Mermaid Tears

Two of us separated by the seas
Had you ever tempted to swim across oceans with that giant tail of yours
To find me who was stranded on a far far away island?
Did you ever cry out for me as much as I did for you?
If I ever heard you cry
I would collect your tears and keep them safe in a bottle
So that you never had to waste them away into the vast ocean
And I would return it back to you
On the day we reunite
Your precious mermaid tears
Celeste Koh

The idea for this poem came after I attended a morning workout session organised by AIA on 30th July. They were giving away free talad drinks to the participants at the event and one of the flavours was named “Mermaid Tears”.

It immediately made me think of Taenggu because of a drawing that I made for her birthday in March earlier this year. I drew her as a mermaid because she said she had a mermaid dream. (see related post: TAEYEON DAY 2017: TAENGGU MERMAID)

So when I was drinking this refreshing bottle of Mermaid Tears, I felt as if I was drinking Taenggu’s tears. I was in between couldn’t bear to drink it at all and not wanting to waste a drop of it. It was just so precious to me.

It made me think about our relationship and how difficult it had been for me emotionally especially in the first 2 years. At the start, I could be all cool about not expecting any tangible things in return from her. But as time went by, I became more and more emotionally attached to her and I started wanting to receive something from her too. Communication between us had been difficult. There hadn’t been any verbal words of promises or other tangible things made from her to me. Even if there was any, it was rather obscure. Everything was purely in my head. Many times I felt so cheated and hurt because I didn’t see those “words” I heard from her in my head coming true physically. Without any clear direct assurance from her, I couldn’t help feeling very insecure about our relationship. Many nights I found myself crying on my bed, wondering why she seemed so cold “beside” me. Could she hear me? Did she understand how I felt? Did she even know I was crying? Could she feel the tears that were streaming down my face? At the same time, I didn’t know what she was thinking too. Did she feel the same way as I did? Was there something that she couldn’t bring herself to tell me? What was she trying to hide from me? Was there something that was stopping her from reaching out to me? Was she having a difficult time too?

Things however got better after I began to expect less of my material wants from her on the outside and turn to seek answers spiritually from within instead. I learned to trust my inner knowing. I trust that my Spirit already holds all the answers that I needed to know and it is just a matter of time that the universe would reveal the answers to me one by one when the time is right. Especially after I started doing yoga late last year, I began to see things through my third eye. I began to see subtle images of Taenggu in her daily life which I otherwise couldn’t see in real life. Those are visions – mental images having deeply personal spiritual or psychological significance. They give me bits and pieces of information about what she may be doing or thinking about at the moment. Not just Taenggu, I also began to see the people around her too.

The last day of 2016 seemed to be a turning point of my spiritual journey. That day, I spent the evening participating in a mass outdoor sunset flow yoga event at a park with a hundred other yogis. Before the event started, I was lying on my yoga mat which was laid on the grass. The weather was so cool with light breezes blowing. I felt so relaxed. I looked up at the sky above me. I saw an image of Jesus right there. He was opening a book to read, looking really puzzled and confused. It reminded of a voice that I frequently heard back then. That voice kept asking me to read, but I didn’t understand what it meant. Read what? Read a book? Read a bible? Read people’s faces? (I believed I could read artistes’ faces based on their expressions) I guess I finally understood after seeing that image of Jesus that the voice was trying to tell me to read up more on spiritual books to get more information and guidance. That was the first mystical sign I received that day. Later on, towards the end of our yoga session, while we were lying in savasana position, I received another one. I was looking at the sky again, thinking if I could spot any birds flying and immediately, a pair of couple birds flew past. I knew it held a significant meaning to me in terms of my relationship with Taenggu. At the meantime, the yoga instructor was speaking very encouraging and inspiring words to us. She told us to put behind all the bad things that happened to us in the past year and get ready to welcome a new life in the year 2017. For some reasons, her words stirred up some emotions within me and put me into tears. I thought about all the emotional pain I had gone through and a mountain full of words that I hadn’t been able to say to Taenggu and kept to myself all those while. As I was crying, I had a vision of Taenggu crying with me at the same time. It broke my heart even more. It was the first time I had ever seen her crying in my head. The girl who always seemed so cold and unresponsive whenever I cried beside her on bed had become more like a living human being with emotions now. My third eye had widened.

After that mystical yoga event, the year that came after that has been nothing short of life-changing so far. It has indeed been a new life for me. I have since set up this blog to help myself to communicate with Taenggu better. I have also been reading up more and gain more spiritual knowledge. I can see the positive results from doing these things too. My relationship with her has improved so much than ever before and I am able to balance myself emotionally better now too. After seeing Taenggu’s tears in my head, I slowly began to make more effort to reach out to her in more direct ways. I believe it was a sign that she was beginning to understand and feel me better now. We have since changed so much for each other and managed to build a mutual understanding for each other even without verbal words. That was the power of Taenggu’s tears. Her precious tears that changed everything. <3