#14

tell me, what does tired mean?

you’re tired.  
you’re tired, you’re tired, you’re tired. there’s a bone-deep lethargy resounding in your chest and thumping in your heart, circulating like the blood that allows you to survive. your bloodshot eyes linger in the darkness, straining and hurting; your ears ring like a thousand ominous bells tolling, thunderous and painful; your hands shake from the caffeine you force yourself to drink because you can’t sleep and won’t sleep, even though the contradiction richochets agonizingly in your head when all you can think about is sleep. 
 
that’s all you know. 
you know you’re tired. 
that’s it. 
 
the principle of universal causation states that all effects have a cause, and you’re tired. 
 
(so, so tired. so tired, and jaded, and exhausted, and tired. 
you wish to sleep, you wish you to fall asleep, you wish to never wake up.) 
 
so what’s your cause, your reason? 
schoolwork? projects? the never-ending movement of time, seconds tick, tick, ticking away like they’re inching towards your neck, moving to slowly squeeze the life out of you? 
is that it? 
 
you don’t think so. you don’t know. 
 
you don’t know if you wish to know. 
 

#7

google, am i broken?

in the mere seven years of your life, you think you’re happy. you know you’re happy in these years, you know you’re always happy. you’re always, happy. 
you are… right? 
 
there’s a reason teachers remark on your report cards in their cursive that you’re “a happy, bubbly boy” or “a cheerful student who’s active in class”. there’s a reason people like to hang out with you, there’s a reason why people say “i’m happy to team up with you!” and mean it. 
people tell you to enjoy your childhood and embrace happiness and never stop smiling, and you do. you never stop smiling and giving people a giant grin, you always try to enjoy life to the fullest, and you are always happy because you are a kid! kids are happy. you are happy.  
you are happy, right? 
 
right? 
 
(your smile feels like your skin is being dragged by your muscles, tearing, tearing and tearing as you try to put it in a grin. it’s grotesque. it’s disgusting. it’s fake, fake, fake but you can’t tell people because when you’re seven, you should be happy, happy, happy.) 
 
when red handprints show on your face and your hands, when tears burn down your face in streaks like acid, when stickers of “good job!” are torn off your exam paper, you still smile, you still tell others you’re fine, because you are! every kid goes through this, when you’re in singapore and in a competitive academic environment. 
 
you’re okay. you’ll be okay when you’re older, you have to. 

#13

can you feel my heart?

burn out is such a funny little concept. 
was it still burn out when you never had the flame inside you, never had the fire that people said they have that kept them pushing, kept them working despite the hardship? 
was it burn out when you’ve always felt like you were dead, your beating heart keeping a lifeless carcass alive, your expanding lungs trying to keep a corpse responsive? 
 
can you be burnt out, when you’ve always been tired, unable to think, unable to stop, unable to breathe? 
or is that giving up? 
 
you find yourself sitting at the desk, staring into space, eyes unfocused and glassy. you find yourself on the train, reading the same sentence on your phone for the thirteenth time, mind in a fog that only seems to get worse by the day. you find yourself on your bed, lifeless eyes transfixed on the ceiling, hands and feet cold but unable to pull the blanket over yourself. 
 
is this the real life, or is this fantasy? 
is this your imagination, or the reality you live in? 
are you near-death, and your mind conjures these images to put you to death in the most peaceful manner? 
 
(please, let the last statement be true. please. please.) 
 
are you allowed to let go? could you finally kick the chair out beneath you? could you finally do it? 
 
giving up never felt so easy. 
you just wish you had the courage to. 

#15 

make me forget, you little bas- 

you like puns and wordplay, that’s a fundamental part of you. 
you want to make others laugh? you make a pun, glue-tin and-taller-ants, anyone?  
you want to make yourself laugh when it feels like you’ve been thrown into the depths of hell with one leg stuck in burning heat and the other in freezing cold, but you just can’t find the motivation to move? you make a pun. why are people scared of surgeons? the surge-in murders. 
 
so, of course, when you do organic chem the first thing that slips out of your mouth is alcohol is the solution!, because yes, alcohol was a solution in the chemical sense, and also a solution in the real-life sense. 
 
people laughed. you laughed, and laughed, and laughed, until your cheeks were sore from the smiling, until tears built and built in your eyes from the laughter and nothing else, until you couldn’t even breathe. 
you think, maybe this is happiness, because at least you don’t think you can feel and you’re sure you’ve forgotten everything. 
you think that it’s nice to feel like this, when everything hurts too much and when you’re exerting yourself too much to even think about anything else, and all you can do is forget and let go. 
 
you think you want to feel it more, more, more. 
 
(alcohol is the solution. alcohol is the solution. alcohol is the solution.) 
 
so when you find yourself sitting in the kitchen at night, a lukewarm bottle in your hand while your vision swims before you and your throat feels like you swallowed a thousand glass shards, somehow, you don’t even question it, because at least you aren’t tired or sad or broken right now. 

#8 

P-E-R-F-E-C-T, perfect!

30/30 was perfect. it’s marvelous, terrific, wonderful. the teacher would call you out first, stick a sticker that says “great job!” on your paper, praise you in front of the class. your classmates would envy you, say whoa! you’re so smart!, clap for you. your mom would smile, give you a hug, and maybe award you with ice cream or a trip to the museum. 
 
29/30 was not perfect. it’s not perfect, not perfect, not perfect. the teacher would still call you out, but you’d see your competitors being called out first; you’d get a sticker that still says “great job!” on your paper, next to the glaring 29 in red, you’d still get praised in front of the class. your classmates would still envy, still call you smart, still clap for you. 
your mom wouldn’t smile. she’d ask you why you lost a mark. she’d take an umbrella, and leave you gasping through your tears and your snot that roll down your face. she’d shout at you and scold you, leaving you sitting alone as you struggle to eat through the sobs. 
 
28/30 was terrible. it’s a disappointment, a disappointment, you’re a disappointment. everything would be the same. your teacher would still praise you. you would still get the sticker. you would still get envied by your classmates. you would still be the eight year-old genius, the future scholar, the little academic. 
your mom wouldn’t look at you. she’d ask where the two marks went. you’d be standing in the middle of the living room, trying not to show the way your shoulders convulsed with each sob, trying to stop her from getting mad. your paper would be crumpled, the 28 pushed into your face before being flung to the ground, the sticker torn off the paper, lying on the ground like a stark reminder of your failure. 
 
(i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry i’m not good enough for you.) 
 
you can’t blame her. 
you only have yourself to blame. 

#5

i’m tired, but i’m not sleepy. why? 

you were born to be an academic. 
the first few things you remember were assessment books and math questions, exam papers and writing practices, math questions from facebook groups and comprehensions. 
you remember crying over not knowing what three multiplied by two is, you remember trying valiantly to stop your tears as you can’t solve a math question, you remember struggling through your exam papers. 
 
everything was explained by logic. math? logic. english? logic. grammar? logic. you could always answer any question at the end of the day, you could always do it. 
but for all the questions you knew how to answer, you simply didn’t know the answer to one. 
why couldn’t you stop? 
 
you didn’t want to do assessment books, you didn’t want to study, you didn’t want to have to know what “jubilant” and “glee” meant as a five year old. you knew it was for your own good, that you should do it, but you just wanted to play. 
was that so hard? 
 
(you can’t stop, can’t stop, can’t stop, no, no, no.) 
 
you couldn’t let your mom down, couldn’t disappoint her, couldn’t look her in the eye when she screamed at you and pulled at her hair because you were sure that you’d cry and break. 
you couldn’t find the words, couldn’t stop the sobs tearing out of you even as your breath runs out, couldn’t stop the anger and fear mixing into this monster in you. 
 
you’re just a five year old kid. 
you shouldn’t have to deal with this. 

#10

is my house my home, or is it just a house?

failure. 
that’s who you are, at the very core, in the very end, even if you wish you weren’t. 
you can scream until your throat feel like it has been sliced open by a thousand knives, you can beg like you’re on the death row despite being innocent, you can cry until your tear ducts physically feel dry, but you will never not be a failure. 
 
no successful kid gets 45/50. no successful kid loses five marks due to carelessness, no successful kid is this average, no successful kid has green corrections on his papers. 
no successful kid gets his mom disappointed, no successful kid has his mom shaking her head at him, no successful kid has his mom looking at him like he let the world down, which he did. 
 
you think maybe no failure of a kid has a home to go back to, when his so-called “home” feels like a minefield, and every step is like walking on eggshells except the eggshells are glass shards that would bury themselves in your skin and flesh, deeper, deeper, deeper. 
you think maybe no failure of a kid has a home to go back to, as all he can think of is not letting down is his mom and not disappointing her and not being a failure, except that a “failure” is basically who you are, that it is engraved in your DNA code, on the walls of your veins, in the echoing silence of your mind. 
you think maybe no failure of a kid deserves to have a home, that it’s all your fault that your mom is always stressed and upset, that you don’t deserve to be happy. 
 
(what is home? is it a place you’re safe at? is it a place you’re happy? is it a place you can put down your worries and stress? if it is, that’s just your house.) 
 
maybe you don’t want to go back to your house anymore. 
not when it’s not a home. 

#15

everyone has a superpower, what’s yours?

you remember reading that everyone has a talent, a superpower. 
you think maybe yours is lying, or acting. the concept is that acting is a subset of lying, except that they’re pretty much equal, because acting is lying to yourself and others that you are someone you are not, and lying is acting like whatever you say, or do, or put forth, is true. 
 
either way, you’re talented in it. 
so talented, you could probably make it big as an actor, bigger than val kilmer, bigger than christian bale, bigger than george clooney. 
sure, when a camera is pointed at you and the stage direction is “CRY”, not a single tear comes to your eye, or when you’re supposed to act happy, not a single person is convinced that you truly are; but nothing compared to… real life. 
 
what does a few minutes of screentime mean when you’ve been acting for hours, days, weeks, months, years? 
what does bad acting for a few minutes on camera count towards when you’ve constructed a persona, a shell so perfectly no one can even question it? 
what does not being able to cry on camera or being unable to act happy when the lens is pointed at you mean when there’s a million eyes on you everywhere you go, and somehow you still find the ability to smile and grin and laugh when everyday, your skin feels like its peeling off, your cells feel like they’re dying and withering away, your eyes burn so much, too much, from the tears held back until you’re sure that they’ve been dunked in acid? 
 
(please, let me stop. please. please, please, please, please please pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease-) 
 
at least you could be given an oscar or some monster energy for your acting. 

#16

give me a thirteenth reason, please. 

give me a thirteenth reason. 
give me a thirteenth reason. 
give me a thirteenth reason. 
give me a thirteenth reason. 
give me a thirteenth reason. 
give me a thirteenth reason. 
give me a thirteenth reason. 
give me a thirteenth reason. 
give me a thirteenth reason. 
give me a thirteenth reason. 
give me a thirteenth reason. 
give me a thirteenth reason. 
give me a thirteenth reason. 
 
what do people want? 
the tears? the blood? the screaming as your voice turns hoarse?  
the mainstream “villain arc” that people use in superhero movies? the corruption arcs? the moment your personality “snaps” and you turn to violence? 
the deleted notes? the unwritten apologies? the tv show made on your life that is called “a low-grade copycat of thirteen reasons why”? 
is that it? 
 
is that what people want? 
 
(take it. take it, take it, take it. give me my reason. please.) 
 
you’re just so tired. 

couldn’t you just be spared and given a chance to just let go? 
was that so hard?