It feels good to be back

Most people moved to the city years ago when job opportunities were the excuse to come out of their boredom of living on trees. I have been raised in the city and have had many experience walking, running, crossing streets of the golden triangle since I was 6.

I always say that the city that never sleeps will be tired eventually. I thought the city was tired of me thus I found that nothing has changed. The laws were still the same. The people are still the same. The jams are still the same but only worse.

I wanted to know how it is like to come out of my normalcy and try on something new, in a new place.

When I was 13, I was begging my mother to send me to a boarding school. Where all the kids are not driven by the fact that they were rich but lived for knowledge and the future. I wasn’t a geek, nor a bad kid. I was fairly sneaky but was smart in some ways. I’m not too sure till now, but what I do know is that I was very lazy.

My mother who only had me didn’t approve me leaving for another school far away from her. I thought she hated me with all her yelling and screaming trying to wake me up in the morning. So why still keep me in this hectic city. At a very young age, I was already tired of the already old city.

At 15, when I scored all A’s and only 1 B in a major examination, I thought this was my chance to go out and go to a boarding school. I forced my mother to pull some strings and made it possible for an elite school student to attend another school which prioritize on the needy. I was already dreaming of going and was so sure that this time I was going out of this city.

When my mother’s efforts came to no success, I had no choice but to still stay in the same school. Most people would die getting into my school. My school was right smack in the middle of the golden triangle. Where the biggest malls were built, where the punks and the skinheads would fight, where vedder wannabe-bands were formed, where the traffic were massive, where it was okay for kids in school uniforms to run around in malls without parents supervision and walk out of 7-eleven with beers in their hands without paying.

The kids in my school were all filthy rich. With shaggy carpets in their limos and Versace shirts for sports day and have I mentioned that this thing has been happening since I was 7?

Everyone was already wearing foundations and light make up in school. me on the other hand was still peeing in my pants till the age of 11. I didn’t know how to control my bladder, sorry.

Everybody had their drivers wait for them in front of the school and from the class window, I could see my driver smoking, waiting for a little girl to come out of school. Some had the privilege of riding the public bus. I wasn’t one of them. From my class window, I could smell the Louis Vuitton leather from the LV Store across our school, that’s how absurdly fashionable our school was.

When my pursuit to leaving the intoxicating life in the city was a failure, I had to be in a class full of losers and geeks. I just took a seat at the back of the class and started writing my poems.

Bitch,

Your arms are torn,

You expect me to help you,

I looked okay outside..

But inside, I’m just dying like you

I’m just dying like you

You believe in angels and so do i

Can’t imagine how angels cry..

You want me to go with you to hell

But I will follow you tomorrow

While thinking that dying was the best way to get out of the city after my moving plan was cancelled, a voice came through my left ear.

Hey…

Shit. Now another geek is trying to be my friend? Great.

What are you writing?

I looked up and a girl with curly hair was trying to look at my notebook. She was plum, with glasses and she pulled her curly hair so tight to the back forming into a bushy ponytail. I looked down to my messy handwriting and said..

Writing. Poems. I write.

She smiled and continued.

Hi, I’m curly. You know my name.

Yes, I knew her through some friends in school. She joined my school at 13 and she was one of the smartest girls in school. I used to think she was a weird child trying to copy my style. When I was madly in love with Damon Albarn, I heard she was too. I’ve always been a girl who wanted to be different and when somebody else liked what I liked, I got mad. When girls were crazy about Hansons and other boy bands, I was already dreaming of my wedding day with Liam Gallagher. People used to think I was a weirdo.

Damon Albarn? Was he a guy from a Thai group? – a girl once asked me when I was 12.

Curly didn’t stop there. She was still eager to know why all the poems?

Curly: why poems?

Ssx: cuz I’d like them to be apart of my lyrics one day.

Curly: You want to sing?

Ssx: Yeah. Been wanting to form a band. But I don’t play any instruments and all I could do is sing.

Curly: This might sound crazy. But a guy named Guitarist was looking for a vocalist for his band. And he invited me. But the thing is, I think it’d be great if you meet him and join us too

Maybe I was taken as a weirdo in school. But I don’t think my presence in the rock scene would make me one. I would become a yuppie. The girl who would go to gigs with her driver waiting at the corner of dodgy and dodgy.

Since that moment, I got involved with music and totally forgot about my moving away plan.

After college, I was enjoying my city life. Everybody knew me as a singer, a model and someone who knows how to party hard.

After awhile, I became sick and tired of the people. The city was angry at me for not doing anything to its good.

When my first moving out of the city a year ago made me think I was on top of the world, I figured everything will be okay. I could go out to the city whenever I liked and had all the silence in my new room to make me feel more than peaceful.

But as time goes by, and only a year and 6 months of the silence, I became depressed. Is there anything that could make me happy?

A year and a half was my duration to happiness and patience. My relationship with Phil ended after a year and a half. So do my first job as a fashion designer. I started become unfaithful to aiden in a year and a half. And now, my most paying job last that long.

Is it going to be like that?

It’s my second week staying in the new house. I loved it. I spent more than 10 years figuring out how to get out of here, but now I’m back here and it felt like home. Midnight snacks are within reach, gigs and fashion shows are just a short cab ride away. Bars and clubs are 5 minutes to home.

And most importantly, my mother is just about 15 minutes away from my place. I got my internet connected today and it’s even easier to get in touch with people.

Then just as I was about to get my fingers to click “Minimalist”…I had a thought.

Why do people want to leave the city? It’s fabulous here. Things are getting serious and I never thought I could ever be in love…but

I think I’m falling in love with my old tired city.

This is dedicated to the noise, the polluted air and the smelly city I call home

ssx