Stripling

From ever since, he had looked toward a different time, a different life, hoping it would blend into the now that he knew. He mused on it frequently, on where it would be, on how long it would take, and etceteras. He acted too, tried the little things that promised to pull his new life closer. He kept burrowing for comfort, unable to find a place where his limbs fit.

Eventually, he grew tired of playing with his dreams. Every time he met them in the sandbox, they pushed him to ground with their enthusiasm, and then laughed when the grit got in his eyes. So, he held a requiem for them one night, bringing a bottle along for the ride. Because he hated what he had made of his thoughts, the visions he had created in his head. They scarred his retina every time he chanced a look at them. They were too bright, too full of hope.

He thought up silly fantasies to take their place. He wanted to be an English man with an English name and have an English wife. He wanted two dogs and lots of plants in the backyard. He wasn’t sure about kids. Kids messed things up. But he wanted a yacht too, a vessel to sail on and remember days gone by when what he had achieved was all just wishful thinking. And as for work: he wanted to start at the top. His skin wasn’t too tough after constantly being rubbed between the ground and the shoes of his superiors. He wanted a sweet life, sweet like candy, and pretty like money. He’d seen the futility of his desires and refused to put them within his reach. If they dangled too far, there was no point in making the effort to reach them. Maybe, they would drop from the sky and hit him in the eye, without him ever noticing them while they were too far to touch.

Sometimes he would get lost in these thoughts. Then he would remember where he was and how things really were, the heat whipping against his face, the sounds of the city and murmurs of gossipers, all carried along by a silent wind, a wind that just wouldn’t bring him what he wanted.

Sweaty bodies lurched against each other as the vehicle moved. Dust, plastic wrappers and bits of paper repeatedly jumped up and returned to the surface of the bus floor. They maintained a gentle rhythm, dancing with the flaws of the road. Kamal absent-mindedly watched this. Every night when he reached home, it seemed as if his mother were even angrier than the night before. She constantly nagged him to go find work, pressuring him to do something about his state of limbo. The pitch and persistence of her words stung his ears and fueled his reluctance to try. His friends looked at him through slit eyes, accusing him of laziness in an effort to urge him on. He didn’t see the point. Experience had perfected his fatalistic expectations. Besides, he had told Ashlee that he was going to call her tonight.

He came off the bus at his stop, the clinking of coins being exchanged familiar. As he continued the journey to his house, he watched his neighbours kicking ball under a street light’s yellow glow. He pushed his gate open. The air had cooled the metal. It unfortunately did nothing to stop the horrible creaking that always sounded as the gate opened. His mother would know he had reached. Yes, this was home.

Now I Am Six

…I can think whatever I like to think,

I can play whatever I like to play,

I can laugh whatever I like to laugh,

There’s nobody here but me.

I’m talking to a rabbit…

I’m talking to the sun…

–  ”In the Dark” by A.A. Milne

There’s a book of poetry that I have.

It sits at the lowest part of my make-shift bookshelf.

It’s blue and small.

There is a pattern of bees on the border,

Or it could be flies. I can’t tell which it is.


I stole it one afternoon from my teacher, when I was in grade four

Because I had to go home and I hadn’t finished reading it.

I was alone at the time, when I first picked it up.

I sat in the left corner of the classroom, near the back, at my desk.


I remember how I paid little attention to everyone clearing out.

I never noticed my surroundings; I paid attention to the book.

Yet now I can remember the empty desks around me, the light shifting as people walked by,

The walls of the classroom and the whir of the fans.


I was entranced then

By the children in the book, the bad Jane and the two friends,

By the drawings of the buttercup field and raindrops on flies.

I never really understood, but the man who was a boy interested me too.


I rarely read the book now, because I save it for special occasions.

Whenever I read it, it’s the same as when I read it then. And sometimes I want that feeling.

It’s hard to get that simplicity in other places.

But I find it there.

Stream of Consciousness

Moments
No. Not the physics: the living.
I want to capture this moment, this time, this place,
But how do I do it?
And now it’s gone. It just slipped through my fingers.
I want it back.
It feels like the universe just flew through my mind.
And I’m so caught up in my moment that I’m trying to make it fit everyone else’s.
I stare for five minutes at a spider web, very complex in its synthesis.
There’s something caught in it and it’s shaped like a hammock.
It makes me wonder
Why I hate the feel of it against my fingers; how it wraps itself around my touch,
But if I were that small, I would feel entombed.
Not weighed down under a pile of soil and excrement,
But warm and cocooned.
The doors open and a man is staring at me.
I’ve seen him before. This same place, different vehicle, and he was eating soup.
He gets what he wants, the money and leaves.
Back in the store, I order and want to take a seat
But there are two men, one clean-shaven, the other …well, not.
Four seats, no space. Sprawled like the typical person with a penis.
I say “It would be nice if I could sit down.”
The solemnity disappears;
Smiles replace it.
I say thank you and claim my prize.
I notice a Chinese woman notice the scene,
And I hope she remembers it.
Driving again.
White house, blue house, white house, white house, blue house, peach house?
I wonder.
I want to know
If there is another body with the same thought process.
If this
Is what everyone else sees when they see what I see.
If this
Is how all the great writers and artists felt when they saw life,
Through a window,
Watching from a darkened street.
Were they analysing the scene, or were they living it?
Better yet, is this living it?
Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.
It annoys me seeing it. It annoys me writing it.
I see sunlight making the windows of the building haze,
Stretching a world of light, suspended midair and
I change the picture in my mind’s eye.
I’m small, vulnerable and oh so happy.
I stand in a circular room
And look up to see streaming sunlight and black birds,
Not blackbirds: the unidentifiable ones flitting around.
I don’t want to change, but already I have
For they remind me of the millions of thoughts chasing through my head,
Never tangled, because they are moving too fast,
But solid in the middle and narrow at the ends
All unfinished, unfulfilled, unrealized
And I can’t string them together.
The sky darkens
And people bump the car. The car beeps.
I am mildly annoyed.
People bump the car. The car beeps.
I am mildly annoyed.
People bump the car. The car beeps. Person says “shut up”.
And I am placated by the toothy grin exposed with the realisation that said car
Contains a living being.
So many moments.
Time should be measured by them
Except they could never be measured,
For one is a thousand.
It’s just another idea that would never work.

Written in 2008.

This Nameless Feeling

Time sleeps while the heart slips and surrenders its beats.

——–The day was stuck, he was convinced. His mind was stuck, the weather was heated and still, the clouds were stuck. Even the hands on his watch did not move, so the day was stuck too. That’s what his logic told him, what his sweaty back and languid stretch spoke. The creaks of the house echoed the sentiment as well, and the cool liquid rushing down his throat only made him want more. No satisfaction, no change of state, mental or physical. It was all the same. Everything he knew droned on and on in endless familiarity.

——–The wrinkles of his skin had deepened over the years, pores more visible, skin almost harsh. A crooked smile would lift his face ever so often, yet it was so ordinary that it blended in with the rest of his visage. Fine threads of silver were working their way in and adorning his head, and his eyes had a twinkle although they never shone. He had lived, was living, and was getting older, but this ‘now’ never did seem to change. The time of the world, of buses and cars, of appointments, meetings and rude alarms, seemed like a stolen illusion. For nothing could ever keep pace like the duration of his heartbeats, from the first to the last, each one a complete pulsation of the heart.

——–There was a pause here and as he stared mindlessly at his world, he just waited, waited for someone to turn him on.

Rewinding

It’s happening again

Everything is rising up, to pull you down.

You tell yourself that you are okay

Only to have all the negative emotion you’ve ever felt

Crashing upon your shore.

And what can you do

But take the mental bruising it brings?

You can put up all your barriers

They may be strong enough to not fracture and break

But how can you hide from yourself?

I am what you are.

Your thoughts are running in circles

Chasing a futile trail.

Every little thing that doesn’t go the way you want it to,

Every little thing that surprises you,

Is a slight committed against yourself

By God? by the gods?

By the people who hate you? by the people who love you?

By the people you hate? by the people you love?

You don’t know.

You can say it never really began there.

You can say it’s all in your head

You can say it’s wrong to pin all your wishings,

Wishings which are for naught,

On people who don’t care,

But it doesn’t stop you from doing the inevitable

And it doesn’t stop the images from the past

From gliding forth, haunting you

Choking your mind today.

Wrestling thoughts

It’s counting down to midnight. There’s a storm brewing outside and a candle burning in my midst. My stomach is already sated from dinner; my thought-train has already been overworked for the day. The shadows are everywhere and they flicker as the wind blows the flame. The windows are open and the night is cool. The only sounds to be heard are the drops of the rain on leaves, water dripping off the roof unto plastic below, night insects giving their serenade and the distant humming of a generator. If I try, I can also discern the scratching of my pen and the alternating inhalations and exhalations of my breathing.

Physically, it’s cozy, but mentally my mind has lost that state of homeostasis. It worsens when someone awakens and comes shuffling into the room. The careless sounds are deafening and the banging of the cupboard door draws my attention. He burps and bumps my chair, then returns to the darkness of his room. It’s silent again. My mind continues spinning, and I stop writing.

Forgotten

You are beautiful

Heart made of stone

Skin warm from the veins that run beneath

Eyes piercing, unable to see what can’t possibly be

Feet soft yet weary from eternities spent

Hands learnt, able to feel, to touch, to caress

Yet nails coaxed sharp, waiting in fear

Your glances are short

Somehow longing without a stare.

Your hair it flows, it flows

Like the river you weep

That runs forever (and ever)

Turns frozen beneath your feet.

Yeah centuries pass, they come and they go

The world outside, to you is unknown.

It presses and presses, the weight of your mind

The ice at your back is cold, divine

You think somehow, bitter in there

That this is your damnation, searching, always seeking up there

But if ever, those pretty eyelashes you’d allow to come apart

You would be able to see the fog of breath on glass

And peering downwards, wiping it away

Find all that you thought had led you astray.

You die; oh you die a million times

A million times, inside yourself.

It’s funny how at one point I couldn’t appreciate poetry.

Light and Tears

I am liquid mercury

A grey weight, silent and cold

Contained in a huge clear cylinder

In a room full of streaming sunlight,

Heating me, warming me

That hand, holds that rotating glass, spinning me round

A heavy heart, a churning gut.

Beginnings

Beginnings are wonderful. I don’t like middles. And I’m never sure if endings are actually endings.

Renee was bored. He was bored. Renee was so bored that he couldn’t bother to repeat the words ‘I’m bored’ out loud anymore. Staring across the wild grass behind the house to the grey of the falling rain in the distance, his lips half formed the words so that only the ‘bored’ was audible. This utterance then slowed and softened, mouth moving without sound, so that only the rushing of air through them could be discerned. He sounded like a dying person gasping for water, even to himself. If only he was brave enough to go through the bush to the other side, the side where there was water, rock and sand. He was sure his brothers were lying about the crazy old people who lived there, but if he couldn’t work up the courage to forage through the prickly tall things that his aunt called grass, he would never find out. He sighed.

Some time later, Renee was asleep. He awoke with a shout as something heavy fell on him, something definitely heavy, breathing, and screaming unintelligible words. He was surprised his aunt hadn’t come running already, but she was senile, or so his uncle kept saying to explain everything. He pushed the loud thing off himself roughly, receiving a kick in the shin in return. After flapping some sort of excess fabric off his face, he came face to face with a… a… boy? girl? Either way, finally! He had someone to play with! Renee was unsure of the best approach to use in this situation.

“Get off my property!” he shouted. The thing set its hands akimbo, and now Renee knew it was a girl. She stuck her tongue out with an air of arrogance and began walking closer.

“It’s not yours stupid. I don’t see your na– ” She tripped mid sentence, cap falling off, braids flying. She tried to get up, then gave up and sat on the ground, knees drawn up, one bleeding. Renee looked at the bleeding knee, then at her face, then at the knee again. She began to sniffle, trying not to cry. He looked at her again; then he began to laugh. Her face twisted in anger, fingers scrambling through the dirt on the ground. She found a suitable rock, and hurled it at him. It caught him on the shoulder and only made him laugh harder. She really began to cry now and Renee panicked.

“Shut up idiot!” he cried frantically. She paused for a moment, then started to cry harder and louder. “If auntie comes outside, I’ll get in trouble for waking her!” He was desperate now. He stooped down and crawled closer, grabbing her knee, once again having no tact, and began blowing on the wound, tiny droplets of spit reaching it as well. He grabbed a random leaf and tried wiping the blood away. The problem was, the stupid girl wouldn’t stop bawling her head off! He shoved his hand over her mouth and she bit down, hard. He was at the pinnacle of his frustration, when they both heard a door slam open and two necks snapped to face the direction of the bang.

“RENEE!” Renee’s eyes went wide and he shot the girl a glare. She wasn’t even crying anymore! She was looking at him, first curiously, then mischievously. She stuck her hand out and whispered quickly.

“I’m from the sea. I live with grandma and grandfather. My name is Sedna and I want to be your friend,” she took a breath, “and you’re really really dumb.” She dragged out those last three words, nodding her head knowingly. Renee just looked at her incredulously and stormed off in the direction of his house.

Stupid girl. He was in so much trouble.

The Soul Collector

He was waiting, as always. She granted him a faint smile and approached, feathered feet silent. The kiss bruised her lips instantly, her back arching in wondrous pain as cloth tore, blunt nails scraping across the dirt, toes bleeding. She didn’t want this, not now. Indecision was eating away at her mind, a thousand pricks to her skin, disrupting stimulation, stunting her movements, channeling her thoughts. His turn had come and she wasn’t prepared.

He half dragged her across the dirt, ignoring the door to choose the moonlit grass, sparing a brief pause in inquisition of her apathy. She looked at him then, and he knew. They stared at each other, her eyes soulless and resigned, his stilled with despair. A moment passed.

He attacked her, with his lips and hands, tongue and teeth. She looked to the sky. Her pleasure, her comfort, her predictable fool… he was too kind, too trusting, too beautiful, like the rest.

The hair resting on her neck lifted, harshly, rapidly. The warm digits clawing up her spine moved faster, desperately. He worshipped her flesh, trying to give a reason to hesitate, slobbering on her. Her nipples ached, her thighs trembled, but her mind traveled far away.

Her fingers glowed blue; he began to choke. She felt his eyes on her. She heard the plea in his silence. She refused to return the glance. His skin darkened, drying, eye sockets sharp. She knew the terror that was appearing before her without seeing it. She had yet to forget the first. When she heard the last clink of bone, she looked, jaw clenching.

She added the fifth soul to the chain of soul gems between her breasts.

Curse the gods and their silly games; she was slowly losing her heart.


Inspired by a lovely painting. I don’t like this. I see potential. Too rushed… but I wanted to capture it with few words. I continuously avoid naming characters. I forced myself to have a name in mind, but I don’t like my characters being grounded and definite, giving them a face, a solid setting etc. I’m always quite vague.

You tell me what’s happening.

Fascination

I am amazed,

simply, surprisingly, amazed.

I feel lazy and wispy, like it is always sunrise and it is always sunset. The ticking time in between whirs by, because it doesn’t exist, even while it is not forgotten.

I am rising like the wind that combed through the grass at daylight, through the windows and front door, through my hair, over my skin, freshening all the rooms, shifting the sheets, caressing the walls, banging the doors, playing with me.

Shhh. Every time it moves, my lips move too, upwards, joining the sonance of nature, trailing a zephyr, all the way to the other end of this strangely concrete building. Why is it so heavy, when everything feels so light?

I am floating with the smog that settled over the city at morning then stayed till dusk. I am forever experiencing and being the colours of the sky, at dawn, at night, at midnight.

And everything

makes sense, because there is a weight in the back of my mind, that is so familiar, that it is not there. All is balanced and equal, homeostasis presides, as that shadow, barely looms. It is patient and weary, disillusioned, unable to touch me, because my care for it has changed.

I am not laughing; I am smiling. A faint difference, that illustrates the truth in such a fragile way, of utter beauty.

I can hear the sound of tapping feet, see the movement of careless faces and sweetly tired hands, reach the smiles on dreamy faces, and hear the tinkering of dewdrops on grass and spider webs.

I could sigh myself into naïve intoxication. This vision of simple contentment,

is mine.

Art did this to me.

The Tree (the dream)

There stood a tree, a beautiful, big, red tree, viewed from a distance, through the hazy partitions of a dirt-stained window. The land around the tree was earth and wood and crunchy leaves. The red was extremely red, yet the green of the forest behind it remained bright. To the right of the tree was shrubbery and land, a great big expanse of it. The only thing which could be seen beyond was the deep gorge of a valley and the blue of the sky, along with the occasional wispy cloud that remained stationary in it. To the left of the tree, was wild grass, tall bamboo and a green fog which seemed alive and playfully beckoning to all.

The tree was always alone. The atmosphere around it was always the same and the weather refused to change. On the other side of the window was the interior of a silent house. There was a person in it who was trying to reach the tree. Well, in actuality, it was simply a hand and a mouth, but these things are always connected to a body, so a person must have been trying to reach it. The person must just have been, unfortunately, invisible. Every waking minute was spent staring at the tree or walking to the door.

A most curious thing seemed to occur whenever the fingers on the hand curled around the latch of the door, pressed down, then pulled it open: all the windows in the house slammed shut and shutters seemed to magically appear and roll down before the glass of the windows. This darkened the house and made the hand let go. The hand and mouth, strategically positioned as if they belonged on a body, would once again move to the window and the invisible eyes would examine the tree and its monochrome colours, entangled branches, shiny leaves, and heavy-looking capsule enclosed fruits.

This drab, yet magical routine continued for days on end, or it might have been hours, but as the atmosphere around the tree never changed, it remains a thing to be guessed. The tree was so big and it’s branches reached so far that the hand and mouth knew, or to simplify it: the invisible person knew, that if they could just open the door and get a glimpse of outside, they would get the ultimate experience of seeing a branch of the tree close up, maybe even be able to pick a fruit, or just step on a fallen leaf. This thought made the invisible person realise something very important: not even once before had a leaf fallen from the tree.

As a matter of fact, the wind never seemed to blow through the leaves to rustle them, the fruits never fell, the fruits never even got bigger, there were never insects or animals or birds around it, and… every single leaf and every single fruit was a perfect replica of the other. Now the invisible person knew that something was wrong. Extreme determination set in.

The hand and the mouth moved to the door. The fingers on the hand curled around the door handle and pulled. The house darkened as the windows were blocked off and the light source interfered with. The hand pulled harder. The door resisted. The hand pulled even harder. The door resisted some more and the hand pulled even harder. A howling began, the mouth formed an ‘o’, rain began to fall, thunder clapped, and the invisible person could see outside. There was a red branch all right, there were red leaves, there were red fruits that looked like bulbs, and everything looked real. This is what the invisible person saw for one glorious second.

There were also dead people with friendly, colourful faces, who wouldn’t stop howling, and wouldn’t stop approaching the door. Rain was falling from the sky, everything looked green, and the group of dead cretins howling in unison was really close.

The hand slammed the door shut. Everything was silent and it all seemed the same. The invisible person moved to the window.

The red tree wasn’t there anymore. There were two fat pieces of tree trunk, lying side by side, but

nothing else was there, not even a fallen leaf.

The invisible person was now sad and confused. Should it have opened the door?

That should have sunk in by now. Yes, my dreams have been taking a strange turn lately. I can’t make sense of them. This is just an embellished version of the most recent one, but that’s how it went. I don’t think I captured the essence of the tree. It was beautiful, yet untouchable, something to stare at and be entranced with. The entire tree was red, and it was HUGE. I left out the last part, because it didnt seem to fit. In the actual dream… I opened the door again and became friends with the zombies…