Little Red Dot.

• 2nd March 2017
• 1

 Image credit: Lee Yik Keat

I miss Singapore.

I miss its painful efficiency, the way that three working days really means three working days.

I miss the pace, the fact that everyone seems to always be in a perpetual hurry – even during the weekends.

I miss the safe roads and peace of mind – knowing that I can walk by myself at night and I won’t get robbed, raped or both (as long as I am not in the general Yishun area)

I miss the food. Your peppery bak kut teh, the life changing hokkien mee, and Indian rojak that I pile as high as my plate and decency would allow.

Loving your food always made me feel slightly less patriotic like I am betraying my motherland somehow but,

when you have an ice cream wedged between a multicoloured slice of bread, I can’t help but fall in love.

I miss my friends. I miss their unique personalities and nuances and it’s been so long but I am still amazed at how different these people are and yet we all get along.

Sure I see all the highlights of their lives through Instagram stories but I am more interested in the

little things, the ugly, the minute things that don’t make the cut even with pretty Snapchat filters.

Sometimes I miss living away from home.

I find it a constant existential struggle living with my parents because how can I be the master of my fate and captain of my soul

if my mum still nags me to separate my colours and whites?

Most days I get by but some are harder than others.

I get tired, possibly lonely and these cracks start to appear in my facade.

I forget to remember to forget

that you don’t love me and that you never will

that you are there and I am here and I am left wondering how could a simple change in preposition, an addition of one extra alphabet can break one’s heart.

I miss Singapore because it has so much of what I love.

I miss Singapore because that’s where you are.

_{I am in your city. I tried calling but you do not pick up.}