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2002-04-21 - 9:28 a.m. 1) Why I fear the other party's innocence: to not return love is an innocent act. Most criminal of verdicts, yet it is not a crime. To not reciprocate without knowing why, however hurtful it is, is an even greater innocence. 2) A turning point: When the line, written in the diary, read as 'I am exhausted, but loved' is revised afterwards, inverted: 'I am loved, but exhausted.' 3) Two people walking hand in hand: the exhibitionism of solitude. They tell the world they are in love, but only they know the meaning of that love; simultaneously they expose and guard the secret. 4) The mutual gesture is not always a symmetrical answer. For all my gifts, my patience, my gentle persuasions, my foolhardy courage, I am amply and blessedly rewarded with the briefest nod, the subtlest of smiles. 5) The name, scrawled in a notebook...how possessive you are. Because it is in your book, written with your pen, in your own handwriting, you think you own it, you have imprisoned a part of her in a tower. But as you are that beast that has locked her up (her footsteps give you sleepless nights) you also want to be the knight who will save her--open your eyes...the chains that hold her and your own chainmail are forged from the same metal. 6) The cry, salvaged from a good friend's diary: 'All I've ever wanted was to live my dream with you. I was not lonely until now. Loneliness did not hit me because I saw everyone getting involved with one another, it came when I go to sleep knowing that someone no longer has me in his heart.' 7) The Malays' metaphorical equivalent for the heart is the liver. Thus the idioms 'besar hati' (big heart) meaning magnanimity, 'kecil hati' (small heart) meaning a state of being offended; aggrieved, 'sakit hati' (heart pain) meaning a state of being hurt, and 'makan hati' (eat heart) meaning a state of martyr-like suffering. Why this organ, and not the pumping one, which is both callibrator and index of life-signs? Because the liver is capable of ambivalence. Dutifully, it breaks down poison that has entered the blood. Yet it also manufactures bile. 8) Superstitions: if you enter the train with your right foot, she loves you. If you read her SMS message only after reading all the others, it is a love message (postponement is simply the required abstinence before the reception of pleasure). If you complete the video game, she is ready for the next level. With these rituals (one false step and you jinx yourself, your chances, your hopes) you break fate's grand answer into smaller, more acceptable pieces. 9) You fall asleep at night thinking of him. You wake up in the morning and your first thought is of him. And that interval where you dream of him? Not while you sleep, but between this morning and tonight. 10) Only after the heartbreak did that final line from one of Rilke's poems make sense to you: 'You must change your life.'
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