liyana,

Your sister reminded me again to drop by at your apartment a few days ago.

When I arrived, I saw stacks of boxes neatly organised against the white wall. She was still packing your clothes. Going through your wardrobe.

The unit looks sterile and bare now. Unlike when you were here. There were boxes and plastic containers on the floor half-packed. Half-finished. The sewing machine that you received from your parents as birthday gift. Your coffee grinder. Your little globe. Your things mostly put together.

Each of them carry meanings.

Each of them hurts me.

Your life-size poster of one Italian old-school movie stood lonely against the door. Bright and fiery just like you. We had made love few times before it. This poster stood to witness.

Your sister and I, we did not speak much. I supposed, we preferred not to. It must still be an arduous task for her to sort and organise the life you left behind. She pointed to me the small box at the corner of your bed.

I was too afraid to open it.

I was afraid that our life might jump right out of it and hijack whatever sanity left in my head.

She said it contained your unsent letters to me. My letters to you and whatnot. Including your journals that you always keep at any stage of life you entered.

‘In my mind I speak to you, I wrote to you love,’ you once told me.

That small box contained your life. Part of your life that always belongs to me.

I sat down.

Standing might cause me to fall.

I saw your painting of gondola in Venice next to it. The standard piece that you bought and coloured religiously from day to night to early morning. You said it was a cathartic experience and you showed to me. It made me hummed a tune from Godfather movie. I said it reminded me of a love song, this masterpiece of yours.

I told your sister I couldn’t take this box of yours. I didn’t think it belongs to me in the first place, it has always been yours. Even if it was pieces of me or our life inside, it was still yours.

I told her that if you wanted to give me, you would have done so earlier.

But perhaps I was lying. I think your sister knew. Just like when she knew how I purposely delayed several times before from coming to collect my stuff from here. She could sense behind all those excuses that maybe I could not find the courage to be here. 

As I was about to leave, I pointed to her my beating heart.

I said,’ She’s here. Always.’

I closed the door. It took a while for me to realise that I would never come back here again.

To your apartment. Into your arms.

chairil