i always expect cemeteries to be foggy. creepy. cracked tombstones and strange lighting. and i'm always disappointed.

we visited chary's dad last Friday night. some people would say that'd kind of pathetic, going to a cemetery on a Friday night. don't you have a life? well, no, not really. though that doesn't bother me.

in fact, being with over three people at a time for more than an hour was vaguely disturbing. i'm using to staying at home, day after day, with no one else in the house until 5pm. when you don't go to school, everyday feels like a Tuesday.

i've had two weeks of tuesdays.

so i thought i should go out and have a proper Friday. i didn't even know we were going to a cemetery. i didn't know we were going there until we got down from the car, really. chary could have mentioned it, or nicole. though i didn't hear it. i didn't care where we were going. just as long as i was away from my computer, and trying to act like a decent human being.

the grass was damp, and i was mildly worried about my over-priced and obviously well-engineered shoes. i haven't had to worry about my shoes for three years. i'm not a shoe person. then i realized that as expensive as they were, they were just shoes. so i stopped worrying about them.

in the cemetery there were no tombstones. well, not like the ones i think of. they were flat against the ground. chary's dad didn't have one yet though. chary didn't know what would be written on it.

in the place where people usually lay flowers there was instead a small but significant amount of jelly packets. the light was dim, but i guessed they were lychee flavored. i thought it would have been rude to grab one and take a look at the flavor. i didn't ask chary either, because i didn't have a clue about how you ask questions like that.

though i think i did point out the jelly. or was it someone else? 9 hours a day on a computer has screwed up my social skills somewhat. whatever the case, chary mentioned that her father liked jelly.

it felt strange, standing next to a grave like that. i'm honestly not good with cemeteries. i've only visited my grandfather twice. then again, i don't think anyone's really good with that kind of thing.

it's really hard to understand mortality when you're a teenager. underneath the sadly almost empty night sky and the dim lamp light, i couldn't find myself to be grateful that i was alive. i am, i suppose. but if i died in a car crash tomorrow, i figure that i'll only be able to regret it for five minutes, or less, then i'll be dead. i don't think any significant thinking can happen when you're dead.

i don't believe in the after life. but i believe in the one we have, this great and mad thing we call life. but i feel like i'm looking at it through the wrong end of a pair of glasses with a ridiculously high prescription. i don't think two decades give you a good enough opinion on life.

the sprinklers on the other side of the cemetery were chugging out water. someone talked about how they had this mad urge to run through them. i found that amusing. it would have been cute if the phrase "it felt like someone walked over my grave" was replaced with "it felt like five college girls ran madly giggling over my grave because of sprinklers."

i'd like something pretty written on my tombstone. and i'd like a proper one that sticks up from the ground. but then again, the idea of me being in a coffin is unsettling. i'd rather be in an urn, thank you. maybe i could have a pretty urn.

at one point the group separated. nix and pam went by the man-made lake thing, while joanne and chary talked underneath the lamp light. i walked towards the first group. i always find myself automatically gravitating towards nix, for some reason.

the cigarette smoke hung above them, and nix offered a stick. if this was two months ago, i would have said no. at the most, i would have taken one drag, then hand it back. nix wouldn't have minded, i know. she wasn't one of those kind of friends who'd force you to do something you didn't want to do.

i don't smoke. when i first tried it, it was for all the wrong reasons. almost two years later, when i tried it again, it was for one day. and five sticks. compared to the six packs a day i used to do, i thought that was pretty light. i did it for the wrong reasons too, then.

i don't think there's such a thing as a right reason.

but last Friday night, i thought i came up with one. a reason. closer to being stupid than wrong or right, but it was a reason.

lucky strike. menthol flavored. i was craving for something stronger, but i didn't mind. at one point i was sitting down on the stones, listening to the black water and the girls talking. it felt good to hear people talking again.

there's something deeply pretty about the end of a cigarette in the dark. and the smoke that curls up, like a sadly dying thing. i took the smoke in deeper than i usually do. i found it disturbing that the amount of smoke i was taking in wasn't the same as the amount coming out. then again, i can't smoke properly. not even to save my life. i don't pretend that i know how.

it was like kissing ron again. that was the stupid reason, by the way. ron. i was disappointed in myself. now that i'm in love like this again, i guess i'll have to get used to doing stupid things. maybe i could pile up enough to regret and squirm over once things fall apart.

dammit, there i go again. i really should be more optimistic. it's not that i don't love him. of course i do. i'm just a tad bit too cynical, that's all. it doesn't show, a lot of the time. for a while, i had even thought i had gotten over it. i am happy with him. disgustingly so. complete with the cute noises and the giggles. and things deeper than that. much deeper. things you can't properly describe, let alone write. those things.

i just have an immense amount of emotional baggage from the last relationship. i know it's unfair, bringing all of that here in the current one. but i don't plan on opening them up and unpacking. i think we can get by without that. i believe we'll honestly take the suitcases out together, and lock them outside the door. really.

there was a time when i was flat on my back, digging in the last of a cigarette in the ground, and picking up another one. a plane passed by every once in a while, and they were a lot bigger there than i usually see them. i could even make out logo at the tail of the thing. that close. i wondered where those people were going. did they want to? were they coming back? who were they leaving behind? would they come back for them?

would he come back for me?

and the world was just cigarette smoke, wet grass on a cemetery, the sound of water and friends. i felt like i could stay like that forever.

i did eventually get up though, for no particular reason. all right, so maybe it was because i thought i'd accidentally drop a bit of the cigarette ash on me if i wasn't careful enough. i'm afraid of the ash. a friend of mine accidentally let a whole load of it slip on my hand. i had icky, painful bubble things on my skin for more than a week. ugh.

nix chose that time to lie down in front of me. i liked how her hair looked, draped against the ground like that with the dim light shining off of it. we talked about things that weren't terribly important, she, pam and i.

i grounded another cigarette into the grass, and i could see the words leaking out of it, spilling past the blackened end and my nicotine coated fingers. i could see this moment writing itself in my head, and that was good. i had spent too long without the words.

there were many times that night when i didn't bother to talk. and didn't really listen either. it just felt good to hear them say things, to laugh and to muse and to confess and to be people. it felt good to be with people again.

after a while, it was time to go. i didn't know how long we had stayed there. nix started feeling guilty about the trash we were leaving behind, and i agreed with her. singaoporean upbringing. what can i say. so we all helped each other clean up, and took the last drags of our cigarettes.

desperate huge gulps of things that burned your throat and chest. the smoke thickened around me, and i thought, good gods, kenchan's really going to kill me. and that was comforting.

we said goodbye to chary's dad, and i think i even waved. chary said he was there, underneath the lamp post. just watching over us. i thought that was a good thing. why visit someone if they're not going to be there? i wonder if he liked the jelly packets. i bet he did. i hope he knew how much chary missed him.

we got into chary's car, and it back unto the road of crushed stars and dashed lines streaming past us. i always feel like we're driving across some sort of huge discount coupon from a magazine. there are times when i feel like i'm living in a magazine. like family's circle or woman's day or redbook. we had a whole mound of those at home.

the windows were down and the volume of the radio was up. the night wind in my hair and the smell of the cigarette on my fingertips. i know i'd go to bed smelling this, remembering him. i wondered if he did stupid things to remember me better. i wondered what he was doing.

then i turned and smiled at my friends, and we laughed and talked like girls do. life was music, wind, discount coupon metaphors and happiness that just is.

and that was my Friday night.