I am still learning 
what love is 
But this is what I 
think it means:

To let go when you 
know someone can’t 
jar all your light anymore

To give yourself in 
the capacity they
need in that moment, 
even if it’s not in the image 
you initially hoped for

And to not make your words 
into a guillotine or a 
public hanging of the 
mistakes seeded in both 
your fragile spines

I said in a poem once, 
“I know we are not 
always going to be 
holy or magic but 
I hope even on our 
worst days we could 
still be a slow dance 
made of good intention”

The first night we were 
everything sin and far from 
salvation, you left me 
two stepping to the sound 
of your fading footsteps

In a room made of questions, 
you were scared, and 
I can understand 
I am finding 
I cannot be mad 
at a broken winged bird 
who does not know what 
it means to fly

So this is me 
clicking my record player 
chest back on,
outstretching my hand, 
and asking you to dance

We do not have to kiss at the end 
I only want to dance with you 
until you can hear the
symphony in yourself

Until you can find 
your altar, your holy wine, 
your bent knees, and the 
reverence in your own voice again

I want us to spin in circles 
until you are no longer 
clenched fist and belly fully of doubt 

I want us to get so dizzy 
your smile will finally be 
a horizon you feel okay 
with waking up to

None of this is easy 
Believe me, 
I am trying for the both of us 
but I have felt the anxious rhythm 
in your chest

I heard one time, 
if you hug someone for long enough 
your heartbeats will begin to match 

So come here, 
I will hug you until 
your heartbeat slows to mine 
or mine catches up with yours 
It doesn’t matter

This is what I am finding 
it means to love
To set aside your expectations 
To kill your ego 
and selfish desires 
To let pain be the teacher 
and the lesson is to always give 
even when it’s not in the way you imagined

This is love
To jump back into a ocean you 
have drowned in so many times before
and still have the heart to kick 
still have the heart to swim 
still have the heart to do it all over again.

- The most realistic poem I've ever read.

The perks of going to the stadium lepak tengok bola with The Ultras

Look, she's just a football fan. Inside out. She enjoys watching football games, eversince she was a little kid. Thanks to the boys of the house. Thanks to her circle of friends too. There's this one thing when you play sports - you would tend to be curious to discover other sports that you're not good at too. Football, rugby, hockey, badminton, whatever. To wait for my friends to be done with their football trainings once I'm done with my basketball drills was my daily/weekly routine back in school. So my life pretty much revolved around sports, in a way. I understand how it feels like working in a team, under high pressure, and you have no one else to push you beyond your limits but yourself, backbones at home, positive teammates and coach.

But hey, it's a whole different atmosphere once you've stepped your feet on the pitch (in this case, I'm talking about football obviously hehe) - there's another one big unsung anchor which often goes unappreciated. The fans.

The supporters who crazily spend their money on buying tickets just to watch their favourite team playing their hearts out for 90 minutes. The whole satisfaction that these people will bring home once the game ends is something that none of non-football fans on this earth will understand. Well, that's pretty fair. We don't get the whole hype of why you have to suffocate yourself through the massive crowd cheering for your favourite band to appear on the stage and start singing already. Uh-huh. See the logic? :)

I started watching football at home of course. It's my family routine. Mum and kakak can never kacau our football sesh alright. It's like a golden rule at our home. We just have that special privilege on weekend nights. I guess, majority will always win. As I grew up, cousins and friends started dragging me to mamaks to watch live games there. To indulge myself in such crowd is a bliss. I truly thanked them for that. It's like a place where strangers meet and can mock each other in an acceptable and funny way. Silaplah if you turn up in an Arsenal jersey alone at a Chelsea territory hahaha ( that's what happened to me at Khalifah Section 7 Shah Alam. I totally had no idea it was The Blues' territory though lol but I survived the game, though my Arsenal boys didn't. Oh well. All these bahan-bahan other football clubs thingy are so fun weh, if you do it in a right way of course. And don't go beyond the lines. There's always a limit. You'll get used to it if you stay in this whole scene just a little longer. I've learnt it the easy way, and the hard way too. Just, don't go overboard.

Anyway, since my brothers started joining  this Ultras scene few years ago - my home is surrounded by their chants 24/7. It didn't annoy me though, it didn't annoy anyone at home as far as I'm concerned. In fact it triggered me a little, look - I've never bothered to watch our local football games before. It's always been EPL and UCL for me. One day I was moved to join them on a random trip to the stadium. T'was just me alone, sitting next to the curva enjoying the game. But what made the random trip memorable, was the fact I was accompanied by their amazing chants throughout the whole game. THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE GAME. They didn't even sit for once, all they did was just chanting, singing, jumping, non-stop. And I thought, look - if this is the kind of atmosphere I'll get every single time I come and tengok bola at the stadium, it would be crazy to just choose to sit at home and watch our local football teams playing on the television. You won't even hesitate to put your team's jersey on and march to the stadium on a freaking match day.

Here's one thing about Ultras that made me realise. You'll be able to comprehend this better if you happen to play sports as well. What keeps us going in trainings and drills sessions is our teammates and coaches right? (Well that's how I always see it). The whole atmosphere will change once the game has started. You're totally on your own. Yes, your teammates are there. Your coach is on the sideline just to keep you on track. But you're on your own in terms of keeping track on your motivations throughout the whole match. Here's where the fans, and especially The Ultras come in handy. You miskick a ball, you give a bad pass to your teammates, you make an unnecessary foul, your teammate screams at you, your self-esteem goes down, you feel demotivated, you hear some of the fans cursing at ya, - frets not boys. These Ultras will still keep on chanting to keep your spirits up, will still keep your motivation fired up to keep on going, to freaking keep on going till the match literally ends. And that's what players need the most. That's what we need the most when we're almost on the edge of giving up too ( we realise that one of the biggest factors that can keep us going when we look out for that one little voice telling us that we can't give up, despite whatever. We gotta fight till the end, we really gotta fight till the end. Excuses are totally unacceptable.)

You'll realise too, that these Ultras are the little voices in the players' head that won't stop pushing them to go beyond their limits. If only the whole stadium (the fans together with the Ultras unite in one voice, and roar an echo everytime they chant. It's surely one hell of an atmosphere you'll get to feel right there.) - Uhh, even the thoughts of it send shivers through my spines.

The players need to be constantly fired up.
The fans are there for a reason. Really, the fans are there for a reason.


Food for thought people, your favourite football team can't hear your chants through the television. Get up, dress up, and go the stadium to feel all these beautiful feelings. Words often fail me anyway.

When those faces flash back in my face, I'll feel a little bitter.

Weird, cause it's me who wanted things to go this way in the first place.
Weird, cause it's me who has all the grief perfectly wrapped up in my case.
Weird, cause it's me who's been happier lately too.
Weird, cause it's me who always feels the blue.


We would grow along well, and better I hope.
I'm sorry, I've been having a hard time dealing with my ego lately.
For what it's worth, I don't have a good feeling about it at all.
But these will pass, these will pass. I hope.

An autobiographical poem, of self.

I came from a decent family, raised with so much love, music, sacrifices and joy. Grew up loving everyone around me more than I love myself. Always knew my heart was never for myself, but for the world instead. Mum always reminded me of how I was born to be a fighter for the toughest days arrived when she was about to give birth to me back then.

I inherited dad's passion in sports and mum's interest in arts. My face doesn't look like either of them, but I'm okay. I was the kind who would wake up really early in the morning just to read a book and get back to my sleep just because I can. Mum told the discpline got loose eversince but I guess that was just one of the perks of growing up as a teenager. Some said I'm a self-employed comedian for anything you ask me, I have the capability to make the answers sound so inappropriate, or probably - inappropriate.

My favourite music is anything melancholic. For melancholy speaks the truest of thoughts we hold onto dearly in our mind. If you could befriend my deep thoughts, in the middle of me cracking jokes in the crowd, you would often find them lingering somewhere in an empty room. I like the fact that though they never fall into place, I could always gather them together on the right track.

Arsenal is my football club, since I was eleven. They are the reasons why I've become such a hopeless romantic, despite I'm never quite lucky when it comes to my love life. For when I fall, I fall hard. And I will stay, through whatever. Often people see me walk away, they simply dismissed the efforts I portrayed. I don't speak lies. When it doesn't work out, let's just call it a time out.

So hi. I'm Elli. I'm a lion-hearted with round face and a weakness for cats, and good books on rainy days. I love mountains and lakes and I would usually be up almost on every single night due to my struggles with the restlessness within me.

I interact with people in a language they don't understand. You might see me as an active talking machine on social networks and in reality but truth will remain truth; I am best as a listener rather than a talker. Pretty much having the time of my life, waiting for someone to come along to tell me I try hard enough, I'm already good enough and I'm all they need. Self-proclaimed as an unfinished poem, song, a storybook; stubbornly and steadily convincing myself that I'm all I'll ever need.


Tadaa.

The first, after a few.

The fear said,


Don't publish this new blog.
Nobody wants to hear you cry about the joy and grief inside your bones.

They have to be spoken. They have to be shared. With those, who can relate.

Hence, why I give it another go.