I wanted to write about Bandung. I wanted to write about Yogyakarta. But first I will write about how small and foolish my life can be.
Words fail. When they do, nothing holds you back
from the dark rooms in your head. You do things then that hurt people, and you
are not surprised. I am ashamed. I do not know where to hide a face swollen
with the pride of someone beaten. I have lost a big fight. This is my Waterloo.
Time passed and now we lie here. We both are
here. We lie on the bed and kiss the sun, the moon, the stars. The moon comes
through the window and makes the room clean. The storm outside bangs on the
shutters. The light keeps the devils away. The yellow of the lamp becomes the
blue of the night.
I saw you from the corner of my eye. Our eyes
met for a few seconds. In that instant all the good things between us came like
a film across my mind. They looked beautiful and useless at once. I knew they
were not true.
Your eyes had lost their spark. They used to
speak to me in a strange language I tried to learn. The words did not make
sense, but they held me. Now the sparks are foreign. I looked for that quiet
light that used to calm me and found nothing. Nothingness is what I wanted
then. Nothingness kept me from doing the stupid things. Nothingness drove the
mad things away. Nothingness became the love I had for those lost sparks.
Then
it came to me plain and hard. Let go. Let go. The great Let go. I said it aloud
once, then softer. The moon listened. The storm went on. Outside the cities I
wanted to write about—Bandung, Yogyakarta—people lived and loved and moved on.
Inside the room, in the blue light, I let go.