1 Prologue, (You) are Lasting

Exactly today, 12 August 2020, at 18:39 after evening prayer, I sat back in front of the laptop to write how I am good at writing. It's been a year since my university graduation that day, I rarely have any news from her. Just call her L, she is a close friend in the world of college. To be honest, I've liked her since we sat in the same vocational school. But because at that moment I realized that I was far from the word 'proper', I moved away from her. What we went through was just greeting each other.

I was born from a simple family. So for my size, she's too fancy.

It was 2014, when I graduated from vocational school, because I had no money to continue studying, I decided to work for one year. Architecture and Interior are the fields of work that I worked on for that one year, while making up my mind that I should get my bachelor's degree next year.

Time flies..

One year passed, I enrolled myself in a private university which is quite a favorite in Jakarta. As if God wanted to show His power with human destiny, L, my classmate during vocational school, had enrolled in the same university. I realized it when I was looking at who my friends were, maybe, maybe someone I knew?

Then one night when we were sitting together at the end of 2016, she told me that the man she loved had let her down. I could not hold the love in my chest, then that very night I decided to make her happy.

However, I also didn't have enough courage to tie up. Apart from being committed to not dating, at that time I also realized that there were many things I had to fight for. Especially for both parents and family, I still couldn't afford to make them happy.

How could I love her, while I was busy with the ambitions and aspirations that I have to grasp?

How can I be completely happy, when my family can't even make me happy?

From there, I managed to become a writer. Being someone who is good enough at playing with words. Because in front of her, I can't talk much about sense.

Incarnate love in the form of literary works.

About three thousand poems were written for her. In the personal notes I have, not only complete with the poetry number sequence, but also the date and moment (photo) when I wrote each of the poems. The personal notes are also perfect down to the minutes and hours.

I typed this prologue in August 2020, more or less 4 years have passed since the incident. I thought, maybe it's time for the world to know about my love for her.

One other thing that I now realize is, L is Lasting. In my poetry that never dies.