Ames

I'm called by so many names.
To most of my girlfriends; I'm known as 'dale' to them.

Easiest explanation is that callsign is somehow attributed to my 'dopey' character (as in dale, from chip n dale rescue rangers) but its actually because back in school I was the smallest.
Hence ker-dil.
Oops.
Did I say I was the smallest?
Second smallest.
The tiniest girl is Elyani.
Guess what.
She is known as kenit.


Family call me by the first syllable of my first name.
Nobody sensible calls me 'Zan',
Or people trying to be funny will add a Mr to my second name and act surprise to know that I'm a female. Har har.


********

Names aside. That has got nothing to do with the posts I'm about to blog now.
Who says my train of thought can be followed?
Except if I tell you the reason, it might gives you a trail of a hint to the bubbles in my brain.
I was thinking about it so much in my head that it gives you nonsense out of it.
But I figure this time, I'll write it. Blog about it.

I've a friend.
People call her Amy.
But I call her Ames.
As in James. Yeah. Ames.

She's beautiful.
She's the kind of girl you would always associate with Dior perfumes, ballet classes and good PR.
Both girls and boys like her alike. Enjoyed her presence.
When I was back in school, I often think she's an alien, to be all so perfect.
Sometimes when the playwright mode of me made me pen a drama, I'll have her as the heroine.
Smart, beautiful and angelic.
That's why I never thought I'll meet her again.
She's so.. 'up there'. Like she belonged only to the Ivy League.

But I saw her again.
Spent almost a day in fact with her.
If not for the goofy nickname 'dale', I would've dismissed her recognising me.
Mad woman, I'll say.

But she called me dale.
And she has changed.

HIV changed her.

One reason why I thought if anyone saying hi to me is mad is because at I was at The Centre.
And at The Centre, there are no friends.
No familiar faces.
Only ill stricken patients on their deathbeds.


**************

I don't know how to face her again.
I was thinking if I could avoid going to The Center.

How could a girl like Ames end up there?
I'm not being judgmental. But it affects me.

When I am The Centre, it was always about other people.
It's always about someone's niece, someone else's mom.
But not somebody you knew.

Its eating me inside.
Its been a week since the last I met her and I can't stop thinking about her.

I know I have to go back to her.
To the lovely Ames.....
Even if it means I can never get her back to the way she used to be.