Lunch Break – “Re: New Ways to be Lonely”
“Lunch Break” is a monthly poetry column by LIM Xin Hwee, appearing every fourth Friday of the month. Look for insightful appreciations of contemporary poems from around the world. Sign up for notifications here.
Re: New Ways to be Lonely
By Nurul Amillin Hussain
Email yourself
from one account. Read and reply from another.
There’s always so much
to say to someone like you.
Skype no one when no one’s looking.
Familiar faces near-midnight
look the same.
Talking to yourself,
a different person everyday.
Pretend texting.
Watch the little coloured speech bubbles
bloom like a blanket of people,
all ‘how are you’s’ –
You’re always ‘fine’.
The line always busy
from calling yourself.
Stay around the places that spend your everyday;
light, heat, people – all walking quickly,
melting into the same conversations,
where stories are more than made up.
You imagine imagining them,
imagine
knowing
someone other than yourself.
The reader may be tempted to situate this poem in the context of the pandemic. This is due to the way the poem depicts loneliness, as a condition that is not only physical, but virtual. In the midst of the pandemic, we have all taken to interacting with one another virtually. However, this poem was actually published in Beef by Nurul Amillin Hussain in 2017, three years before the pandemic started in Singapore. In the words of its publisher Math Paper Press, Beef “traces time through fresh explorations of nostalgia, recollecting the author's time spent in both Singapore and the UK.” This collection is distinctly urban, and aims to translate the messy zig-zags of everyday discomforts into verse, focusing on themes of family, friendship, and identity. Loneliness as a concept is not new to us; this poem exposes the reality that loneliness has not abated despite the technologies that were supposed to make people more accessible to one another. If anything, this poem makes use of such technologies for introspection, a surprising and thus creative conceit.
The poem contains a list of imperatives: email yourself, skype no one, pretend texting, and stay around the places that “spend your everyday”. These imperatives involve an unnamed speaker instructing themselves to apply digital tools of communication to themselves. The speaker says, “There’s always so much/ to say to someone like you,” and “Talking to yourself, a different person everyday.” Haunted by loneliness, the speaker attempts to create purpose for the use of such tools. It is one of achieving self-awareness and self-knowledge. The tone of “someone like you” and “a different person everyday” seems consolatory, in that loneliness motivates us to find depth and multiplicity in ourselves to compensate for the absence of others. Instead of the stale conversations with others, the speaker talks to themselves, knowing that there is always “so much to say.” Familiarity with one’s identity, then, creates opportunities for even greater understanding.
The idea that such tools can enable self-awareness and self-knowledge is nuanced in the third stanza. The metaphor “little coloured speech bubbles/ bloom like a blanket of people” is surprising; the speaker is distracted from the virtual world by the prospect of connection with others. Therefore, the speaker sees people “bloom[ing]” in things. Unable to envision a world without people, the speaker lists elements that make up the “places that spend your everyday”—“light,” “heat,” and “people,” quickly following up with the attributes of people that bore the speaker. This description betrays the speaker’s understanding of society at large, and furthers the idea that while these tools have enabled connections to occur more rapidly and easily, they have exacerbated the shortcomings of how we have historically connected, and thus magnified the loneliness we feel. Perhaps, then, loneliness is the consequence of an absence of authenticity, not an absence of people.
To that end this poem laments the lack of genuine conversations that go beyond small talk. The speaker’s answer to “’how are [you]’” is “always ’fine.’” One cannot help but think that there is genuine disinterest to communicate on both sides. How can an email or a Skype call solve this fundamental issue? Society has been too preoccupied with the self to encourage us to be involved in the lives of others. Ultimately, this poem demonstrates that, paradoxically, without other people, we cannot forge an identity of our own. If we do not establish strong human relationships, not even the best tools can help draw us closer to each other. Consequently, we will be left only with ourselves, our loneliness, and the latest apps.
The poem “Re: New Ways to be Lonely” is from Beef, by Nurul Amillin Hussain (Singapore: Math Paper Press). The poem is reproduced by permission of publisher.
Lim Xin Hwee has a keen interest in language and how people use it. A member of the writing collective /s@ber, she has written many things, important and unimportant. She graduated from NTU with a degree in English and Linguistics.
If you’ve enjoyed reading this article, please consider making a donation. Your donation goes towards paying our contributors and a modest stipend to our editors. Singapore Unbound is powered by volunteers, and we depend on individual supporters. To maintain our independence, we do not seek or accept direct funding from any government.