Maybe in the next life we바카라ll meet each other for the first time바카라believing in everything but the harm we바카라re capable of. Maybe we바카라ll be the opposite of buffaloes. We바카라ll grow wings and spill over the cliff as a generation of monarchs, heading home. Green Apple.
Like snow covering the particulars of the city, they will say we never happened, that our survival was a myth. But they바카라re wrong. You and I, we were real. We laughed knowing joy would tear the stitches from our lips.
Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places. Underneath the grid is a field바카라it was always there바카라where to be lost is never to be wrong, but simply more.
As a rule, be more.
As a rule, I miss you.
As a rule, 바카라little바카라 is always smaller than 바카라small바카라. Don바카라t ask me why.
I바카라m sorry I don바카라t call enough.
Green Apple.
I바카라m sorry I keep saying How are you? when I really mean Are you happy?
바카라Ocean Vuong, On Earth We바카라re Briefly Gorgeous
What you actually want to ask is, 바카라Are you lonely?바카라
He had once sent a song by Måneskin called 바카라The Loneliest바카라 and you have heard it many times over.
바카라You바카라ll be the saddest part of me.바카라 That바카라s how the song begins.
You are sorry you don바카라t call him enough.
The song reminds you of lonely people. You, him, others.
Like that woman in the old house in your old neighbourhood who nobody really sees anymore. The doors are always shut. Creepers have sprouted from cracks in the ancient walls. Everything is discoloured, dishevelled.
It is funny how houses become sites of loneliness. Her husband died a few years ago. They say he used to beat her up.
After his death, she became an invisible person.
You go home to scout for such stories.
They say loneliness is now an epidemic. There is no antidote.
Your aunt once told you the neighbourhood was cursed. With loneliness. The women, especially, were all abandoned. They left or were left behind. Like her.
You didn바카라t believe in it until you became one of those women. You had run away.
But you keep returning. Like how all the women did.
Lonely.
You have rationalised it. You are from that threshold generation. We crossed over from analogue to digital. We are called Xennials.
You remember that once there was a time when computers were placed in air-conditioned rooms and you had to remove your shoes to enter the hallowed precincts of the temple of technology that promised a better world. A world where everything would be accessible. Time and space would collapse and new intimacies would be formed.
But we entered an era of isolation instead.
Love and loneliness have become synonyms almost. This is an era of almosts.
This is also an era of redundancy. Connected all the time and yet, so remote. They say you can get an AI lover now. Or borrow a lover. Or buy a hug.
Does that make you a little less lonely?
You have been thinking about the woman lately.
You have been thinking about doors, too.
Disappear, disconnect, dismantle, dissolve.
Like that woman.
Like you.
All these D바카라s.
Love, loneliness, loss.
All the L바카라s.
The first two letters. The same and then they depart to form other meanings.
Like the door that splits in two halves.
The heart on it cut in two pieces.
Loneliest in its severance.
Are you happy?
(This article appeared in Outlook바카라s Valentine바카라s Day 2025 special issue on love and loneliness in the era of technology. It was published in print as 'Loneliest')
