Like any other night before the deadline, I stare at a blank page. I type in a few words, but I still end up pressing the backspace button halfway through the whole thing. I have done this more times than I can count and it never gets easier.

During our years in MC, we wove stories mined from the depths of our hearts and revived from the back of our minds. And no matter how many stories we've told, there's always enough for another pub night.

We wrote of love, joy, pain, sadness, anger, and many other things that kept us up at night. But being the impressionable teens that we were and maybe still are, we wrote mostly about love.

Tonight, I write about a different kind of love.

The love for writing after graduation is a love that surprises you. It's not the kind of surprise that you secretly anticipate, that you know is waiting for you despite how elusive it tries to be. It's the kind of love that knows its place in your heart and so has no need for any flashy comebacks. It's the kind of love that sits comfortably in its little nook, waiting for you to call upon them. It surprises you because of how well it fits into everything despite how things have changed.

I admit that I have become rusty. Words don't come as easily as they used to. But they do come eventually! Bits and pieces from old articles and old lits come to mind and find their place in scripts and letters. Words like "rather" and "seemingly" and "plethora" are scattered around reflection papers and reports. And each time such words make an appearance, I am always amazed.

I once thought that I had to go on long voyages to find these words again, thinking that they were lost and no longer to be found. It's the same thing with my memories in Room 115. I wondered where they went and how I could even dare to forget the (almost) 24 hours and 7 days a week that I spent thinking about the magic made in that room and the people we made it with.

But as I meet friends I made in that very room after months since graduating from all that orderly chaos, I realized that some things are not meant to be found, simply because they were never lost. Memories and words come so easily when called upon and even as you write the most mundane of papers or the simplest of scripts, and as you see your writers and fellow editors in parties or along hallways, you remember the love that keeps them afloat.

And so, the love for writing never leaves because the memories and words always find ways to stay.

Thank you, MC, for a love that stays.

Love,

Ms. Takes

Iliad

Years ago, we took our arms

For a crusade with end uncertain.

With steady hearts and hopes held high,

We took the charge and fought.

Years ago, we were on the same field

For a siege I hoped we'll last.

With you beside me and fate against,

We tried our best to hold the line.

Years ago, we raised the banners as one

For a final stand bound for defeat.

With faltering hearts and falling hopes,

We slowly fell apart.

Years ago, we waged war against our foes

For a battle better fought for another.

With prospects grim and all hope lost,

We realised there's nothing left to do.

Years ago, we went on our way home

From an undertaking we were finally ready to give up.

I have always loved you

But refused to acknowledge it.

You watched me be with others,

Feeling but never really loving

I watched you be with others,

Giving but never really caring.

You are always here

Even though I run away.

You have seen every heartbreak

That I try to breeze through.

You are more than enough

And that's the problem.

I fear that loving you now

Means leaving you in the end.

But I want to stay.

So if it means

Doing anything

But showing you I love you,

I will do it.

When the pain's too much to bear,

I hope you know that I do care.

The Universe

Ms. Takes

She was all the boy has ever known.

When night had yet to take the throne

And lay claim on the heavens above,

He’d watch her fiery form, claiming she is love.

Yet the sun was smart and so she knew

She can’t let the boy give her love so true

So she kept herself millions of miles away

Because it was the moon she wanted to sway

The sun figured this was the right thing to do

Only to find a wooden ladder coming through

The sun watched as he cut down a whole forest,

Hating that she could give nothing in exchange for his best.

Piece by piece, she tried breaking the ladder down,

Yet she knew, in love, there was no way around.

So she left the boy to what he was doing

And waited for the moon to take away the morning

The sun knew the moon would not wait for her

So she rose into the heavens like a blur,

Forgetting about the boy who was still building

A future she did not want a part in.

There have been many stories like this

Where we chase after a certain kind of bliss

That blinds us into a love waiting to rust

Because we love those who cannot love us.

If you were a painting

In an art gallery,

I would be the blind visitor.

Vivid colors are lost

To eyes that cannot see.

I yearn to feel

How the paints dance in fusion

But you are behind velvet ropes

And I am too far away.

I am dismayed, but overjoyed:

I may not be able

To see the hues that make you,

But I am sure someone else will.

If you were a sketch

In a private collection,

I would be the powerless guest.

Monochrome lines are testimonies

Of what you are to the collector.

I yearn to see

What a splash of color could do

But my palette has the wrong shades

And you were never mine to begin with.

I am defeated, yet content:

I may not be able

To replace the somber tints,

But I understand I have no right to change you.