Patches

The night is hitting the dawn
And I just said I love you
To a girl I’m not in love with
To a girl I might even hate
All because I have the time
And she has the freedom

Told her to put the glass down
‘Cause in killing the mess
She is killing the sweetness
Though I know fully well
There is nothing sweet at all
In something so tragically fake

I’m seeing through it all now
I’m seeing past all the shows
All the tears all the dramas
The ‘look at me but stay away’ plea
The desperate loony in her thinking
Tragedies make life interesting

But all that are too late
For I still wish I can do more for her
I still wish I can rebuild the world
So it won’t hurt her anymore
I wish I have it in me to take her
To where her heart can smile again

And I still think we can heal each other
Help steer each other’s path ahead
Safely away from the threatening storm
I still think we’ll be happy together
That we will be lovely together
Simple, brilliant, perfect together

The day is hitting the dusk
And I just said I love you
To a girl I’m not in love with
To a girl I might even hate
Probably because I have the time
While she has the freedom

My Friends

My friends are so depressed
I feel the question of your loneliness
Confide...'cause I'll be on your side
You know I will, you know I will

Ex-girlfriend called me up
Alone and desperate on the prison phone
They want to give her seven years
For being sad

I love all of you
Hurt by the cold
So hard and lonely too
When you don't know yourself

My friends are so distressed
And standing on the brink of emptiness
No words I know of to express
This emptiness

I love all of you
Hurt by the cold
So hard and lonely too
When you don't know yourself

Imagine me, taught by tragedy
Release is peace

I heard a little girl
And what she said was something beautiful
To give your love no matter what
Is what she said

I love all of you
Hurt by the cold
So hard and lonely too
When you don't know yourself

Red Hot Chili Peppers
One Hot Minute, 1995

A Different Twist

I failed you didn’t I
When you turned to me for help
Expected me to stand in front
And I failed you

Hope can be a burden
You put the full weight of it on me
And I crumbled
Like a quicksand like a sinkhole
Sucking you down
Deeper into the twilight

Maybe it would have been different
If I were the anchor
Stopping you from drifting further
Not the deceptive wind
Who blew you aimlessly away

You were free
Only to be caged again
You were running
Towards the wrong direction
And I failed you

And with that
The rage grew bigger
To conceal the guilt
To place the blame
Just so the finger pointed away
The bitterness shadowed the reality

Forgive me precious
For I have failed you
Forgive me princess
So I can let you go

A Man Called Ma

Some saw him as evil. Some said he was sadistic. Some thought he was nothing but a bully. Most of the time he was so mean and cold, and my best friend absolutely hated him. However, there were some who told me he was a great friend. Many more acknowledged his brilliance in his work. As for me, until today, I still cannot make up my mind on how I feel about him.

A hard man to please, he set a high standard for his staff to follow and demanded ridiculous amount of effort to make sure everything goes to plan. One thing I can say, he was certainly full of character.

He was my boss at my previous job. The latest happenings in my current work place, coupled with a quick look at my life right now brings my memory back to him. I see my relationship with him as quite strange. On the surface, I didn’t like him too much and he didn’t seem to like me too much either. However, and I don’t know if I am just imagining it, I felt that he for some reason genuinely really wanted to mould and guide me in my work, in his own sadistic and mean way of course. I’m not saying the normal guidance a superior gives to his staff. I think it was more than that.

I don’t really have any incidents to share to show why I feel the way I feel. There were a few incidents of course, but I can only vaguely recall them. They will mean nothing if I try to tell it here.

But one of the few things that I do remember was that one of the highest compliments I got for my writing was from him. He very rarely complimented anyone personally and directly, and true to form (and ironically as well), I got that compliment from him when he berated me about my work, about a newsletter I wrote. He clearly wasn’t happy with it and while shaking his head with angry face, he said, “Hazri, when you are good, you are really good. But when you are bad, you are really bad. I have no time for work like this.” He then proceeded to strike off the newsletter I printed with his red pen, jotted down a few pointers and asked me to re-do it.

Forgive me when what he said there made me feel like I was floating. Forgive me because I only focus on ‘when you’re good…” part and completely ignoring the “when you’re bad…” part, because coming from him, that was as big a compliment as it gets.

Another incident I had with him, which I don’t think I will ever forget, was during my appraisal. At that time I was a real mess. Work pressure and the pressure from being in a relationship with a ridiculously demanding girlfriend really got to me. My work suffered, badly. And I guess he saw that. And what made it worst was my contract was almost finished. With my bad work performance, plus the restructuring of my department that was happening then, I expected my contract to not be renewed. Hell, I myself won’t even renew my contract! I was that bad!

So I filled my appraisal form as honest as I can and in the end I can only gave myself a ‘3C’, with the worst possible rating a ‘4D’. ‘3C’ was a big decrease from my previous agreed rating, a ‘2B’. At first I wanted to change it so it can at least hit ‘3B’ but because I just couldn’t care less at that time, I just let it be.

So when my turn came to face him for the appraisal, I did so emotionless, like a zombie. I sat in front of him, passed him my completed appraisal form and sat quietly while waiting for him to go through it. I fully expected an earful lecture from him about how my performance dipped terribly. About how I’m not meeting his lowest acceptable standard. But to my astonishment, he suddenly burst into a big laugh.

“3C huh? I couldn’t agree more!” he said.

Then, to my bigger astonishment, he put the form aside and asked me, “Hazri, kenapa you ni?”

He looked me straight into my eyes and told me to forget about the appraisal.

“Let’s talk about you,” he said. “Do you have anything to let me know?”

Still astonished, I kept seating in my seat quietly, motionless, meeting his eyes with a blank stare.

Seeing that I’m not saying anything, he said, “Ok then, let me do the talking. You listen to me and listen well!”

So off he went. He told me about getting my priorities right. About doing things at the rate that I can handle. Do not rush things. Think about what I want. Know what I want. Don’t bite more than I can chew.

I remember seating there, horrified, because I knew exactly what he was saying and where he was going. He was talking about my personal relationship. He was telling me that he can see how I was suffering, how my relationship with my girlfriend was killing me and everyone in the office can see it! I was so embarrassed, I felt so pathetic. I never thought anyone could tell that I was suffering.

He continued on talking until he told me about how he made his choice (he didn’t elaborate on what exactly the choice was), about making sacrifice and how his ex girlfriend was not happy about the choice he made. Then he stopped and let a loud sigh out. That part about his girlfriend was a slipped, that was clear. But whether the slipped was because he didn’t mean to let anyone know about his past experience with his girlfriend; or because he didn’t plan to use the word ‘girlfriend’, in fear I would think he crossed the line by intruding into my private life, I’m not sure. But what he said next, almost made my tears flowed out.

“Listen to me Hazri, take it from me who has been through all this before. Trust me, this is not that difficult. This is not that complicated. You might think that it is now, but later in life you will see it differently. All you have to do is make your choice now. Make a firm choice. Think this through. Decide what your priorities are. Delay things that you can delay for now. Forget about other people, think of yourself first.”

“Don’t worry about your contract. I’m offering you a new one. I want you to stay but you will have to improve from here. And go fill a new form. Make it a 3B…. Ok we are done here.”

With that, I quickly got up and walked out from his room. I didn’t want him to see me cry…

Fast forwarded a couple of months later, my girlfriend became my ex, my work suffered even more, I looked terrible all the time, and my boss disappointment in me hit an all time high.

And one night, staying back to finish a newsletter, I said fuck off to his face.

Long story short, it was approaching 10pm, I’ve done a newsletter but I had to wait for him to come back to office so he can approve it that night, because the newsletter needed to go out first thing the next morning.

And he was being his normal ass self, making me wait for so long that night just to wait for his approval. And when he came back to the office, he ridiculed my work (which was so clearly unjustified because I did well, but I’m not getting into it right now), and ask me to re-do it. That’s when I said, “Fuck off, I’m sorry but my brain is not working tonight.” Then I stormed out.

The next morning, I gave him my resignation letter.

He might think I resigned because of what happened the previous night, because we never talked about it. But the truth is, I’ve planned to resign on that day two weeks earlier. I have even sought advice on resigning from my HR friend earlier than that, and he told me to resign on that day. It got nothing to do with the ‘fuck off’ incident. But I bet until today my boss still thinks I resigned because of it.

So those were my experiences with him. Maybe I could’ve gone into more details, especially about the ‘fuck off’ and the resigning bit but writing this is really draining my energy out and I’m so tired right now. Maybe I’ll add more on those bits later. For now, I just hope in reading this, no one will jump to a conclusion on who was right who was wrong. That’s not my intention in writing this. I just want to share my experiences that I had with him because my current work situation is making my mind going back to all this.

I said earlier that I still couldn’t make my mind up on what I think of him, but that is not important. Whatever he was, there is no denying that a large chunk of what I know about my job today came from him. I met him when I was zero, he gave me a chance, I took it and I learned a lot. So for that, I thank you, Mr Ma. I hope I will be able to apply the lessons about work and life that I got from you better. I hope I will not let it go to waste.

Thank you for everything...

Hey, How Are You?

It’s hard to go on when deep down you feel the same ache for years. It’s not a pain anymore, it’s an ache. An ache derived from many things, but born from the same source, hopelessness.

I’ve felt it for so long that I don’t even have the energy to talk about it anymore. No point. When I am seen, I smile, I laugh and I talk about my plans tomorrow. I tell them what I want to do, what I want to get, and where I want to go. And while all that, smiling and telling them my plans, I feel the ache so deep inside that it won’t and it can’t reflect through my expressions any longer. My smiles are genuine. When I laugh I’m not faking it. But the smiles and laugh are entangled with the ache. I can smile and laugh all I want but they will never be enough to lessen the ache.

When I am not seen, when I am all alone, I still laugh and I still smile. But they are directed to myself, at how I am now. And the ache remains there. I can’t even get down on my knees with head in hands, crying my heart out, without feeling I have no right to all that anymore. That I’m just bullshitting myself.

So this, what I’m doing now is the only thing I can think of that can cushioned the hit from the ache. I’ve written a lot of things that I can’t get myself to actually put it out, because they are too blunt and they will come across as too dramatic. But in this one I hope I managed to pour out how I really feel without the drama. I’m not asking for sympathy from anyone. I’m not even asking for help. I just need to let it out so I will be understood, and not be looked upon strangely. I just need to let it out and I like to think of this blog as my amnesty, no matter what I say.

Anyway, I’m writing this because today I was asked “Hey, how are you?”. The genuine ‘how are you’, from a friend who I talk to (chat with) everyday. To a friend that I tell all my problems and feelings to (well most of it anyway).

I was told that I didn’t sound too good, and this was through a chat session. I don’t sound too good from a chat. “What’s wrong,” she asked. Out of the blue, when we were chatting normally, while she was telling me about her work, while I was trying to help her with her work. I could’ve sworn I was being my normal self. Not even once I complaint or whine about anything but still she said I didn’t sound too good. Still, out of the blue, in the middle of our conversation about her report she has to do, she asked “Hey, how are you?”.

I guess what I’m trying to do here is to thank her for asking me the simple yet heartfelt question, and at the same time I’m trying to answer her because I didn’t say much when she asked me . I appreciate it very much and it did make me feel better.

So the next time you ask someone 'how are you', mean it, because it can really make a difference.