Sunday, January 30, 2005

nothingness

nothingness.

the mundane routine, like waves lapping over each other and dissolving into a sea forgotten.

or
the explosion of colour and smell and senses in a moment and losing all that vibrance in.one.pulse. you turn back your head, and there is nothing there, not even dust.

THAT is nothing. that is my december.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

facts are dead. -ly.

love.
She tries it on, like a dress.

She decides it doesn't fit,

and starts to take it off.

Her skin comes, too.

[lola haskins.]

a kind of love, some say

Love, by nature, exacts a pain

Unequalled on the rack.

[maya angelou]


and these not for myself. my sister is in pain. purvis the lit teacher says we are all fundamentally alone. we're born alone, we die alone. the person beside us, whoever it may be- best friend, soul mate, buddy, boy/girl friend, wife, can never feel what you're feeling, think what you're contemplating: and the mixture of emotions and thoughts we so often experience cannot be distilled or dissected like a biology specimen- and if you cant dismember something into tiny visible parts you can't describe them. not with adjectives. or with words.

but that's why Jesus is the only one capable of filling the void. that is INSIDE you. cos he dwells inside us, with his spirit. that's why he does not give peace as the world does. but of a different kind.

gentle fact.
oblivious to the handwritten notes
passed around slid across tables and hands
to get to yours
empty slight flattered smiles
that shy their way across your face
before drooping, gently,
in numbing realisation
-they are all lies
all temporary, all wooly constructs
that help clarify some moments with perfume spritz
called love
but cloud other times
with crackling painful fact.

fact that makes us human.

Friday, January 21, 2005

W-o-m-a-n.

women, like all other humans, are complicated beings. confusingly complex. and in the middle of that confusion, lying deeply concealed or otherwise, is a desire for balance. we're all created with a need for balance. like what we learn in lit lessons- the antithesis of joy and sadness, company and solitude, light and darkness blah. but the funny thing is, we all think guys are blockheads who don't know what the cryptic females are thinking. guess what? they're just more open about it. females don't understand what's going through blockhead's brain too! (that makes them undercover blockheads.) no but i should not talk about us in terms of 'them' as if i dont suffer from the same disease.

you see, balance is a difficult concept. imagine a pivot, balancing a plank. there is only ONE point at which equilibrium is achieved- the halfway mark may be very difficult to discern indeed. and if we can only guess at what the other party on the other end of the plane is thinking, there is a high probability that we will make many mistakes, and that means we need many chances at 'Try-&-Error". unless we shout across the plane to each other, and we actually listen, we won't know where the middle spot is.

but here another problem arises. sometimes we just don't give each other chances. good or bad. we don't. or can't afford to. sometimes its like the suspension holding the plank on each side, like a seesaw. sometimes too many wrong jabs at balance will cause the strain on the suspension cord to burst. asunder. and it splits.

but Women. some make more apparent their confusing vacillations between extremes. 1.they want the romance of roses, but when they get them they complain its so short-term its a waste of money. 2.they want the freedom to befriend and feel independent, but they want the 'make-me-feel-special' tinge of jealousy. 3.they want the occasional initiated sms of reassurance, but the phone beeps too many times with your reply and you're desperate. 4.they want a quick reply to show you're anxious about them, but they also want longer time in between messages to miss you and to show you consider before replying. 5.they want you to be close to your parents cos that means you're committed and a good boy, they also want you to distance yourselves from your mum especially cos mummy boy's are turnoffs. 6.they want you to be popular with your friends so you're sociable and fun, but spend too much time with your friends and you are an irresponsible uncaring jerk. 7.they want you to be intelligent and witty so you're entertaining and charming, but be overintelligent and you are a egoistic male chauvinist showing off. there is no pleasing them. i promise not to be a Woman with a capital W. not a typical Woman who is never content. but the problem is, not only Women are guilty.


there are the Girls.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

matchbox

i'm sorry Lord, for just exploding like that. and imagining i am shreds, when actually i have just been stretched. but am still whole. because you are the glue that keeps me together.


when i saw her at hockey tryouts today, i was quite stunned. not because i think she's incapable or anything like that, i was just trying to figure out mister god's will. being in the same school is hard enough, now we gotta be teammates? but i don't resent her. really i don't. i dont blame her for his indecision. im sure she's a really nice person. so i tried to know her on clean, unstained grounds. in fact i was friendly to her throughout today's training. friendly is one step higher than being civil. and i think she has promise, as a hockey player. and a teammate. i tried suggesting her name for team entrants, but my other teammates didn't second me. i think i raised her name three times.

i hope she doesn't think that i bad mouthed her out of spite. and caused her not to make it into the team. it must feel horrible, enduring 2plus hours of training and finding out your friend got in but not you. ouch.

but trying to be openminded and god-centred doesn't stop me from feeling a hollow throbbing pain whenever i see her. the ache of remembrance. sometimes its a concrete pang- like pushing the matchbox into its cover. until the cardboard reaches the end of the box, and can go no further. a solid finality. the only way we could go through was to pierce holes at the opposite end. either way we are hurt.

so stay content being an unlit match. because mister god has his plans for me- beyond what i can ever imagine.

n.b. straws are funny solid hollows. sturdy, with a hole.





+i did what i could.

Monday, January 17, 2005

impressions of a family portrait.

it has been seventeen years. and i am already cooled. hardened.


i come from a dysfunctional home. house. for me. at least. it seems to be functional for every one else in it. i dont understand how i can be leading such a double life. home just means 'non-school' to me. none of the warm home sweet home fuzzy sensations that are supposed to accompany that word. at 'home', i am just a sullen, savage beast of some sort. huddling in my own preoccupations and opaque to all outsiders. all are outsiders in this beast cell.


you say i am quiet. and uncommunicative. but the inside of the car is dark. and you don't see my tears. and im glad you dont. you never did. you happens to be collective. if there was one person in this cell i could love genuinely- it wouldn't be this hard. you say i am quiet. of course, you don't know i like to sing. or if i can. but in here i only sing to myself, in the dark confines of my own room cage. in case you hear me, and think i am happy. and are mistaken.


you were the first and only person who called me a fool. and meant it. i have never forgotten since. people say children remember everything after the age of 7. i was about 9. you never say anything good about me. i am unhygienic, careless, nonchalant, dirty, foul, useless- the way beasts should be. oh, but the people in church come and say nice things about me sometimes. assistant camp comm ah? raffles? then you smile. but only for as long as the warden stands there and thinks you have trained your daughter well. (no, they don't know who she really is. I do.)


you have never motivated me. nor been my source of motivation. what incentives came in the form of money. like bone bait for a dog. and even that ended in primary six. or was it lower sec. i don't remember. you have never said 'well done.' in all my eleven years of schooling i have not heard a question like 'how was school?' or 'how was your day'. or 'how are you'. the last one being the most insignificant, i suppose. you just bask, in the golden reflected glory of raffles, whatever that means. but i shrink in it. shrink from the false impressions that word has on outsiders. (they are outsiders. but they know it. you are just intruding.) impressions that i have a solid warm platform that pushes me to higher heights. no, occasionally i peer through the grilles, hang on there and snatch a certificate. no rope is provided. much less a mattress to pad a fall. but i am human, even if you don't think so. and i fall and crack. and fall to pieces silently, because nothing else is tolerated. you say 'tell us your problems' but if i attempt to, the weighted chain to guide and chasten me is stuffed into my throat. words of isolating wisdom.


you say i am ill-disciplined. and have no concept of time. you who do not know me. you enter my room and rummage my possessions, which i carefully guard from you. still you overturn and tear apart and tread on my brittle dreams. no, not tread. tapdance with stilettos, like bullets of a machine gun.you devour my photographs and say that is my close friend. or friend. and think you know so much about me and can guess my every thought because of your perceptive womanly sixth sense and deadly maternal instinct. ...deadly is right. you complain about my unmade bed, my receipts, my worn clothes, my bags. strewn everywhere to give an impression of a homey, lived in cell. i don't live there. i just wallow. you know what? if you don't like what's in there, DONT GO THERE! stop touching my things stop pushing your way around stop thinking you are oh so divine and lucky me to have you because id much rather have someone else or no one at all.


all i do is a waste of time. trainings, cell meetings, backup practices i used to have, dinners with friends, class gatherings, playing the piano, all you try to snatch away. and here is the irony. the more you try to suck in the more i run away. let me tell you what is a waste of time. coming home like you told me to. cos when i get back i just sit here. you don't say a word. and get annoyed at my silence. you scream at me to do something. like fold the clothes. or hang them. or wash the dishes. or dry them. something you dont want to do and push to us on the pretext that you are overworked. why dont YOU help me with my homework, or my hockey trainings that demand so much, or cell group preparation, or revision for tests, or preparation for acme/ faction. oh and have i told you i am taking five subjects now six with an S paper- just so i can get a scholarship to get out of this place? just so i can let you bask once more. and perhaps please you in some way. if not through my existence in this household.

you superficial bitch. you don't even know hockey is played outdoors, much less the position i play. you don't know my class, my cell group leaders, my subject combination, the names of my close friends. you never liked any of them. except one possibly, cos she's pretty and polite. but still you don't trust them. is that too much to ask? then, what about buying something for them for christmas? their mothers have voluntarily fetched me all the way home even though i dwell 30 minutes from their home. when i ask you to give her a lift you are displeased and drop her off at some roadside without a sincere goodbye. i have received red packets, been brought to lunch, been asked questions (to say the least) and that's better treatment anytime. its not about the material but about their sincerity.

maybe you should read this. but you wouldnt recognise me. you've numbed me so much i'm mute. u think i am. maybe i dont want you to read this. people might think we are good friends.


you. don't say i am angsty. i am just being honest. don't ask me about this. when i cool off further i forget. maybe i pretend to. but i get happier either way. another layer of that rust stingingly seared onto my already hardened crust. don't say i live out double standards. we all have two sides. sometimes i feel i have twenty-six and each is pulling me in a different direction. dont trivialise this as teenage angst. it runs too deep and current to fit into that narrow explanation. too real. just face the facts as they ARE. i'm stuck in a household that looks good on the outside but has cracks that nobody bothers patching up. but i don't want to blow things up. sometimes my finger feels inside the clay vase and i don't feel any chips. or scars. and we are happy, for a while.


disclaimer: 1. i am quite a useless homebody. because of my overused non-home commitments. not excuse.
2. this is fiction. any resemblance to persons dead or alive is purely coincidental.

Thursday, January 13, 2005

luck

wednesday is an early day which means school ends at 12 for me. i end school hungry. because there are no breaks. then we went for og lunch at the collabarium. i think its our second favourite place after the playground assembly ground (: but it has a funny smell. the way old t-shirts have a funny crummy smell but you still like it cos its sentimental and soft the way you like it.
there are a million essays i am supposed to complete. there's history review, 2 hist term papers, 2 lit P.C.s, one econs essay. and 4 of these are due this friday. .faint* oh! its gerry n ruf's bday tmr. i got gerry sth but not yet ruth. dear me. dear her. how.
the hockey team is riddled with so many fault lines. we might just explode like an earthquake. i am not being insensitive here. i have every sympathy for the disaster victims but talking about it isn't going to do them any harm. its funny how chinese brains think. like how they think if you talk about bad luck you get bad luck or if you talk about death- you die?
went to visit anna at mount eliz with cherie. she had viral flu then bacterial infection then now tonsilitis. poor girl. then me n cherie went for lunch and had a girl's talk. i like talking to her. i can talk in the brokenest english and about the touchiest stuff and she just trusts me, you know? so thanks girl. though i doubt you'l be reading this. unless i give u my blog add. hm.
and the woh woh gang also. sometimes you meet a group of friends who make you feel special and no matter what they say you're always reassured n fuzzed up in their company. and its not only one way. there's vertical growth. we're all God-reachers. and He reaches down n speaks to us. we have this thick buzzing connection that keeps us tied together and to Him. and its just wonderful. really appreciate you girls.
then met luke at borders and bought gerry's monster book. it really really suits her. i can imagine her pointing at the monster n mimicking its face and saying so cool! haha i think i got abit high in borders and the whole night actually. first time i was that way with luke maybe -except im like that with the woh woh gang all the time- but very much subdued when in school with my hockey friends. am i being stifled? ponderous. then luke walked me home. or i walked him home. i cant tell which. but it was cool. (: it was fun. so thanks. ice cream.



mister god is sovereign he knows so much more than purvis. we dont know all there is to nature but God knows all there is to science. and for purvis to debate with himself so much about God, instead of plain apathy and cold ignorance, it shows that he's still trying to find out the truth. and God is truth. we were all made with a hole on the inside of us. a God-shaped hole that purvis is cramming with talk.



THIS IS MY BLOG.
still mine.

Sunday, January 09, 2005

sinkful

shallow can't scar.
and haste doesn't dig deep.
scratches, unlike cuts,
scab soon.

dries and shrivels up the way green leaves
crunch to brown,
and crumble. still brown.

a dimple of silent, swollen knowing
conscious of this sink
of draining memories.

like water swirling in a basin
and residing, dimpling
into forgotten depths

but all that water is dirty.


and can't wash clean.

----------------------------------

if .one of these hairlike travelling lines
on the stained mauve marble tile
leads to you

i'll assume its random
like hair floating under water

and wisely choose to
walk the mortar road.

where direction is crudely concealed
by those yellow painted arrows
that can only direct cars
but not humans.
it pretends to.

-------------------------------------

i crown these 2 weeks The Span of the Temporary. but only glorious things are crowned. so broom it.

just a temporary side rest
while the ballerina is away.
nothing is green anymore.


Saturday, January 01, 2005

blank

so this is how it feels like to be second? im telling you it sucks. and im not talking about grades. new year day is never a bubbly happy one for me. i remember crying 1/2 years ago. cos i went for supper after watchnight n my parents couldnt contact me on the phone. so when i got back. i really got it. bad.

and right now the uncertainty sucks. the waiting and not knowing if it will happen. if there's anything. but. its only been 20days right. right? so its not fair to expect anything. more.

rupert brooke .love, by nature, exacts a pain/unequalled on the rack.
margaret atwood .the days are gone. only one day remains, the one you're in.
.permit me the present tense.

im just a name in the list?
.the leftover after the regrets have been torn down digested and scattered over the ground. a dear friend.

it hurts.