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[alya-djohan]

I find myself weighing and wandering back to the sands that built a wonderful castle right by the sea — you see things near myself that I can’t even see,

We talk a lot about the sun, but I don’t think that we talk about it enough, you see I left my worries and thoughts with every changing year and if the seasons come a little too early or not at all,

I can always look for you if I demand an answer because you’ve always been the rightful definition of true and honest.

You hold loyalty to the bone, a pact of sacred trust and care — you’re full of things that I’ve worn on my shoulders, you’re full of stories that doesn’t need a pen.

soft skin and light breathing soft sands and a tossed sun soft words and polaroids

They say that when you love, love with a fire that doesn’t go out, I know that to love is to know pain, but I also know that to love is to be gentle, and with you the fire taste so gentle.

I cling onto your heartstrings because it’s much easier to find my way home. We’d shine with every star until the dust settles and we are no more until the last breath is taken, we’re full of songs that sound like a head bang metal genre but so soft as well, I can spend the rest of my life sketching your lips onto my paper-thin heart, and I don’t need an eraser so long as I take my time so I’ve been doing just that.

Where do we go from here? finger crossed for whatever lies ahead.

[alya-djohan]

— and despite everything, you still gotta feel and get through million stuff you refuse to feel million times as well.

Life doesn’t enclose guidelines, so break all of the rules and scratch out the adequate pattern.

Fuck me on the dotted line, hand me some bad poetry and sappy sad songs. Give me all of you, it’s all that I ask for.

Lifeless or humming, midnight is when I most likely get lost in my own thought. Dead or alive, I should be over every regret I still hold tightly in my bone, but I’m not.

Some days i’m mad, some nights i’m just miserable, and most days I just don’t give a damn, but it’s always about everything I couldn’t say out loud to even seek for help.

Confusion or frustration, I find more reasons to not hate my life — because for my sister and all the love I have for her, I simply love life.

For every step forward, I take ten steps back, I fall into love with my heart open and my brain overloaded. Emotionally over stimulated, everything has become my living simulation. Stuck in the matrix? I’ve been advertising each one of them to my blood cells as another virus, but they do care as they said the always will, right?

Mortified or enduring, when it’s too late to sleep and I’m too tired to fight the feelings, how I wish all of you know that feeling you get when you’re way too tired that you’re awake? I’d rather be dead or alive than carrying this unbearable and impossible-to-explain pains every night like that.

It’s this pain that we feel, it compels us to write like this. You’re not poetry, I just mask it as such. You’re not love because if you were, you’d be here and I’d be alright. You are never ever. That’s what you are. That ending from a book that all of the fans hate, you’re something like that. And the funny thing is I’ll always be a little in love with this thing we called life. Even if it hurts. Even if I’m dead or alive.

[alya-djohan]

..and there you are, the certainty among all the uncertainties.

The underestimated, the undervalued, and the punk — they might say and think of you. A million times when you asked all the ‘why’ questions, a million times i will answer with the ‘idk’ bluffs.

But really, i frankly have no idea how to address my admiration of you. Maybe it’s the way you shows yourself to this world, or your brutal honesty, or for every justice that you have always been fighting for, or how charity-quality your heart is that some people just will never get it, and perchance the way you keep each dreams of everyone you care about alive in theirs.

Or it could be how you pulled me out the dark and the loneliness, or the kisses that ease my doubt, or the way we help each other to grow, or the way you always make me feel like on top of the world and having the best time of my day to day, or how you dare me to dream, or how you always come home to me no matter how drunk you get, and mostly it’s because the way you flourishingly turn yourself became my best friend, partner and lover all at once.

With every to-die-for dreams we currently fight for, there is one dream that we never dare to say. No, there is none reason for calling ourself a coward, nor that we incapable. It’s mainly because we know, once we say those dreams out loud, it will happen right away, and of course, executed beautifully. For all that, we know we ain’t the settler, and in a little while — let’s just presume that you and I against the world.

Forever is too heavy to hold, so let’s just carry today.

[alya-djohan]

My whole life was just around re-adjusting somehow,

But…

If only I can do the in-depth research to observe your feelings the way I do my job everyday, if only I can observe my body in space and if I can fully read the strategy of my thoughts as they rise in my mind, then, who I really am?

When the struggles are mutual, here hear:

Are we the observer or are you the experiencer? We do have the choice to experience whichever perspective we want to see. We can always dis-identify that way from our emotions, thoughts and actions. At last, we have the power to choose what we want to be. We can choose what we want to experience and establish positive patterns. To consciously decide our path. A path of less resistance to what is. Allow our experiences to unfold, with ourselves as the master.

Give it a time, though. The many years of trial, error and bugs are at play, at all times. As we raise our awareness, the more we will be able to train our new self to take over, gracefully.

I, myself, still a work in progress to find solutions between those warring aspects, between the conflicting personalities inside of me. To always mend to be whatever the situation needs. I know and I’ve always been knew what bothering me; and now is about time to be gentle within and let my inner dialogue play it out.

As a peace-seeker, I try to go with one decision that — hopefully, will satisfy everyone.

If you were too,

Let yourself be happy with the verdict you came up with and follow through. It’s scary to commit like that. Let the fear tell you what it needs from you. Be there for yourself. Be there for your fear. Built trust within yourself. Let the love that you’ve hidden from the world, cast the first dim light in your heart, and bravely let that light grow, slowly, gently, softly.

Every time you have a choice, let that choice be one of bravery, of power. Take the high road.

Because,

The darkness is dissolved by the presence of your essence, as you’re the light that brings forth every possibility.

[alya-djohan]

I unearth that forgiving means willing to take more than a simple act of replenishing the trust that we once had. 

Take it how you want it

Take all my love

The truth of the perplexity is quite serious. Can trust ever be repaired to its fundamental form? Thou can’t merely sweep shit like this beneath the rug and start anew. We aren’t petals, nor flowers. I might begin every spring with sincere wishes and good aims, but misery will always find its way to catch up to me. 

How far and painful the road I should take to see that we’ll finally work out? My willpower is behind me. Your love seems to be beyond me. How far have we fallen? Do I still in love with you? No doubt. That’s why I’m contemplating the long journey of forgiveness. 

The birds will however chirp and the sun will do its thing in the morningtide. How many years have we spent pampering this lie? Were we always destined to be crushed and crushed and crushed until we become crumbs? They said trust is like a blank piece of paper, once written or crumbed up— you will always have the slight impurity. 

Do you think the skies have enough space for us to finally files away? Do you think that we’re going to make it? Please enlighten me. 

I’ve done enough to do reckless things over months passed. I’ve always held you in high regard and maybe that’s my enigma. So naive and vulnerable with all the promises we collided when we're safe and sound. 

I run through enough apologies, regrets, and excuses. Do all those things really solve anything? Have you ever questioned what this human being over here needs? Here comes:  I want the truth, not the truth so I can calm my ass off, the truth truth, the naked one. Will we make it through this without destroying something as fragile as ourselves?

[alya-djohan]

Lately, I’ve been looking all over for some guidance, I no longer distinguish myself and it’s begin to be a consequential problem.

I’m robbing my own happiness, I lost sparks to all the things I used to be psych about. I feel like another gear inside of an automated machine that just chews and spits, repetition makes whole, but I sense useless and a waste. I know for real gratitude is somehow essentials. I have all of my limbs, I’m somewhat healthy, I’m alive, I can breathe just fine, I still drink my cup of coffee each morning, I have a job that I love to do, but what’s missing? It’s like when you look in the night sky and there’s always a star or the moon, but there’s also that vast emptiness that makes up the night.

I seem so fucking feeble. I used to write because it aches, but nowadays I don’t know what to write about. Nothing stings, it’s just numb. Been clueless to know what to feel.

Don’t get me wrong, I am lucky for every smallest bliss that happens. I guess it’s slipping in my mind, to appreciate every second of each day. One day when everything goes black– will I have forsaken the ones who still and will always love me? I’m not bitter, wait. Maybe I am bitter. They say that the first step to solving a problem is allowing ourselves if somethings’ unright.

Let’s put it this way: I just feel like something is missing like there’s something greater out there that I can and should be a part of.

I grow weary of myself– when did I give in to such a stagnant state? Is this the fate of all mankind? To dwell on larger things? I don’t know, maybe I am the problem. I believe that there are always two parts of us. One that says I can do this and another that says you’re not deserving shit. Perhaps, I shouldn’t be so troublesome on myself, idk. I plainly desire to know and feel better, it can always be worse, right? lol I mean… yeah. It’s gotta get better. It has to. For now, I’m carrying around those thoughts.

[alya-djohan]

I still haven’t figure out the why, but I know that it all started with you. Every last word requires no mention of you, isn’t it the silence that keeps us wide awake at night? 

I don’t even know why I keep loving you backwards, taking us back to the start. I don’t know where this path will lead me, but somehow I know when it reaches the end, you’ll be in my mind. A thought of you made me do enormous impulsive things — getting drunk with strangers, saying things that I should’ve said to you but I said it to strange hearts, asking for forgiveness through strange lips.

In silence, I keep talking to you. In my head, in another empty room, or even in the crowd. At glance, I didn’t realize that I was sad, but I truly am disconsolate. And right when I realized that I am in pain, please tell me more about you, about us, about the ending. Is it you? Is it me? Was there ever an us? 

Should I remain this way? Remembering what we used to have instead of cherishing we really are over. Or do people cherish an ending even if it soaked them in tears? 

On the other hand, I know my capability to do more and even building over. But life’s just strange right now and I am trying to nailed it. I know that I’m not the best remedy for those beautiful and seducing brown eyes when they produce sad tears, but here I am trying to put everything fall into place. I know, I am already good enough, but there has to be more room. There’s a bigger picture here about me. And so are you, so should you. And for now darling, just breathe.

[alya-djohan]

”What is a lover to you?” 

“Everything I was not.” 

Chaps say lovers are made from blown areas around the moon, debris from befalling light every time doubt has a window. I am dying to wake up and feel okay in these words we lay upon longer than the backseat of our emotions. It’s raining in my mind as well, and I used to deem we could fold these hands into sin bruises could become, but all we do is talk without saying a word. We leave before our lips can taste the air fighting for our palms. We'd like to call this trying, these knuckles settled from placing words inside a heart that only sees fuel as a means to rot. We’re drowning in feelings we woke with moments we aren’t willing to spend. We’re drowning in existing as one, but having separate hands for talking to the voices under our tongue. We’re drowning in words that hold more sense in silence. 

That’s the thing, isn’t it? We’ve been dancing like this for too long. 

[alya-djohan]

I really don’t mean to be short with you, most days, just get exhausted from the day and my mind just shuts down. I really don’t mean to be cold with you, sometimes I have to remind myself that isn’t me. I’ve traded a piece of my happiness for some sort of security, but i’ve been realizing more and more as I age that time is such a valuable asset and we’ve to spend it wisely or we’ll end up being full of regret in our eyes waiting to burst out. I really didn’t mean to hurt you and I still hold my apologies deep in my throat, but i’m starting to understand more and more as the days go by. Guilt is the killer of man, if you never accept the truth and move on, you will always be stagnant. I preach growth and zen, but sometimes the dissonance in my voice makes the chaos that I feel so much worse.

You say that it takes courage to own up your mistakes and I don’t want to live a life of shame. My heart raised high, my soul wide open, my love attached to your heartstrings. You’ll always be my favorite way to experience love, light-hearted and tender, rough on the edges when necessary. It’s going to be a grand adventure like we used to imagine. 

I haven’t woken up from my sweetest dream since falling in love with you, and I always want to do and be better. I know that silence cuts deeper than my lips have kissed, and I’ve opened anger before our prologue, but still, I will fall in love with you more than enough times.

But now, I’m all shine, I’m all yours. I know that time isn’t always going to make sense when we’re constantly lost in the moment. I know that the distance kills us when we’re always searching for one another from mile to mile. And they way home is where your heart is, but within the highs of my voice and the lows of my sadness, I know better — my home looks like you. This shall do just fine.

So I’ve been borrowing more time and finding more reasons to choose you all over again and now I just wanted you to know that you’re my home, and lately I’ve just been missing you more and more.

[alya-djohan]

I perceive the hardest words to say, then I say it. Out loud or in unbroken silence, the darkness of everything left alone will surround the opening of my thoughts. I’ve ruptured every loving-genuine-hopelessly-romantic part of myself and yet I can still feel the agony of it.

I found that if I dug deep enough within myself, I can find a lost daughter crying because she got locked in a dark room without a bed, no blankets, more so, a friend. I didn’t mean to flick everyone off on recently. I don’t even remember where I learned it and when I become one of those bitter bitch. One thing stuck in my head is how I remember being inside a room, devoid of light or love. And perhaps that’s why I’m always looking for love in all of the wrong places.

Maybe I should really begin with repairing the damaged inside. Maybe, just maybe, by doing so I will find more answers than I could possibly ask for, so I’ve been asking—how much does it really take to crack a smile? how much energy goes into being sane?

And if I suddenly went insane, 

“would you continue to love me like I had not changed?”

“it’s okay, I wouldn’t either.”

[alya-djohan]

“Sometimes you think you’re giving a person the world but you’re not,“ 

“sometimes your world is not their world.”

[alya-djohan]

Tonight, the moon shines and all I can see is how clearly your brown eyes live in my memories, so starved.

Tonight, the tears that I cry so heavy with unbearable sorrow of painful emptiness that grows the second our mouth open and fulfilling our own head, ready to explode.

Tonight, all I can do is think. Thinking of you, wishing all the mistakes we made had not been made. Regret choke even love and leave it bleeding on the side of my bed tonight.

Tonight, my soul is so quiet most of the time because I fear the voices of you and my own. The thought of never feeling your warmth again is beyond any pain I can take. Losing you is ripping me apart like gravity ripped from time. Pain will forever reign in my chest.

Tonight, let me cry for you and also for me. For the fear of things that could have been but never were. For the fear of life together unlived. For the fear of all the possibilities we have to let go of. You are always here. Not just tonight. You are here in the air I try to breath and in every words I try to write.

Tonight, I remember the night the universe conspire us to meet. I meet you. You meet me. And cry, just cry. The world seems bigger now and overwhelmed by deep of ocean and I — I just drown in it. How do we hold on to now?

[alya-djohan]

It’s all started to make sense, everything will make sense eventually.

When life way much more simpler, I used to watched movies a lot, without guilt of course. Breakfast at Tiffany's, Amélie, Gone with the Wind, Pretty Woman, and a lot more collection of drama-romance-comedy-chick flick movies that I used to watch via dvd every weekend if I had not get any new book yet to read. But again, I have to admit that I wasn’t sure with the real messages that trying to be told by those movies, all I know is how pretty and inspiring the leading actor was and how it gave me such a closer picture about a full-of-love-and-warmth-living-situation that unfortunately was not my life in my younger days. It’s indeed my escapism in order to stay sane back then. Well, now I am almost twenty two and I can get the messages clearly when I once re-watched those AND I love those movies even more. Every fkin time I finally understand what those movies all about, I found myself soliloquy: “Ah.. so it make sense now”.

I used love reading magazine that i am going mad as another escapism to getting away from reality. I have to say, it affects my life or at least how I see and live this life. One of my favorite section was the life style column. I read a lot about how by building a healthy habit will lead you to a more healthy thoughts, positive attitude and happier soul. I have a strong belief on that one, so my fourteen year old self decided to eat healthier (still hard tho) and do exercises regularly. Most of my friends used to mock me about what I am eating or when I told them I had to do my exercises after, “kayak ibu-ibu looooo gaseeruu” or “badan lo tuh udah kecil banget, mau dikecilin gimana lagi, hidup cuma sekali kaleee”. I’ve told them being skinny was never my purposes, even until now. I only want to keep my mind healthy that I could sparks joy and positivity around. Now my friends and I are on our twenty something and they won’t stop telling me that they are finally understand what I always did back then and regret not do it sooner, it make sense now for them. 

OK, what I am trying to say is maybe right now your life is sucks, everything is overwhelming and you can’t stop ranting about how unfair life is at the moment but one day, eventually, everything will make sense. You will understand what all this shiz trying to tell you and it will helps you grow. Maybe not today, but tomorrow or day after tomorrow or any time when you’re finally willing to see a bigger picture about your life  — you will understand. Life is kinda confusing sometimes but it could be worse, just cherish every moment while it lasts. Sometimes life doesn’t go as we planned and that’s okay. Que sera-sera. Whatever will be, will be. Hold on, tight. Have faith. Everything will make sense eventually.

[alya-djohan]

Tentang tempatku berangkat dan pulang,

Dalam sebuah sesi meeting virtual bersama perusahaan furniture asal Swedish, tiba-tiba terlontar sebuah pertanyaan yang sangat sederhana dan mudah untuk dijawab tapi entah kenapa pertanyaan tersebut melarutkanku dan membuatku sedikit emosional hingga sempat kehilangan fokus.

“Kegiatan apa sih yang biasanya dilakuin di rumah atau ruang keluarga deh?”

Pertanyaan yang itu aja sudah bikin aku jadi terharu sendiri sembari mengingat-ngingat kalau sudah 100 hari selama swakantina ini, setiap malam pasti Baba, Bunda, Adek dan Aku selalu kumpul di ruang keluarga. Dari shalat, makan, nonton, liatin ikan dan kuciiing2, bercanda dan ketawa-ketawa sampai akhirnya kami lapar lagi dan mulai ngerayu Bunda untuk beliin kami makanan di ojek online atau capcipcup siapa yang harus jalan untuk beli nasi goreng depan komplek. Dan aku jadi mellow sendiri karena semakin kesini nampaknya new normal juga akan berlaku ke keluarga kami juga. Baba yang mungkin akan berangkat lagi ke Palu, WFH yang akan mulai transisi lagi.. ya anyway, I am glad I never take my home as a granted. Indeed, I have a blissful self-quarantine.

Setelah itu, pertanyaan selanjutnya juga cukup membuat aku diam sejenak.

“Terus pernah ngerasa kurang atau gimana gitu nggak? Boleh diceritain ke saya”

Iyasih konteksnya memang tentang interior rumahku. Tapi karena masih kebawa suasana emosional tadi, aku malah jadi mempertanyakan apa ya yang kurang selama aku tinggal di rumah ini dengan keluargaku? Ternyata jawabannya nggak ada — bahkan setelah semua perjalanan yang nggak mudah dan indah. Proses tersebut justru jadi sebuah pelajaran agar kami bisa selalu menerima dan memaafkan satu sama lain, karena mau bagaimanapun juga mereka adalah tempatku berangkat dan pulang.

Aku juga nggak tau arah tulisan ini kemana, tapi rasanya ingin sekali menuangkan kehangatan dan emosiku kedalam sebuah tulisan. Dan teruntuk siapapun yang membaca, ku sertakan doa agar keluarga kalian diberikan banyak keberkahan dan juga kebahagiaan yang tidak ada putusnya.. ♥

[alya-djohan]

Malam Panjang

Sudah lama rasanya sejak terakhir aku merasa seperti ini. Disapa oleh dinginnya malam yang tidak kunjung menghangat atau selesai. Ketakutan akan ketidakpastian tetapi rasanya sangat nyata. Setiap detailnya bahkan dapat kubayangkan. Begitu penuh sorak sorai kemenangan akan kerapuhanku. Aku merasa terpojok, terhimpit, penuh kekalahan. Aku tidak pernah ingin apa yang menjadi ketakutanku ini menjadi nyata. Aku bahkan yakin seribujutapersen bahwa meskipun aku pernah merasakannya, aku tetap tidak akan siap kalau aku harus melihat dan mendengarnya secara langsung untuk kesekian kalinya.

Jangan katakan aku si perasa ini konyol dan tolol. Rasakan, katakan dan utarakan dengan lantang. Kebaikkan untuk mengatakan yang sebenarnya tidak akan membuatku lemah ataupun marah. Aku mohon, ataukah aku harus bersimpuh? Tolong, jangan lagi.

Malam panjang, pikiran berdatangan. Mungkin karena aku sedang kedatangan tamu bulanan atau karena meminum kopi lagi setelah sekian lama yang menyebabkan aku kesulitan untuk beristirahat. Ntah lah, aku hanya ingin pagi, ketenangan atau kebenaran.

[alya-djohan]

Me bubbling about virtual photoshoot, overcome insecurites, and being wildly honest of who I am on The Shonet: 

https://www.theshonet.com/articles/following-the-trend-virtual-photoshoot

[alya-djohan]

Sekarang, korban jiwa bukan lagi sebatas orang-orang baik yang terpapar virus. Kepala keluarga yang sedang berjuang bahkan telah sampai kepada titik menyerahnya. Seorang ibu yang harus meninggalkan kehidupannya selamanya karena tidak mampu memenuhi kebutuhan dasar manusia, makan. Miris. Semoga semua yang berpulang mendapatkan tempat terbaik di sisi-Nya.. Aamin.

Aku bukanlah ahli pandemi, pengamat ekonomi, maupun ibu peri. Aku hanya manusia yang inginnya selalu memanusiakan manusia. Aku juga tidak ingin menunjuk si ina dan si itu dan berkoar-koar seolah aku si paling pintar sehingga bisa memaki kesalahan mereka tanpa berkontribusi selain berdiam diri sesuai arahan. Setiap kali membaca atau menonton berita terkait perkembangan kasus pandemi, baik yang dipaparkan pemerintah maupun yang berusaha disimpan (maaf, tapi rakyat yang kecewa nampaknya tidak bisa lagi dibodoh-bodohi dengan data statistik gadungan yang katanya demi menghindari kepanikan) aku tidak lagi punya energi untuk berkomentar terkait penyataan pemerintah yang terkadang jenaka. Energiku telah habis memikirkan nasib buruh, karyawan PHK, supir-supir transportasi dan pejuang-pejuang diagnosa dari psikiater. Dalam lingkaran itu ada seorang kepala keluarga yang harus menghidupi keluarganya, ada seorang anak sebagai tulang punggung keluarga yang harus berjuang membiayai orang tuanya yang telah lama sakit, ada seorang Ibu yang selama ini menjalankan banyak peran demi kelangsungan hidup sang anak karena suaminya telah lama pergi, ada balita yang butuh susu, bahkan seseorang dengan gangguan personality disorder yang tidak lagi bisa mengalihkan pikirannya dengan pergi ke tempat ramai...dan masih banyak lagi.

Aku paham betul, ketidakpastian akan kapan berakhirnya pandemi dan situasi ironi ini membuat sisi self-survival dalam diri manusia meningkat pesat. Teruntuk kalian yang masih sangat amat beruntung, tolong ulurkan tangan kalian disetiap ada kesempatan untuk berbagi. Jatuhkan ekspektasi besar kalian akan pemerintah, tinggikan nurani untuk membahu menjadi manusia yang dapat menyelamatkan manusia lainnya. Uluran tangan itu tidak hanya berbentuk materi, sekedar menanyakan kabar dan kondisi seorang teman yang terkadang tidak bisa mengalihkan pikiran buruknya pun juga sudah sangat membantu. Karena saat ini, disaat kalian membuang energi untuk mengolok dan menghujam kolom komentar disetiap artikel tentang pemerintah dan pandemi — disaat itu juga koran kelaparan dan depresi berjatuhan. Kita tidak bisa berharap banyak, apalagi mempercayai cakap pemerintah perihal kapan berakhirnya pandemi ini. Kalianpun pasti akan bingung bukan kalau disuruh memperkirakan kapan pandemi ini berakhir? Selagi berdoa dan tetap melakukan anjuran-anjuran dari tenaga medis, ada baiknya kita juga berkontribusi dalam menyebarkan kebaikan-kebaikan yang dapat kita lakukan. Jangan biarkan pandemi ini menggerogoti sisi humanis kita sebagai manusia.

Teman-teman, aku masih sangat percaya bahwa Tuhan akan membalas kebaikkan kita sekecil apapun itu. Aku harap begitupun dengan kalian. Semoga kita semua selalu dilindungi dari virus serintil ini beserta dampak ekonomi, sosial, dan mental yang ditimbulkannya.