Sarah

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Sarah, 18, Singapore
(click the flower above for older entries)

Twitter: @sarahbananachan
Instagram: hisarahnademe

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2014: a year in review

Saturday, December 27, 2014 || 11:27 AM

I know it isn't exactly completely the end of the year yet, but it is cutting it very close — and I thought it would be an appropriate time to do this. I haven't written something quite so personal in awhile (all my posts, while very raw and ache with a certainty of my own experiences, never seem to feel quite as ... close as when I am writing like this). Perhaps when I write like this, like I am having a conversation, I feel insecure. Almost as if something can be stripped from me and be left out to dry and shrivel — quite unlike my other writings where I feel rather safe encumbered in my own head.

I talk too much. Get to the point —

I've always been able to conclude, at the end of each year, that it was "the best one yet". An idealist or a hopeless optimist? Perhaps both. I had this unbending belief that remained deeply ingrained in my psyche: every year just kept getting better.

I feel like I cannot say that about 2014. This year.... has been one that has thrown me into strange terrain, shown me a self I never knew existed beneath all my layers of skin. A year with both the highest and the lowest points in my life. A year that has brought about the most change — in both experience and myself.

Several days ago this brief thought came floating into my head— "2014 is the worst year yet," and I resign to that thought. I resign to all the stickiness of 2014, the heartbreak, the second-guessing. The unfamiliarity, the shaky palms, the hollowed-out empty vessel. There were times I felt so... lost and desolate. I was always three parts confused, all parts weary. This year has not been.... easy, that is certain. I have been hurt repeatedly, I have let a dull ache reside in me for far too long. I have tasted far too much salt left stained on my cheek. I have let my hands tremble one too many times.

Yet, it is the year I have found myself. Beneath all that.... layer of stickiness, I found strength. That sounds horribly cliché, but it is also horribly true. It feels like I have been shot yet I've survived. I've had wonderful support and friends that have lifted me, time and time again, without complaining of the weight. I'm still somewhat a lost sheep but you know... slowly. Getting there.

So.... 2015. I've done resolutions already (I'm a resolution sort of person, I like the thought of a soul renewed). They are to 1) Be healthy and abundantly so 2) Spread positive vibes and warmth to everyone around me 3) Work hard for everything I want and lastly 4) To guard my heart fiercely and protect myself. Big dreams but nothing great ever stemmed from little ones. Here's to a new year — hopefully better than the last — and here's to life. I hope I execute strength, bravery and compassion. I hope I handle the upcoming year okay, and I hope you do too. X

Repost from my dayre #2

Friday, December 26, 2014 || 7:41 PM

I am all edges of all paradoxes — I am swathed in yeses and nos all intertwined and laced between my fingers.

I've asked this before and I'll ask it again: Why can't I be easy? I feel cursed with overthought.

2.30am poetry

Monday, December 22, 2014 || 2:31 AM

(these words spilled out so fast i was unsure of what to do with it... inspiration hits at funny times)

we collapse into ourselves

like bridges: taking us from

each bearing to another — stepping

stones between your heart and

mine.

every step is fleeting but what

comes with is resolute. the probability

of getting a six when all sides of the

die are sixes. the probability of

torment when you open your heart in

reckless youth and careless love.

we fumble, whispered nothings spilling

over helpess hands. we tremble, clutching the air with a fervour

reserved only for desperation

to grasp hold of something real.

with you, six lifetimes. i am

sure of it.

You (iii)/(iii)

Saturday, December 20, 2014 || 3:02 AM

This is the final straw. I fold everything — I am done.

A three part ode

Thursday, December 18, 2014 || 8:19 AM

all i wanted

was for

you to clue me in:

to your sins;

ecstacies —

leave your inhibitions

at the door.

leave yourself

in my hands.

ii.

you are

a paradigm of

second guesses:

you second-guessing me,

and me second-guessing

myself.

iii.

turn your

palms upwards:

let me pour myself

in all your cracks.

let me abridge

the spaces between

your scars;

let me erode

the expanses between

ourselves.

This

Sunday, December 14, 2014 || 2:30 PM

This took a certain vulnerability from me — ripped it out of my hands and pocketed it whole; fresh. This feels a little like sandpaper running along the surfaces of my skin, scraping off debris and divulging me with a new, glossy finish.

This is my birth — the sharp edges of all my pieces smoothing themselves out. They are converging towards the light, providing the promise of a soul renewed.

This wraps my tongue around each consonant of your name — I skip the vowels as if I want to take something from you — and leaves me nothing. You are none of my blank spaces. You are all my prior convictions.

Renewal

|| 2:13 PM

forgive me

if i try to change:

your breathless

admissions

linger on my

peripheral like

smoke —

my arms; they fold.

Poetry written ten minutes after waking up

Saturday, December 13, 2014 || 12:17 PM

this is not

something

a band aid can fix:

years of vigil,

non committal

smoothed over by

sticky remains.

yet with you

my palms face

upwards:

i let the remnants

of your spillover

fill the spaces

i never let anyone touch.

ii.

we are

drifting back and forth

between the spaces.

be still,

for once.

Lessons i have learnt

Friday, December 12, 2014 || 8:52 PM

teach me

that love is

inescapable —

you can run but

you will end up loving

the corners

you run into.

ii.

teach me

that you are

not inescapable —

i can run

all my life and

i will end up forgetting

the syllables of your name.

iii.

when i write,

i never write about you.

it is always me i write about,

and what i believe you

connote:

the flavour

in my mouth,

rather than how you taste.

(An excerpt from my dayre... and then some)

Thursday, December 11, 2014 || 1:44 PM

"We cross our bridges as we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and the presumption that once our eyes watered."

I am crossing the bridges. I am burning them down — rising from the ashes, pure and cleansed like a new born emerging.

It is not an easy task: sometimes my fingertips catch the flames and get charred, sometimes the smoke sneaks its way into my eyes and sting — a sharp pain that provides the promise of hurt. I am left with singed skin and seared knees, palms that scream no but a head that says yes. Yes. A thousand times yes.

The edges are clearer. The lines are finer. There are no longer blurred smudges where your name should be. My eyes once watered and some day they will again but for now they are dry — and that is enough.

(I am finally ready to write here again)

Saturday, December 6, 2014 || 11:36 PM

This happiness spreads over me like a warmth that skims my surfaces — they are all calm and stormless. I am frothing with new energy, this rippling urge to live elbowing the sides of my ribs and making itself home in the palms of my hands.

The colours I see are bright: there is hope. All this hope filling me, feeding my longing for a lifetime of bliss. This jaded self and bitter peripheral are slowly slipping away, dripping off my skin like raindrops after a storm. I have learnt to ignore the pull of my heart — no, my heart has learnt to stop pulling.

I am finding happiness in myself, this life, this Earth filled with windowpanes and frostbites and you.

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