. Has taken so much from me, my literal blood and eye ball picture lol, and given me its rain, which I love. Singapore has brought me $3 meals and given me sugar cane juice in any and all amounts. It has shown me all the green its capable of. Shiny trees along every high way. Looking like planned, artificial beauties. Vibrant purples and blues -- the colors I love, under its Super trees. Where I lay my head next to Garima and Naina and together, we laughed like we were high.

But if we were actually high, we'd take the full brunt of the death penalty here. 

Ha. 

So much has happened that I can't even document it all. I just know that once again in my life, I felt so connected, loved, and seen as I did tonight. Not to mention, the amount of truly good, truly kind, and intelligent and deep people I've already gotten to meet in my time here. A little over 2 weeks and I surprise myself at how much I am thriving. I surprise myself with how vibrant and light on my feet I can be in any social setting.

No matter how new. Or how awkward. I survive and exceed my own expectations.

How much I can smile. Real smiles. Relaxed smiles. 

And how loud I can howl at the full moon, like a lil bitch.

Because I've become that jerk that howls at the moon at any hour of the day if I feel like it. My suitemates do not mind at all. Only Naina joins me in the howling, but it's worth, and the neighbors next door never partake in the howling. However, when I run into any of them, I feel like I say the stupidest things. Because whenever I do run into any of my neighbors, it's usually when I feel exhausted or preoccupied. 

Today, right after lunch, I wished one of them "good night Sid" as they waited for the elevator and right after, I slapped my forehead in absolute horror and humor. Finlay laughed out loud and smirkingly said, "you definitely shouldn't play League AND hold a conversation, no matter how short." 

But let's return to what happened tonight. Because tonight was nice.

Tonight was solid. 

There wasn't a full moon like the last 3 nights. It was a starless, moonless sky, and it's like 70% of YNC students have disappeared for the weekend to visit their parents, so soooo many of the dormitory windows are dark and empty. It was just Garima, Naina, Neha and her boyfriend, and I sitting on the sky garden. And like always, when I'm with any one or two of them, we end up making each other laugh. 

From the silly. Or a silly situation carved out of a serious one. We laugh together too much and I feel like I'll never quite find something like this ever again. 

A friendship so secure, and full and whole, that even saying the smallest of things instigates floods of laughter from all sides.

I've never laughed so much in my life. 

And we all know how my laughs are. 

They become cackles. And then I start howling, a table is slammed once or twice. My body quakes. And it feeds my soul when I can make someone laugh. Tonight was just that. 

The light I gathered from everyone's laughter and mine mixed together. None of us are perfect or are perfect for each other, but when we are together, sometimes it feels that way. 

"Ngoc, you're so confident and in tune with yourself. Not afraid of what anyone thinks of you. You know how to make anyone feel like they are seen and are such a great and active listener. You're incredible and I hope you know it as we do."  

Of course, I do feel lost. When I'm not laughing my guts out or making new friends, I feel like I don't know what to do with my hands. In a new country, I feel all this possibility, but at the same time I am trapped by it. If I'm sitting for hours or just being bored or just studying, I feel like I'm cheating myself out of a good time. I feel like I'm having fomo if I'm not hanging out with people or going out all the time, and it's this empty pursuit of happiness that makes me less and less happy at times. 

When I'm aware of this creeping feeling, I ground myself back to my breaths. What I do have. What I did get to do so far. How brave I've been. How far I've gone and back again. All the people I've gotten to know. 

Shut down the "comparisons" game. Because that game is easier to play than rejoicing all the moments I've had and the people I've connected with so far.

Singapore has been one big ride of uncertainty and newness and fear.

Sometimes, I want to run back to the familiar. My great friends at Smith. I want to return and do what? Feel comfortable again... feel whole, all the time. 

But already, I'm learning so much about myself here. It may not be a perfect experience, but I never saw this coming; I'm participating twice, even three times more than I did back at Smith. Here, at a co-ed institution, I'm studying harder than I ever did. On an exchange program at that haha. Here, I speak more. And I speak eloquently. I'm brave, even braver. 

I've just proven to myself that it doesn't matter what space I am in, traditionally all-women's or not; I can thrive anywhere where I feel valued or wherever I want to shine. 

I will. 

It's hard for me not to.

I have a pretty darn seemingly confident voice for it too, ha.

I had a lot of fears before coming here, and if I was on the right path at all, to be whatever it is I'm going to be -- because I really don't know what I want to do with my life. 

About a week before I left for Singapore, to have some insight into my life, I visited a fortune teller, Cau Chin. To see him was absolutely free, so you know his ish is NOT BS. And he told me all that I needed. All of the concerns I walked in with washed away from his penetrating words. 

Without asking me what my concerns were, he just looked at me once. 

"Who is NKL? Who is NKL?"

That's my father's name and my father looked up. 

"Because his oldest daughter will one day be the first ________."

My father instantly asked, "Are you sure, sir?"

Cau Chin responded, "Haha of course. I don't jest."

I gazed up, incredulous at the prediction. It was something I could never see for myself, far too out of reach, far from what would make me happy, and far too great to be mine. For now, I'll just see this part of the prediction as a feverish daydream.

Then he turned and looked at me in the eyes, pulling a necklace from his disciple's hands.

"Here is a necklace to support you on the next part of your journey and to remind you to live to your fullest, happiest, independent, confident, strongest, sexiest, juiciest self."

(it was at this part when I realized he REALLY saw me T__T -- cuz which monks tell you to be sexy??)

And immediately after: "I need you to remember how independent you are. You are a strong, independent woman. You do not need any man, child. If he is the right man, if he is the right love, he will choose you and you will know. Do not worry. Focus on being independent and strong. Do you understand me? Independent. INDEPENDENT!" He said it all with a flourish. In one breath. 

"Do you really understand me?"

I nodded, both confused and knowing exactly what that meant. 

I asked him quickly after, "Sir, am I currently walking on the right path?"

He said with a confident nod, "Yes you are. But your MANAGEMENT!!" And he slapped my upper arm hard.

"Is that all?" he asked with a grin and already moving on to the next client. 

I was so starstruck, I nodded a quick yes and thanked him as he got up. TIME MANAGEMENT is what he meant. And I know.... god I know.

A part of me was sad that I'd have to continue to be independent. That I have to continue being strong. Continuing to build that sense of self-assuredness --- it's exhausting. I just want to be a silly child for the rest of my life, if I could. Agh. And make cheese fries runs with my friends in the AMs. :( And of course, there are times when I just want to lay my head down to rest. On someone else's warm chest.

But I know what that means. I know what working on my independence means. I have to take initiative for what I want. My happiness is mine and does not flicker or stutter because of anyone. Let go of what doesn't make me happy. Build relationships with people I want to grow with. Be confident in my choices and defend my values. If fierce is what I have to be, so be it.  

I don't need to go with the flow. I can hold my own. I have the fire for it. 

I have a fire hot enough to burn my way through the dark.

I have a lot to be excited about. I have plenty to lose. And I hate being alone. 

I wonder who I will become after Singapore is over.

It's just been a little over 3 weeks but the changes. I'm seeing the changes already. 

I live in Saga house here on campus, and this has been

my Singapore Saga.

Rest,

Ngoc

P.S. Official Singapore updates in a follow up post I swear!! :P