Sunday, 26 December 2010
Saturday, 25 December 2010
Sincerity
I can see it in their eyes. They do want things to be better and they do mean it.
I received a present on the day everyone else received presents. I knew from the way the wrapped rectangular item bent on one side and not the other that it was a book. I looked at the giver and thanked her and turned around and walked off.
It was easily four hours later when I unwrapped m present. I was right - a book
A gift like the gifts everyone else receives
I flipped it open and had a glance at the leprous white pages filled with words. Another novel - but it was a novel with meaning and a touch. It had feelings which were imbedded in its printed words and teachings.
"Healing and Wholeness"
I saw myself in those words and that is how I know that they sincerely wanted things to get better and be better.
I received a present on the day everyone else received presents. I knew from the way the wrapped rectangular item bent on one side and not the other that it was a book. I looked at the giver and thanked her and turned around and walked off.
It was easily four hours later when I unwrapped m present. I was right - a book
A gift like the gifts everyone else receives
I flipped it open and had a glance at the leprous white pages filled with words. Another novel - but it was a novel with meaning and a touch. It had feelings which were imbedded in its printed words and teachings.
"Healing and Wholeness"
I saw myself in those words and that is how I know that they sincerely wanted things to get better and be better.
Friday, 24 December 2010
Jingle Bells
I can't say i'm overjoyed at the thought of snow. It falls heavily from the grey skies and engulfs the roads and pavements with cold.
Grey cement and black tar are bleached and buried under a freeze. Cars skid and people slip. The shops take advantage of this and wait for festive seasons to come to sell of their best shoes. As decorative trees come up, the people venture out in the cold. Off to High Street, Oxford Street to empty their wallets and fill up their shopping bags.
It's all in the thought - the meaning
That's the only way everyone consoles themselves into buying gifts of notoriously high prices. People exit shops with their bodies overweighed by the heavy bags of over-the-top items which they have purchased. Ridiculously colourful lights hang overhead and flicker as if giving up under the weight of the snow which has clung to it. Nothing seems to make any sense this month - December - it's like everyone has gone into coplete dysfunction.
This is Christmas
Grey cement and black tar are bleached and buried under a freeze. Cars skid and people slip. The shops take advantage of this and wait for festive seasons to come to sell of their best shoes. As decorative trees come up, the people venture out in the cold. Off to High Street, Oxford Street to empty their wallets and fill up their shopping bags.
It's all in the thought - the meaning
That's the only way everyone consoles themselves into buying gifts of notoriously high prices. People exit shops with their bodies overweighed by the heavy bags of over-the-top items which they have purchased. Ridiculously colourful lights hang overhead and flicker as if giving up under the weight of the snow which has clung to it. Nothing seems to make any sense this month - December - it's like everyone has gone into coplete dysfunction.
This is Christmas
Saturday, 11 December 2010
No One shall know My Story
It is so despicable
it is unbelievable I did that;
no one would believe
I was capable of it;
no one would believe
I would have dared;
no one would want
to believe
I did that.
it is unbelievable I did that;
no one would believe
I was capable of it;
no one would believe
I would have dared;
no one would want
to believe
I did that.
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
"We don't see you"
I made wonderful friends in my first year of university but they never saw me. They never saw me until I returned for my second year.
In my first year, I was hiding behind an almost-opaque veil. So needless to say, I did not see my friends either.
Now I'm back, and I see everyone, and got to know everyone all over again but yet I still want that veil - and I think I should have every right to have it back
In my first year, I was hiding behind an almost-opaque veil. So needless to say, I did not see my friends either.
Now I'm back, and I see everyone, and got to know everyone all over again but yet I still want that veil - and I think I should have every right to have it back
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Sal's Favourite Tree
I can still see it in my head: it was a tree which stood outside the centre and it was...well...it was not beautiful; in fact, it was an oddity. I used to watch its seed pods dangle from its branches and my close circle of friends and I would point and laugh and make schoolgirl-inappropriate jokes.
Obscene jokes were made of the greyish-green pods as the wind blew them and rustled up the leaves of the tree. We would call it "Sal's Favourite Tree" after a friend of mine who cringed at the sight of the tree because of its unclean connotations.
However, once a year the tree bloomed. Those were the times when Sal's Favourite Tree became a sight to behold. From the window of the classroom which I had my English classes, I could see the white and pink flowers swaying in the billowing humid wind. And every sweep of the wind plucked a few flowers away from its stems. When I stood under the tree, I could just make out the flowers behind the sunlight and would attempt to pluck a flower from the lowest branch. On certain days, usually after the rain, a friend and I would sit on the nearby step and have a chat while watching the rain water drip from the flowers
But eventually, the flowers would disappear after much wind and rain and Sal's Favourite Tree would be left bare once again. In a months time, seed pods will start to grow again and dangle from its branches only to be laughed at once again.
Those were the days left behind - we graduated and left the school and Sal's Favourite Tree is nothing more than an image in memory. We left it behind together with the other memories we never took to heart while we were there. And sometimes, I regret not doing so.
Although we are no longer there to witness it, Sal's Favourite Tree continues to bloom at the same time every year for the other schoolgirls who pass by it just like we did in our time.
Obscene jokes were made of the greyish-green pods as the wind blew them and rustled up the leaves of the tree. We would call it "Sal's Favourite Tree" after a friend of mine who cringed at the sight of the tree because of its unclean connotations.
However, once a year the tree bloomed. Those were the times when Sal's Favourite Tree became a sight to behold. From the window of the classroom which I had my English classes, I could see the white and pink flowers swaying in the billowing humid wind. And every sweep of the wind plucked a few flowers away from its stems. When I stood under the tree, I could just make out the flowers behind the sunlight and would attempt to pluck a flower from the lowest branch. On certain days, usually after the rain, a friend and I would sit on the nearby step and have a chat while watching the rain water drip from the flowers
But eventually, the flowers would disappear after much wind and rain and Sal's Favourite Tree would be left bare once again. In a months time, seed pods will start to grow again and dangle from its branches only to be laughed at once again.
Those were the days left behind - we graduated and left the school and Sal's Favourite Tree is nothing more than an image in memory. We left it behind together with the other memories we never took to heart while we were there. And sometimes, I regret not doing so.
Although we are no longer there to witness it, Sal's Favourite Tree continues to bloom at the same time every year for the other schoolgirls who pass by it just like we did in our time.
Monday, 6 December 2010
I feel like I'm sinking away
When I heard that song when I was little, I created a little world for that song and it remained the world which I would automatically asscoiate with everytime I heard it. It was my own little synasthesia.
This particular song reminded me of towering pillars which pierced into the dark sky above where stars danced and twinkled. I could see the eternity of existence and it made me feel small and somewhat hopeless in its eye. As the song progressed, the short piano solo came in and it transported me to a house which stood hidden behind many trees. I could hear the pattering of the tropical rain on the metal roof outside and I could see, at the end of the corridor, the sillohuette of an old hunched figure - my great-grandmother - who I had not seen or touched in over seven years now.
The song died away and so did these visions - the rainstorm and my great-grandmother and the pillars and the dark sky - disappeared and reality reemerged. And so here I am, in reality, in front of my laptop, in my room, in England, in winter, telling you about my visions and my memories - and oh, about how abstract they are now.
This particular song reminded me of towering pillars which pierced into the dark sky above where stars danced and twinkled. I could see the eternity of existence and it made me feel small and somewhat hopeless in its eye. As the song progressed, the short piano solo came in and it transported me to a house which stood hidden behind many trees. I could hear the pattering of the tropical rain on the metal roof outside and I could see, at the end of the corridor, the sillohuette of an old hunched figure - my great-grandmother - who I had not seen or touched in over seven years now.
The song died away and so did these visions - the rainstorm and my great-grandmother and the pillars and the dark sky - disappeared and reality reemerged. And so here I am, in reality, in front of my laptop, in my room, in England, in winter, telling you about my visions and my memories - and oh, about how abstract they are now.
Sunday, 5 December 2010
There are Assumptions being made
To assume is to mistake
And sometimes, to mistake is to hurt.
Hence to assume is to hurt...
I was standing in a room full of other students who did not have an inkiling of any torment that was constantly surrounding me. I did not expect them to know just because my perception was so different - so strange - that it was impossible to comprehend.
While I stood with half a sandwich in my hand, I was approached by someone who I vaguely remembered meeting about a year ago. She looked at my sandwich and then at my face. A cheeky smile crept across her face: "Looks like everything is fine now"
If only my perception could be understood by everyone else, then I could have explained to her that nothing was fine and that nothing was well. She just assumed that everything was sorted and that the ordeal was over. But there was an ordeal in my head and that ordeal is my distortion. I watched the other people in the room smile and greet each other with excitement of getting to meet everyone again. I could not do that - distortion told me that no one was going to understand me and understand that the smile I put on is merely a mask to hide something dark.
I left the room a few moments later and took the sandwich I had so merticulously prepared an hour before and threw it into the bin before going outside into the cold to ponder about my misfortune.
And sometimes, to mistake is to hurt.
Hence to assume is to hurt...
I was standing in a room full of other students who did not have an inkiling of any torment that was constantly surrounding me. I did not expect them to know just because my perception was so different - so strange - that it was impossible to comprehend.
While I stood with half a sandwich in my hand, I was approached by someone who I vaguely remembered meeting about a year ago. She looked at my sandwich and then at my face. A cheeky smile crept across her face: "Looks like everything is fine now"
If only my perception could be understood by everyone else, then I could have explained to her that nothing was fine and that nothing was well. She just assumed that everything was sorted and that the ordeal was over. But there was an ordeal in my head and that ordeal is my distortion. I watched the other people in the room smile and greet each other with excitement of getting to meet everyone again. I could not do that - distortion told me that no one was going to understand me and understand that the smile I put on is merely a mask to hide something dark.
I left the room a few moments later and took the sandwich I had so merticulously prepared an hour before and threw it into the bin before going outside into the cold to ponder about my misfortune.
Thursday, 2 December 2010
My Story
Once upon a time, stories were never meant to be heard. They were kept inside the person an tucked away in the darkness of a pained heart. That was the time, long ago, when a stab in that heart was never seen and the blood that gushes from it was never replaced.
One day, a Conscious Mind came and pulled out the heart and laid it in front of the eyes of the viewer - that was when every wound and scar was revealed, mapped out on the aged arteries and burst veins. It was painful to look at but it did not seem like that there could be anything to be done to fix them. So, the heart was folded up messily and put back into the chest of its owner to keep working as much as it could. Eventually, the heart gave up but Conscious Mind was not there anymore to show everyone the damage done. He had gone too far away for anyone to reach and so the heart was left to beat limply, occasionally gasping for some acknowledgement of its pain
It came to a point that Someone Else had to call Conscious Mind to return and help. And so he did, and Conscious Mind returned. He returned with a flag pole and this time, unwrapped the heart gingerly and put it on the pole and waved it around in the air like a flag of surrender. It worked and people came to nurse the grazes and stitch back the cuts.
Months went buy and recovery was the only thing left but in time. The heart now pumped fresh blood through the veins and arteries, replenishing the deprived cells and re-energising the dead body. However, the heart knew that those stitches will open up again and the grazes will reappear and that there will be more stabs. It knew that there will be pain, probably more than before - the heart knew that there will be no happy ever after.
1991 - 2008
2010 - we will have to wait and see
One day, a Conscious Mind came and pulled out the heart and laid it in front of the eyes of the viewer - that was when every wound and scar was revealed, mapped out on the aged arteries and burst veins. It was painful to look at but it did not seem like that there could be anything to be done to fix them. So, the heart was folded up messily and put back into the chest of its owner to keep working as much as it could. Eventually, the heart gave up but Conscious Mind was not there anymore to show everyone the damage done. He had gone too far away for anyone to reach and so the heart was left to beat limply, occasionally gasping for some acknowledgement of its pain
It came to a point that Someone Else had to call Conscious Mind to return and help. And so he did, and Conscious Mind returned. He returned with a flag pole and this time, unwrapped the heart gingerly and put it on the pole and waved it around in the air like a flag of surrender. It worked and people came to nurse the grazes and stitch back the cuts.
Months went buy and recovery was the only thing left but in time. The heart now pumped fresh blood through the veins and arteries, replenishing the deprived cells and re-energising the dead body. However, the heart knew that those stitches will open up again and the grazes will reappear and that there will be more stabs. It knew that there will be pain, probably more than before - the heart knew that there will be no happy ever after.
1991 - 2008
2010 - we will have to wait and see
Sunday, 28 November 2010
My Words against Yours
When I first heard the word 'relativism' I was sat in a church in the midst of a bible study. It was a concept which I have lived by my entire life. There is no solution to life or death and that there was no absolute way that I should live by.
"As long as I am good and sincere in life, I can be happy"
How about God then? Where does He fall in all of this. Of course my statement above seems to deny the existence of any higher being. Those who have learnt to embrace religion in their lives see me as apathetic, an athiest who could not care less about the existence of a God. However, I do care about the higher being. However, that higher being is not, to me, God - it's my own consciousness of morals.
[to be continued..]
"As long as I am good and sincere in life, I can be happy"
How about God then? Where does He fall in all of this. Of course my statement above seems to deny the existence of any higher being. Those who have learnt to embrace religion in their lives see me as apathetic, an athiest who could not care less about the existence of a God. However, I do care about the higher being. However, that higher being is not, to me, God - it's my own consciousness of morals.
[to be continued..]
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Waves and Currents
Everyone else's interests are gibberish in my head. I can hear them jabbering on about their lives and their problems but I sit silent. I listen to my breath and watch it condense into vapour and diminish in front of me. If only I could diminish just like that. It's not like I was ever there to begin with.
I open my mouth in preparation for speech but close it again. I have nothing that would interest anyone else. It's like the words died within me; it's like language was depleting in function; it's like everything was dying.
Someone up there obviously hates me. I was so close to ending all of this but yet, having swum half way up that river, a wave came and threw me back onto the banks of the river - back to the start and having to try swimming again but this time bruised and battered.
I watch from the banks how close I really was to the end and how I am so 'lucky to be alive' but I want to keep swimming until I reach the end, and have a current pull me under, drown me. But I must swim away from everyone and leave on my own and overcome the currents which push me back and the people who have tied ropes around my ankles to pull me back. It's a journey I want so badly to commit to and in time, will be able to.
I hope that undercurrent is still as strong as ever
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
I have run myself into a Corner
If you visualise a corner in your head, there are physical aspects which make it a corner:
1. it consists of three surfaces which meet at a particular point
2. it needs three edges to converge at this point
Three surfaces + three edges = one point (one corner)
three + three = ONE
So I have turned a visual conception into a numerical one and, oh, now it doesn't add up. Maybe I'm thinking too much into it. Maybe I should just forget about the surfaces and the edges and just think of the corner - just that one lonely corner. It is moreover, what I was trying to draw your attention to. Fixate on the corner and let that visualisation you had of it before ebb away until all you are left with is the concept of that corner. It is just a point in space where other physical aspects meet (the surfaces and the edges) but when I think of it as just a point I feel that I have de-physicalised it just as how we can dephysicalise emotions. If only I could physicalise emotions though then it would be so easy to make sense of. Maybe if I could physicalise it, I could embrace it or I could pick it up and throw it against the wall and make it shatter into a million pieces. If only I could make sense of it and say that it consisted of three edges and three corners, or six edges and six corners.
But apparently, and unfortunately, I can't.
Monday, 22 November 2010
Snow is Calling
It was freezing on the rooftop of the apartment. There was undeniable proof that we were in the midst of a very cold winter - snow layered heavily on the cement I was standing on and yet my sisters ran around screaming in excitement. You see, they have never seen snow before and were in awe at its existence.
As they formed distorted snowmen which were all slightly bent over to one side and threw hard snow balls at each other, I stood, cold and tired, trying very hard not to keel over from the cold. I look up. It was starting to snow again.
More snow.
My sisters shrieked and screamed in excitement at the sight of more snow. I could not be any less overjoyed. What a horrible thought - the thought of more snow, more snow to later melt into water only to turn into ice. I sigh as I watch my sisters take joy in what I found most depressing.
If only they knew what it was like for me.
As they formed distorted snowmen which were all slightly bent over to one side and threw hard snow balls at each other, I stood, cold and tired, trying very hard not to keel over from the cold. I look up. It was starting to snow again.
More snow.
My sisters shrieked and screamed in excitement at the sight of more snow. I could not be any less overjoyed. What a horrible thought - the thought of more snow, more snow to later melt into water only to turn into ice. I sigh as I watch my sisters take joy in what I found most depressing.
If only they knew what it was like for me.
It's 2.40am in the morning and I'm sitting in front of my laptop wondering what else I could possibly type
think, think, think
Ahh...maybe the world might want to know about my world. My world isn't all that varied - it's rather small and constrained.
Wait...constrained or restrained? Or possibly just strained?
I'm living in an emotional cage where anger grips at its bars and tries to shake the whole thing to pieces but never able to. The best it can do is claw at the air through the metal railings - never able to grab hold onto anything or break free from the cage. A frustrating reality in which I, together with my anger, watch the world walk by us while we stand still behind bars.
Oh sad life. How did it come to this?
Oh right. I remember now: I put myself in here.
think, think, think
Ahh...maybe the world might want to know about my world. My world isn't all that varied - it's rather small and constrained.
Wait...constrained or restrained? Or possibly just strained?
I'm living in an emotional cage where anger grips at its bars and tries to shake the whole thing to pieces but never able to. The best it can do is claw at the air through the metal railings - never able to grab hold onto anything or break free from the cage. A frustrating reality in which I, together with my anger, watch the world walk by us while we stand still behind bars.
Oh sad life. How did it come to this?
Oh right. I remember now: I put myself in here.
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Halted in Action
Gym and iPod. It's like nothing could stop me.
Pedaling hard as I wanted, heart pounding against my chest.
Nothing could possibly stop me
I saw a girl walk by with a towel thrown over her shoulders.She looked like she knew exactly what she wanted to do. She seemed so perfect and so controlled.
I stopped pedalling altogether
With my iPod still on, my eyes followed this perfect creature as she made her way to the weights machine. She lifted her arms to grab on to the handles and the towel falls off - she was so perfect - shoulders, wrist, arms were perfect.
I could see most of her story in her face. She did not have any emotions on her face; all she had were the prominently bulging features which followed such perfection. I envied her and watched as she lividly attempted to pull the handle down. As I expected, she was not able to but yet she tried and tried until she managed to do it.
At this point, I had abandoned all realisation that I was sitting on a pedalling machine gaping at this girl of perfection. Realities of the noisy gym and the many other people around me had died away into another subconscious and I only had eyes for her. How is she doing it? How did she manage to get into this shape?
How did I do it before?
The iPod suddenly blares loudly into my ears. It was then that reality came round. Stupid iPod. Why must you be so touch-sensitive. I looked down and saw that it had already gone through at least three songs and it was now playing a song called "Out of my Mind". Looking up I saw that the perfect girl had walked off to the cross trainer. I also saw a lot of other people looking at her as she made her way there. I knew that they in fact were not in awe at her perfection like I was. Instead, they were staring, shocked, at her unnaturally petit stature - a stature I called perfection.
Pedaling hard as I wanted, heart pounding against my chest.
Nothing could possibly stop me
I saw a girl walk by with a towel thrown over her shoulders.She looked like she knew exactly what she wanted to do. She seemed so perfect and so controlled.
I stopped pedalling altogether
With my iPod still on, my eyes followed this perfect creature as she made her way to the weights machine. She lifted her arms to grab on to the handles and the towel falls off - she was so perfect - shoulders, wrist, arms were perfect.
I could see most of her story in her face. She did not have any emotions on her face; all she had were the prominently bulging features which followed such perfection. I envied her and watched as she lividly attempted to pull the handle down. As I expected, she was not able to but yet she tried and tried until she managed to do it.
At this point, I had abandoned all realisation that I was sitting on a pedalling machine gaping at this girl of perfection. Realities of the noisy gym and the many other people around me had died away into another subconscious and I only had eyes for her. How is she doing it? How did she manage to get into this shape?
How did I do it before?
The iPod suddenly blares loudly into my ears. It was then that reality came round. Stupid iPod. Why must you be so touch-sensitive. I looked down and saw that it had already gone through at least three songs and it was now playing a song called "Out of my Mind". Looking up I saw that the perfect girl had walked off to the cross trainer. I also saw a lot of other people looking at her as she made her way there. I knew that they in fact were not in awe at her perfection like I was. Instead, they were staring, shocked, at her unnaturally petit stature - a stature I called perfection.
Saturday, 20 November 2010
Hoovering up that Sock
The hoover glugged and sputtered at some point and I looked down to see it sucking up one side of my sock. No point saving it now. What an idiot I am to not even notice that fucking sock. I wasn't looking was I?
It's just an analogy of my life - not looking at what I am doing. Forever engulfed in something else and forever neglecting the thing that mattered most (not that my sock mattered much to me..but what good is one sock?).
Engulfed
It was eating me alive from the inside out, diminishing my ability to notice everything else and yet I let it devour me completely. It's like that sock..so important to stay as a pair but yet sucked up the hoover into a dusty pit due to my lack of attention - always too busy, always too ignorant. That sock..no longer any use to me.
Devoured
I look down at that one sock and think "oh sad times; I can't use it anymore". I've rendered it useless. I picked it up and flung it to the back of my cupboard, knowing that I'd probably never use it again.
It's just an analogy of my life - not looking at what I am doing. Forever engulfed in something else and forever neglecting the thing that mattered most (not that my sock mattered much to me..but what good is one sock?).
Engulfed
It was eating me alive from the inside out, diminishing my ability to notice everything else and yet I let it devour me completely. It's like that sock..so important to stay as a pair but yet sucked up the hoover into a dusty pit due to my lack of attention - always too busy, always too ignorant. That sock..no longer any use to me.
Devoured
I look down at that one sock and think "oh sad times; I can't use it anymore". I've rendered it useless. I picked it up and flung it to the back of my cupboard, knowing that I'd probably never use it again.
Of Literary Appreciations and Days wandering around on My Own
It didn't seem apparent to me while I was on my own how deep a grave I had dug for myself. It didn't seem real. In fact, nothing did at that point.
I watched myself in the reflection of the water of the pond
Oh distortion
Nothing was real. No. Nothing was real at all
The world was a mere shadow and my belittled mind was the only thing within my conscious range. I could see in a distance a light but I turned away from it one too many times.
Now I look back at it and ask: Why could I not have followed it?
I am in the light now but I'm searching for the shadow. Am I deranged to want to go back? Possibly. But I liked it - When you're in the shadows, you didn't have to care about the world, you didn't have to put up with the billions of stimuli from the outside world; you didn't have to feel. Oh the ecstasy of having no feeling!
I wandered around on my own and now I am surrounded by others..but yet, I still try to wander off into the shadows..alone....
I watched myself in the reflection of the water of the pond
Oh distortion
Nothing was real. No. Nothing was real at all
The world was a mere shadow and my belittled mind was the only thing within my conscious range. I could see in a distance a light but I turned away from it one too many times.
Now I look back at it and ask: Why could I not have followed it?
I am in the light now but I'm searching for the shadow. Am I deranged to want to go back? Possibly. But I liked it - When you're in the shadows, you didn't have to care about the world, you didn't have to put up with the billions of stimuli from the outside world; you didn't have to feel. Oh the ecstasy of having no feeling!
I wandered around on my own and now I am surrounded by others..but yet, I still try to wander off into the shadows..alone....
Monday, 15 November 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)