Kabut asap yang melanda KL sedang buruk-buruknya selama beberapa hari ini. Sepengetahuan saya, kabut asap kemarin paling parah — kalo ga salah bacaan indeks polusi udara (Air Pollution Index — API) sampe di kisaran 150 ke atas (“Tidak Sehat”). Hari ini sekolah diliburkan akibat kabut asap. Saya nggak bisa bayangin gimana anak-anak di lingkungan titik api di Sumatera.
Kabut asap ini terjadi akibat kebakaran hutan yang melanda Sumatera — dan kabut asap ini udah terjadi belasan tahun.
Kaya gini ini lho yang bikin sedih. Udah ya bikin repot negara tetangga, bikin repot negara sendiri, banyak orang sakit, lingkungan rusak… Dan terjadi bertahun-tahun. Tabungan dosa apa kabar?
There are times when we remember something unpleasant from our past. Mostly, it came out of the blue. For some, it’s a trigger and might cause panic attack; for others, it’s “nothing more” than a lump in the chest and some kind of selfish gratefulness of passing the horror.
Just now I’m watching TV series ‘Criminal Minds’ (season 10 episode 15) and suddenly I remember my ex-boyfriend.
Not specifically him, though.
His wife.
I don’t know his wife. I never meet her.
But I wonder, how is she?
I was in a really toxic relationship with my ex back then, and it went to some kind of abuse. At first, physical abuse. Then, mental abuse.
I remember some of his words: “why do you have to make things worse? Why don’t you calm me down?! Why can’t you make things perfect?! It’s all your fault!”
(And those words were uttered on a scene in the current episode of ‘Criminal Minds’ I’m watching, so yeah, it’s quite a trigger)
It’s my life. I’m alwayslivin’ on a prayer — then I met you.
Alas!
You give love a bad name, they said. You are wanted dead or alive — on a bed of roses. Angry officials, shouting from their high chairs. Pointing fingers. You tainted love’s pure name, they said.
But what is love, you cried back.
Is love pure?
Or can you find love in the darkest alley, in the dirtiest ditch, in the eye of girls selling their bodies under the dim lamps of Las Vegas?
Can you find love on a mother’s cold dead eyes, while her three-year old baby washed ashore on Turkey beach? Can you find love on the eyes of seventy-one immigrants, rotten away and nearly forgotten by the media, on a roadside at Austria?
Can you find love on Kim Davis, when she refused to celebrate love of loving people?
Is that love?
Or can you find love through Brandon’s cold camera lens, as he captures the stories of humanity on his Humans of New York? With thousands and thousands of cold texts, typed from shiny smartphones and gadgets. Each word, laced with heat of passion. Passion of humanity and better future.
“Have a nice day,” I told you, “I’ll be there for you,” even when you’re on a runaway.
Thank you for loving me, and giving me a glimpse on blaze of glory. It’s beautiful. Really beautiful.
Even though it leaves a bad medicine taste aftermath on my tongue. But the beauty is there. I am drowned.
I will never say goodbye to you. Never.
Though this ain’t a love song, I know you want to make a memory. I know you will.
Oh, I’m sorry. This is a love song. This is a love song for me, for you, for all of us. For anyone who care to listen. Under the screams of injustice, the bloodbath of religions and wars, the salutations of tyrants and dictators — this is a love song.
You told me once, “we weren’t born to follow.” You laughed, “are you seriously going to follow these people — with blood on their hands. Those innocent souls, their bloods laid bare on these dirty politicians yet nobody cares! Nobody pointed it out! These people who equally killing thousands of souls, making hundreds of people wishing to die even before Death giving them a visit, actually have a nerve to talk about humanity and social justice! Ha!”
In these arms, we have weapons. The blood is running rampant, pulsating with life. We are leaders.
What about now, I asked you. Because we can. We can be leaders. We can be the heroes of our own stories.
Nindya. Kapkap. she/her. Indonesian in Malaysia. Millennial. Lo-fi. Post-Rock. Gregorian. Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Murder mystery genre. “Love is Love“.
