You carry my heart

Used to Me

Luke Chiang

Lei, my beloved,

Did you remember I gave you this song back when we started getting involved romantically?
Do you know since then I’ve been trying to hold back from giving you new songs so when I do give this playlist for you, they’ll be filled with songs about you you’ve not heard before. I couldn’t not put this on the playlist as I believe this one was what made me realize the feelings I had for you and like the lyric goes, “I hope it’s mutual cause I could get used to this.”

It was funny to look back and think how we came to be. We were the silliest and most casual of friends, and even scrolling our chat from the days we were just friends and nothing more made me giggle as it was funny to see how we acted before. Oh, if only the Reignar back then knew how much you’d make him fall for you, he would have surely lost his mind. I can even bet he’d laugh, thinking I’m insane if Reignar from the future came to tell him all about Lei and his ability to mesmerize him in ways he couldn’t imagine.

This song, I say, would be the start of everything – the one that made me realize how your eyes glimmer differently, your words sound the same way the birds do when they sing, and I seem to lose hold of myself when I’m with you – embarrassingly, causing myself to be more of a boyloser in front of you, in which I am lucky you like your man the way I am.

space for you

Avenue Beat

Embarrassingly, I can say, you know how I was before you happened. I guess that changed when you came along, because it’s… you. Somehow, a space freed up around me and I can find gaps in my life where you belong. In the front seat, on the right side of my car. Midnight, in the middle of my arms. Somewhere in the corner of my heart. I can go on and on and list all of the spaces where you belong in my life—across the table of cute cafes every weekend. Next to my seat on the theatre every Friday night. A few (or more…) steps in front of me on the pavement of the park if we were to ever realize our plan of working out in the morning.

Let it be known that it is not fear that held me off up until now for your spot in my life is all but nonexistent — they’ve been reserved and prepared and decorated properly, all to your liking. For I want you in my mornings, in the evenings, in the moments where I wish to be alone to catch my breath. Throughout all the seasons; the fallen leaves, the harsh blizzards, the very moment petals blossom as Spring flutters her eyes slowly. During the Summer, the season I reckon to be the one you’re not particularly fond of because you hate heat and humidity. My bed will never be too small for us two, and my blanket can be all yours to have. I don’t mind getting my toes frozen or having to warm up your cold feet every time.

Best Friends

Jesse Barera, Albert Posis

Lei, Lei… Just what magic did you do what spell did you cast that caused every song since that day to realize and deepen my feelings for you?

We were just two souls, running so free, never a problem. I felt a spark when you looked at me, now it feels so natural. I didn’t think that I would fall, indeed. We were just friends, casually talking and leaning into each other, when we realized it was safe to lean in deeper towards each other. It will always be funny how we’d joke about the trope “two idiots making a rebound out of each other and seeing who falls first”, when in reality the trope has always been friends to lovers.

Have I told you it’s one of my disliked tropes as I find it boring? Knowing there was already a sense of safety and familiarity, there wouldn’t be any thrill, I thought. Turns out it was one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever felt as I was able to dive into you more and love every shade of you. The friendly Lei. The silly Lei. The vulnerable Lei. And there were not one second where I am to doubt or feel unsafe with you, especially because you made sure I know that no one else but us matters. Only our feelings. Only our thoughts. Only you and me are the factors that made up this equation. I feel content with baring myself and showing you my vulnerabilities, I am at ease to go through the ups and downs with you, and most of all, I’m happy I’ve fallen with my best friend. And with you, Lei, I’d like to spend all seventy summers—and even more.

Cats on the Ceiling

Ruel

I remember the first listen of this song. I remember how warm each words felt, perhaps because they lead to thoughts of you and maybe they heat up my cheeks, too. Unknowingly, they start to hurt because I later found out I was unable to hide my grin the way a middle-schooler would. Fun fact: I got scolded because I kept on giggling and grinning like a fool. Tell me, how was one to help themselves from turning into a fool when they’re in love? Tell me, how am I supposed to return to a live where you didn’t exist… or rather, did not matter? How am I supposed to go on knowing there was such bliss as being in your company, as learning that my legs could turn to jelly, having my head feeling heavy as the world spins around you? How am I supposed to let the days pass the way they did before you mattered, when I could stutter and trip on the covers, be stuck in the gutter and not be able to see any color without you?

Sometimes I do look back and ponder of all the times our paths could have crossed—or have crossed—yet at that time my gaze failed to find you, and so did yours. It left me with a million what-ifs and regrets my fingers could not count, but being with you at this point in life reminded me that maybe this is the way it is meant to be. To find the cats exactly where they are, right on my ceiling. To discover that there’s a delight in discovering that life could be this good with you around. To look up at the stars and thank them each time for letting our paths align this time.

Maybe in another universe, there’s a me that has loved you from the very start, and I would never know such bliss. But I am content enough knowing the me in this universe got to meet you and is able to love you.

Here’s to the yesterdays I didn’t get to craft with you, and for the tomorrows I get to thread with you.

Dive

Olivia Dean

Another song, another moment where I don’t even know where to begin to explain just how song is so you and reminds me of you. Maybe it’s the loving in your eyes, Lei, maybe it’s the magic in the wine. Maybe it’s the way you understand me, maybe it’s the way you are gentle with me, maybe it’s the way… both our friendship and relationship makes me feel secure. It’s the way it was so easy—far too easy—to fall in love with you it didn’t even feel like one needs to reconsider before diving headfirst. It didn’t feel weird, it didn’t feel dangerous, it didn’t feel like I need a moment to stop and think whether the velocity as I dove was too fast—not to mention the effect of gravitational pull. It just felt right to dive into you.

Aramsa

Aku Jeje

This is one of the songs which, I feel, I couldn’t do justice into writing my thoughts and feelings as I get the urge to just shush myself to listen to it religiously. I just get indulged in the serene feeling of the song and how much it reminds me of you, how much it feels like the song belongs to you. Dikau manis sekali, semesta pun mengagumi… That line speaks to me in particular because I wish you could see the beauty I admire you for. The sweetness oozing out your very fingertips, the smile incomparable to Aphrodite’s, every thought, action, and word that caused me to fall even further into a pit I refuse to get myself out of… and I find the universe down here with me.

Kamu manis sekali, Kaleia, bahkan semesta pun mengagumi.

Hypotheticals

Lake Street Dive

Obviously, we’re at the beginning of something, I don’t expect you to know how it’s gonna go. But I believe we might be onto something, and I thought maybe you should know.

I remember when it felt exactly like this song at the start, and I remember how as the days go by, I find myself thinking of hypotheticals and playing a thousand of possibilities in my head relating to you. From merely writing down your name next to mine to spending every waking moment together. From the spark that might ignite the moment our fingers accidentally graze against each other to taking in the scent I could only imagine before. From only being able to exchange nervous giggles to yapping our thoughts together. How it went from hypothetically, yes, to theoretically, forever. (And… yes, I know forever is a long time. Forever is a promise. Forever is… scary, if you think about it. But forever is also a concept of time I would love to go through with you.)

SWEETEST/LOVE

LANG, Alex Ungku

I used to think love was just an impending doom waiting to happen, Lei, but even if the doom awaits in the end, I’d gladly give up my free will of saving myself from the heartbreak and put my fate in your hands. One might think of this behavior as reckless, but what kind of doom feels this sweet, and what kind of doom feels this right?

Sweetest love, sweetest loving, sweetest doom—I blame it all on you, Lei. You’re the very creator of a feeling more tempting than The Forbidden Fruit, and I am more than happy to bear it on my own. But the more I look at you, the more I look at the way you love, the more the way I look at you be… The more the sweetness gets absorbed in me and fuses into my very being.

Tell me, Lei, can I leave my hand to rest on yours? Do you feel the same way that I do? Would you believe me if I told I'd walk through fire, I could be what you want, I’d even go through Psyche’s trial just to get to where you are.

Would you show me some loving, sweetest thing?

My Only

Kenny Gabriel, Teza Sumendra, Audrey Tapiheru

Do you have any idea how my world has switched up with you in it, Lei? It feels as though my life is a fairy tale, but I know it’s true. It’s the reality. I know it’s real… I know you’re real. With you, reality feels better than my dreams once more, for you are my dream-—you are who I dream of.

Would you take my world with you, Lei?

You know I want you, do you want me too?

Rearrange My World

Daniel Caesar, Rex Orange County

This is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard, and it reminds me of you–saying this as if I don’t listen to a song and immediately thought of you. The gentleness this song holds... is the same as the one you gave me each time. You’ve walked me until I know who I am, who I want to be, and who and what I’m content with—you. I live above a bar I’ve never been, and I think about you more than I can spend. If you don’t find somewhere, you can move in, and I’ll trade all your things for my things—except in this case I’d be willing to trade everything my world has to hold for you, for your things, for the things that matter to you.

I could go on and annotate each and every line and how I find you, Lei, with each word sung. But you know me well, It’s almost like you love me, I can tell.

When You Wash Your Hair

Matt Maltese

I don’t know if you could tell, but I’ve mentioned this song before to you, Lei. Did you remember that moment when we had Lighterwise as our layout, and the header I had made me feel so soft and domestic?
This song… feels like something playing at the end of the day. Something tender and peaceful to aid yourself while you take off your façade, while you take off your clothes. While you lay yourself bare and show the skin that lies underneath that smile of yours.

I love you when you wash your hair, Lei.

To you, in your bare moments, you could be quite a mess. But I worship you no less this way.

In my eyes, you’re quite the angel, Kaleia.

Leo Bear

Sinéad Harnett

Have you ever had something you’ve kept for so long, sitting on your shelf of the somewhere in your bedroom, waiting to be given to the person at the right time?

This song has to be one of the songs I’ve kept for so long as I believe it would one day find its rightful owner, and I believe… it belongs to you. (Not to add it’s “Leo Bear”… Just how more fitting this song could be?)

If you ask me if there were ever a time throughout our journey so far where you didn’t exist in my mind, ever for one second, I’d answer honestly—no, there were no time where you fail to show up in my mind. Even when I’m unconscious and fast asleep, my mind wanders to carve your shape in my dreams. Your scent. Your tenderness. Your name. It’s almost like I’m being haunted, except it is the pleasant kind where the apparition is the very person I love. And then I’ll wake up all jolly, knowing I get to be with you for another day. And another. And another. And I wish for as long as the universe allows me to be. (And you, of course, if you’ll allow me.)

Lei, I’ve been writing scribbles about you, for you, ever since the earliest of our days, and I’ve never been more excited to show you all about it. All about my feelings. All of the thoughts of you I’ve been keeping in my head because I wanted to keep them a surprise yet imagining your reaction would get me all excited and giddy every time. And I want to always write about you, sing about you, listen to songs and be reminded of you. I want to be consumed by thoughts of you and nothing else. I want you to be the sole object of my longing and yearning, the North to where my compass is always pointing at… Because you’re my baby, my Leo bear, and I’d marry you every Sunday for the rest of my one and your nine lives; and when I perish, I’ll be reborn as a gentle breeze to soothe you, I’ll be reborn as the soil you walk on, I’ll be reborn as the tree you find shade on a scorching summer day. And when I’m able to hold you again as a being, you’ll forget you’ve ever missed me, because I’ll always be there.

Along with this playlist I’d like to ask you… for your permission and hand if you’ll let me be in your tomorrows, fill our canvas with even more colors we could discover and never had existed before, write even more scribbles about you, add more reasons to my already unending list of why I love you. I love you, Lei, I love loving you. I love feeling the vibrant hues that life has brought to me ever since I’ve loved you.