paint splatters Friday, December 3, 2004 11:15 a.m.
When it is all about me.
I realised, too late, that I was in the middle of point-blank crisis again, triggered by sleeplessness, tiredness, general why-the-hell-do-the-SATs-have-to-torture-me and other things, like disturbing words written on foolscap paper.
I should learn to recognise the signs earlier so I can hide all sharp instruments, lock up the pills and disconnect my computer so I won't end up yelling at the whole world and banging doors/slamming things down etc and generally being belligerent and uncooperative.
Oh I don't expect anyone to understand at all, it's too selfish of me really, you know. (be mocking, sarcastic and vitriolic, not satirical.) Drift drift drift drift drift. Do you know odd numbers are magic numbers?
Whatever it is, at crisis point, and I mean crisis point, not being down and merely feeling depressed, I should chain myself to my room, draw the curtains, unplug the phone and foam rabidly at the mouth for a couple of days before trying to pick up the pieces again.
When anything about me suggests I'm at that stage of derangement, DO NOT talk to me. I will proceed to bite your head off and then cry, being overwhelmed by guilt and staring at your headless, bloodied neck.
Bitter.
paint splatters Wednesday, December 1, 2004 07:16 p.m.
Dear Depression,
Why can't you keep away even for a day? Last evening I thought the end of the A levels meant you would vanish as well, but of course I was wrong as usual. When I laughed I thought the laughter would surely stay but strangely found myself disembodied from it all.
You kept me awake the entire night yesterday, probably one of the worst wakeful nights I've had in a long time. And today while I tried to function normally you kept whispering catty things in my ear, telling me I was no good at anything and that I would fail in no matter what I did anyway. In the darkness you will pour awful poisons into my thoughts and now I am convinced that the whole world will hate me forever because I make it impossible for anyone to love me, things I have been told in childhood and still remain with me.
Somehow I am tired of fighting with you and I will probably end up making room for you; you will stay here and squeeze my heart dry and make me so selfishly needy and dependent on other people for support, make me shift from tears to anger and then to despair again, bring me closer to self-destruction. I broke my promise not to inflict injury on myself not too long ago, and I know it will happen again and again, who cares how many months pass before I do it yet another time.
And people will tell me how selfish I am; they are tired of giving and getting nothing in return. Empty promises of you can always count on me and i'm sure it will be all worthwhile mean nothing now I'm sure, they are tired of me the same way I am tired of you.
Twenty years old. Five years ago it seemed a long enough time, to declare quietly to myself: I will not live past twenty. Yet now I know I will struggle somehow to hold on to the last vestiges of normalcy, cling on stubbornly to things I no longer believe in or realise I have no control over. Is it my fault that I let you in when you discovered me then? Or are you laughing at me, to think that I can actually control you, to just snap out of it will you and accusatory why can't you see things from my perspective.
I try to live in denial of you, as everyone around me has, but I cannot do that much longer. I am so, so tired now, tired of trying and tired of wrestling with you.
Please just leave me alone.
Therese
paint splatters Wednesday, December 1, 2004 09:20 a.m.
I proudly told Fauziah that I could finally decipher Mr Perry, and that his advice was sound when given in the following conditions:
1) He's not wearing his glasses
2) He's not peering at you over his glasses
3) He's not laughing
4) He invites you to sit down
So much for signs that your CAT is being serious and not pulling your leg or laughing at you because you cannot pronounce Edinburgh (Altogether now, it's Edin-BURR-ough!)
Oh yes, she asked me to add:
5) When he's not busy entertaining other people who barge into the room (and simply bulldoze over what you hoped would be a short, sustained chat lasting a total of 5 minutes so one could go panic over History S level in the deathly cold and quiet library)
Haha. I'm being verbose and posting inane, stupid things here because I need to hear a human voice. I even talked to the old lady who dialled the home phone number wrong twice (why did I plug the line back in?? Why?) asking for "Ah Kiao ahhh??".
I've even begun my talk-to-myself routine again. Finally noticed it when I was trying to sing myself to sleep yesterday (which idiot does that) and suddenly realised I've been talking to myself - out loud, not the random jarring scream-in-your-head-silently types - for the past week. Hahaha this is why Emilyn needs to go out of the library every now and then, so the DJ in her head can talk out loud and she can jump on the picnic benches and act crazy.
I must be cracking up.
paint splatters Wednesday, December 1, 2004 09:10 a.m.
After my gazillionth hour of wakedom I open the front door pick up the newspapers and flip open the papers: "1.2 million go to bed, perchance to sleep" jumps out at me from TODAY. Is this a sign from Above or what? What an insane morning. I have sat watching the sun crawl up the side of my face and the whole world is STILL sleeping (how come they can sleep?), read about 3 months worth of blog entries, washed the dishes that have been lying there since who-knows-how-long (yuck what on earth have people been eating!), picked loose hairs from my head, stared at lousy test preparation material, and everyone is STILL SLEEPING.
God I need some sleep. But no of course I can't catch ANY shuteye. I should just throw my bed away you know; it's sitting there inviting and useless and laughing at me.
paint splatters Wednesday, December 1, 2004 06:06 a.m.
The A levels may finally be over but it looks as if my insomnia is here to stay. 6am now but I am still awake, having spent the last 6 hours or so curling up in various positions trying to find sleep. Somehow the clacking of the keyboard and the chirping of the crickets hold some sort of comfort.
It is December. A new month. May I begin afresh, afresh, afresh. The last month of the year; yesterday my feet trod on the grounds of Hwa Chong for what must probably be the last time as a student. My last memory of it: waving goodbye to friends in the wet moistness of after-rain, steel grey turning into the orange of an evening.
paint splatters Monday, November 29, 2004 09:22 p.m.
After you look through past year questions for Literature S level, you arrive at certain conclusions:
1) There is no point prepping. They can ask you anything.
2) If they decide to get creative with the Shakespeare you are as good as dead. There goes your last crutch.
I can't really think of anymore. And I realise that being able to appreciate the raw beauty of writing gets you ultimately nowhere anyway
The natural world is horrific. Shakespeare's universe is as malignant as ours, the eponymous heroes are only heroic because they go through baptisms of fire (or water, rain, what have you), and reason has so many uses in Shakespeare I don't know where to begin.
But it's the last paper.
Glory Hallelujah.
paint splatters Monday, November 29, 2004 05:52 p.m.
This morning was intensely beautiful.
The sky was blue, blue, blue, and I could almost see which airline the plane passing by entering into the wisps of cloud belonged to.
Seven-mile.
Some things remain constant as the ticking of the second hand, trite as that sounds. She was probably eight-years-old when I first saw her, screaming her joy out to an empty field in the darkness of evening, to the pidgeon poo. Last year her hair was twisted into a long plaited rope, her breasts nascent buds against the orange T-shirt. I saw her again this year, by her father's shop, sitting on the stool opposite the racks of shoes, hair unbraided and combed out by her mother, perhaps. State property: Trespassers will be prosecuted. The sign on the land has been torn down, grass overgrows and lone dogs make their way there. The little girl with Down's Syndrome is not so little anymore.
paint splatters Monday, November 29, 2004 08:40 a.m.
Camp Christine, Camp Christine
The buses that they give you
They say are mighty fine
But when they turn the corner
They leave your bags behind
*O I don't want to go to Camp Christine
Gee Mom I wanna go, but they won't let me go
Gee Mom I wanna go ho-oo-ome
The drivers that they give you
They say are mighty fine
But when the bus door drops off
They say that they don't mind
*
The wardens that they give you
They say are mighty fine
But when they take their make-up off
They look like Frankenstein!
etc.
Funny how these things are still stuck within the depths of my consciousness while I struggle to get some shut-eye. Sec one camp. And I still remember bopping to Aqua music, with about sixty other people, screaming "I'm a barbie girl, in a barbie wo-oo-orld... life in plastic, it's fantastic" among other crudi-ties like "you can brush my hair, undress me everywhere". To twelve-going-on-thirteens, Aqua was the in thing I guess. Cf Tarzan and Jane and DJs hideously rapping out "hey monkey" bits, nevermind the underlying smut.
One day more, to the end of A level/S level madness. Talked to Jiawen, and we were ranting. I can't wait for her to come back, December will still be my favourite time of the year perhaps (Apart from Lent) because Advent is here, the crib will be put up soon, we will sing carols.
paint splatters Saturday, November 27, 2004 10:46 p.m.
Okay so problem is nearly fixed now the phone can ring again and I am unplugging the line in my room - I've gone totally neurotic and the phone ringing makes me scream and bring my hands to my ears.
paint splatters Saturday, November 27, 2004 09:37 p.m.
I am being extremely naughty at the moment, reading a blog and abandoning Shakespeare even though I've only read Hamlet. An ant was crawling on my arm and I mashed it with my finger and it split in two. My head still hurts like hell even after panadol. I think this is where I wish I could head-bang it out. Resolve to run crushed by my lazy bum, I'm still stuck here reading and laughing at my computer screen and the phone is not working and cannot ring.
paint splatters Saturday, November 27, 2004 10:17 a.m.
I took a solitary walk along the river yesternight, something which I might have enjoyed more if there was a breath of air - it was nothing but heat and moist hot air and muffled music from the bars and pubs lining the concrete riverbank.
It struck me yesterday that the end of the year is coming. The christmas decorations petering out at the fringes of Orchard road startled me a little; for the entire month I have been either at home, school, NUS or church, following the same trite routes with the roar of the air conditioners on the bus full blast in my ear. But suddenly it struck me that December is nearly upon us, another year has passed.
Two years ago I had sat at the hawker centre looking after dad while mummy had gone to buy jellied beancurd. I found the silence awkward and asked him what economics was - the new subject I would soon embrace at JC. He struggled to form the right words and looked slightly blank. I still remember the near vacant wide eyed look in his eyes and the blue cap worn over his head to cover the scar.
Two years later he is now dust and ashes, and economics an evil hopefully never to be touched again. Another cycle of time, one might say. Because tomorrow is Advent, First Sunday, Year A: once again we have completed the three year cycle and the blue waxed covers of the Sunday Missal, Year C will lie in the storeroom soaking in incense and candle wax odours.
I will don my uniform, sackcloth and ashes, as I like to call it, for perhaps a couple more days, and soon too I will bid farewell to the school. Two years seemed like such an eternity last year, yet now it is past. Fondly, I will remember the quiet places I used to visit in solitude. I like it best when it is quiet and the sun genial. In the mornings I used to sit at the foot of Block F reading by the dim light of the sun rising, sniffing the clean new morning air wet with the smell of dew (or what semblence of dew we have here). I have found my secret places, a lone bench stretched against the wall hidden from view; windows dirtied from dust and rain spatters to peer out from. And oddly the last memory I have of the pathway from Chinese High into the school: Mr Perry in his purple collared shirt carrying his briefcase, walking to the humanities room. How strange.
I used to jump on the tables in the classroom when no one was looking, shoe-less and sock-less, enjoying the blast of cool from the air conditioner. They switched our tables to desks though, and so now I climb onto the picnic benches on the 4.5 floor. I am taller than Napoleon, so I hear. But still I climb up and stand on the tables, arms outstretched, as if to try to touch the sky, my sky.
It has been two years, and four days later I will write my last sentence, dot the last 'i's and cross the last 't's, putting the black dot, the full-stop, where it should be.
We have said farewell to each other, all twenty-four of us. But thank you anyway; I blur the line between friends and family.
paint splatters Wednesday, November 24, 2004 08:11 p.m.
Leben und Liebe
Like a happy secret, buttoned up.
And yet now, there are only questions.
Sometimes I think -
Do you know if –
Did he really –
Are you sure that –
What's the point of wondering, if perhaps it was merely self-delusion?
The lallang is in full bloom today, by the railway tracks.
Did you know they grow in graveyards, nourished by the souls of the dead?
Brace myself for heartbreak perhaps. Splintering slowly to pieces. I hear it quietly shattering.
You are my weakness, I stumble and fall always.
Try to swallow back the feeling of sick in my throat, a hot knob of sourness beginning in my chest, heavy now.
Who knew that happiness lasted less than a year? Is it my fault then, shying away, shrinking because I was uncertain? Or was it because...
There’s no point in wondering perhaps. But a hole, you-shaped, has silenced my universe. And I feel the ache, try not to prepare for the splintering break.
-----
I wish life was simpler.
paint splatters Monday, November 22, 2004 10:06 p.m.
You Be Well For Me
paint splatters Friday, November 19, 2004
It's been more than half a year, but oddly it actually felt good. Felt good to feel the way it scratched and the initial pale and red-speckled nothingness, felt good to see a red drop bead and globe and grow, to the see the way stark pristine white sucked it up and coloured bright red.
There's something wrong with me ain't there. But nothing works now, indeed nothing.
I Have Been Through The Gates
His heart to me, was a place of palaces and pinnacles and shining towers;
I saw it then as we see things in dreams,--I do not remember how long I slept;
I remember the tress, and the high, white walls, and how the sun was always on the towers;
The walls are standing to-day, and the gates; I have been through the gates, I have groped, I have crept
Back, back. There is dust in the streets, and blood; they are empty; darkness is over them;
His heart is a place with the lights gone out, forsaken by great winds and the heavenly rain, unclean and unswept,
Like the heart of the holy city, old blind, beautiful Jerusalem;
Over which Christ wept
--Charlotte Mew
paint splatters Thursday, November 18, 2004 12:36 a.m.
Goh Sin Tub
i always told myself i'd read your stories, and marvelled that you still managed to write even after crossing your 70th birthday. When here, here i am devoid of all words. Thank you for your writing workshop, for reading to us, for sharing with us, for daring to show that Singaporean voice. I struggle to find that one voice; no war experiences or japanese occupations or growing up poor and receiving, preciously, an education so unexpected, have shaped me - I am a faceless entity, but yet I say thank you, for that short two hours. i always told myself i'd read your stories.
paint splatters Friday, November 12, 2004 10:46 p.m.
Because I cannot write anymore.
Because pastels feel like powdered chalk in my fingers.
Because pencils are used now not to stroke the surfaces of paper but scratch diagrams and mathematical formulae.
Because mould grows in my paint tubes.
Because silverfish are eating my drawing paper.
Because I am dying.
Because I am dying.
Because I am dying.
Because I am dead.
I want my soul to come back to me.
I sit in my room with the fan whirling slowly and the curtains drawn and the windows close and the lights on and my breath recycling.
I want my soul to come back to me.
Release me from my mute prison of inarticulation.
Please. Please come back.
paint splatters Saturday, October 30, 2004 04:16 p.m.
The northeast monsoon is upon us now; I remember dutifully memorising that it collected moisture from the South China sea before raining upon us, and hence why it was so much wetter than the southwest monsoon rains.
The rain comes down in sheets, and interspersed with lightning flashes and growlings of thunder. I almost wish I am out there now, barefoot and free, face upturned towards the grey and orange heavens, squinting in the wet with rivulets streaming around the landscape of my face. In Hwa Chong the wind will funnel the rain into the inner plaza in great gusts; we will watch the floodwater creeping nearer and nearer from both ends, one from the open central plaza and the other down the steps from the pathway to the humanities staffroom, converging in the centre, sucking and swirling the bits of dust and dirt. Up on the fourth floor outside LT 5 the picnic benches will be cold and damp, perhaps once again I would kick off my socks and shoes and dance on the tables, arms outstretched to embrace all around me, clutching at the last gasps of liberation and gazing, away, faraway, into the green treetops beyond the six lanes of road and the monsoon canal, beyond the pastel green buildings of Raffles Girls' Primary School and the tiled roofs of terraced houses; beyond into the greyness of cloud and sky raining torrents. Gazing and day-dreaming, eyes blank and vacant in wistful adoration of freedom.
The cheap-chocolate brown of the metal railings, the giant horseshoe and the four arrows shooting upward, like NDP fighterplanes about to break away in red jetstreams.
I stand under the point of the arrow that cuts cleanly into the sky, Hwa Chong, hwa chu, school.
paint splatters Thursday, October 28, 2004 08:45 p.m.
Am listening to Shadowman now, and feel like my heart is being stabbed over and over - pain. I feel nothing but pain these days it seems. I want to cry and cry and cry somemore, even if it doesn't help, even if only for the quiet exhaustion and the murky taste of mucus and tears thick on the tongue. Cry the tears of my mother, cry the tears of my sister, cry the tears of my brother, and cry the tears of my own. I feel it gathering, the twisting feeling of sour pain that begins in the chest and spreads to the throat, the back of my mouth and the tip of my tongue - keep swallowing it back, I must know much more than pain and grief and that type that springs from the emotion people call love. Another day I hear my mother, voice muffled, any time tomorrow I will lie and say I am fine.
Any time tomorrow I will lie and say I'm fine
I'll say yes when I mean no
And any time tomorrow
The sun will cease to shine
There's a shadowman who told me so
Any time tomorrow the rain will play a part
Of a play I used to know
Like no other
Used to know it all by heart
But a shadowman inside has let it go
Oh no, let go of my hand
Oh no, not now I'm down, my friend
You came to me anew
Or was it me who came to you
Shadowman
Any time tomorrow a part of me will die
And a new one will be born
Any time tomorrow
I'll get sick of asking why
Sick of all the darkness I have worn
Any time tomorrow
I will try to do what's right
Making sense of all I can
Any time tomorrow
I'll pretend to see the light
I just might
... ...
-- K's Choice, Shadowman
paint splatters Sunday, October 24, 2004 01:50 p.m.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
-- Macbeth
The shadow of yesterdays, the ghosts of tomorrow.
Duelling, age-old, with the unworthiness of self.
paint splatters Thursday, October 21, 2004 09:04 p.m.
Nursing a probably sprained wrist and singing brokenly out of tune to Sugar Ray's Ode. And unable to do math. Mmmm mmm. I could hide at home and grow into a hermit, sprout flowers in my hair, pale translucently into a sickly yellow and cry into my pillow.
The lack of urgency I feel is very disturbing.
paint splatters Thursday, October 21, 2004 04:07 p.m.
It's nearing evening now, after a rainshower. When I open the window there is the smell of baby powder wafting in the air, the breeze quiet but the birds are still squabbling. Are these the familiar comforts of childhood? Of warm soap and the milky smell of talc and powder, of mother's kisses and daddy's hands, warm, warm and soft. When we went out I always held your hand, secure and comforted by your warmth and flesh. If I could never let go of your hand forever. I never imagined I would see you wasting away and finally your dead face, benign and secret smile ignorant of what you leave behind, white clad and black trousered. There were lilies on your coffin, but I cannot remember their smell. From your family, from your family, from your family. Why did you leave us? And now you are only a photograph, paper behind glass, a marble stone sealed against a concrete shelf in the wall.
...
paint splatters Wednesday, October 20, 2004 07:46 p.m.
To no one in particular: When I'm feeling in a weird mood I listen to weird music. So here's Sugar Ray, with two of my favourite songs from this album. Apart from "Every Morning" and "Falls Apart" and "Someday" that is! Yeah I've gotta be insane. But the day I really go insane will probably when I actually decide I enjoy "Abracadabra"!! (Haha. Not ever, I would venture.)
"Ode To The Lonely Hearted"
Please stay away till the end of the night
When nothing's on the run
Please stay away till I can't find
The reason and the fun
Though I've seen all their happiness
I can only be down
Go take your soul make an ode to the lonely hearted
These broken dreams are not what they seem
There's so much more than this
I can't see how she wont think now
Of everything we'll miss
All those words that have gone before
May as well have been mine
Go take your soul make an ode to the lonely hearted
I know it's a real life story
But there's so little time
I know it's a real nice story
But it seems it defined
These cigarettes weren't really the thing
They're just to ease my mind
I wonder so if she'll ever know
Of all we left behind
Of the 31 dreams we had
31 were my own
Go take your soul make an ode to the lonely hearted
"Even Though"
Even though
She's on my mind
Even though
She's hard to find
Even though there's always something with you
(Even though there's always somethin')
Even though
She's right on time
Even though
She's always lyin'
Even though there's always something with you
(Even though there's always somethin')
I know we don't talk about it
I know that that's true
I know we don't talk about it
I'm so scared that I'm losin' you
Even though
She just stopped trying
Even though
I can't stop cryin'
Even though there's always something with you
(Even though there's always somethin')
(Even though there's always somethin') with you
[Chorus]
Even though
Even though
Even though there's always something with you
(Even though there's always somethin')
(Even though there's always somethin') with you
paint splatters Wednesday, October 20, 2004 05:08 p.m.
SPH has a lovely building at Toa Payoh, though the writing test was anything but "lovely" - I think I wrote nonsense for most of it, and perhaps wasted more ink than necessary. But it is over. I cross my fingers and pray.
We took the bus to Toa Payoh central, and somehow that reminded me of Care Corner. Especially since Hayati just wrote to me a couple of days ago. I sent a guilt-ridden letter off to her yesterday morning. I hope she gets it soon - incredibly I miss the kids.
Sigh. stupid US applications. What am I doing??
paint splatters Sunday, October 17, 2004 08:10 p.m.
If I were crazy I would write a letter to you everyday, just so to fill up the silences that grow deep and wide daily.
My brain is revolting. argh argh.
paint splatters Friday, October 15, 2004 05:30 p.m.
Lit S today wasn't particularly pleasant. It's an awful jolt when you get a grade that is equivalent to a fail. Whether quantitatively or quality-wise: I guess I deserve such a crap grade for writing crap anyway.
I am feeling uncomfortably exhausted- it's an exhaustion that refuses to go away, even now, weeks after i wrote the last full-stop on my exam script. It's hindering my revision for sure at any rate. And highly annoying and I think I should stop writing since it's bloody uninspired anyway. Help.
paint splatters Thursday, October 7, 2004 07:55 p.m.
Jiawen has gone to York for her Masters studies.
York; a lonely two hour train ride from Manchester, after an equally lonely flight via KL from Singapore. I wave goodbye to you and wish you all the best, Jiawen, marvel at how you manage to keep your emotions hemmed in though admittedly you can't really fool us all. I felt a trifle scared for you actually, lugging a 5 kg bagpack and walking, so alone, a solitary figure, past the immigration counter into the departure hall, turning back to wave with every few steps. When you disappeared behind the wall and we could no longer see you through the glass panelling somehow I felt strangely sad. You'll be back in December, two and a half months isn't that long a time. But I hate saying goodbye. I wish you fare well instead, keep warm and be happy.
Admittedly I too dream of leaving through the same gates to another country. To see a little more of the world we live in, not just sunny Singapore that is sometimes too sunny and always so terribly hot and heavily moist. It seems such an impossible dream - to live and study overseas. I don't understand why I want to so badly, it's not as if I can't be educated here either.
Wanderlust indeed, I think I love travelling, but just cannot for the sole reason of being too poor to fling money away on vacations in far off places. I will dream somemore; it doesn't hurt you I guess.
I have a Monet book that is very beautiful and most precious. Thank you Crystal, thank you Jireh. I hope you like the chocolate edelbitter from Germany (yes, finally!). My sister broke open the Swiss dark chocolate today, it isn't half as good as German chocolate, a little too melty and it doesn't crack in the same brittle manner.
paint splatters Monday, October 4, 2004 08:19 p.m.
Again I am plagued by the silly things that plague eight-year-olds. Acceptance. And being loved by your family, peers and friends. I was flipping through my friend's autograph book and it struck me immediately how loved she was, by friends and classmates all. And I wondered then - was it selfish of me, or perhaps the jealous streak arising from my twisted middle-child heart - if I was even half as worthy as her.
I feel like a failure most times; I've failed God far too many times than what I would like to remember, I've failed my family perhaps, I have failed my friends too. What is wrong with me? This plagues me always. The knot of fear that I will be rejected from where I seek comfort and love, whether among family or friends, teachers or peers alike. Perhaps that can explain why I don't like to ask people for help - I always sound like I'm peevishly whining somehow, nobody wants to listen to that.
It is enough to be loved by God, God who is tender and merciful. And yet I am far far too human always. Always searching for some spark or some warmth; I seek where I may not necessarily find. The door I knock at, my faith is too little; it is not even the size of a mustard seed. Do you believe that God can answer you in half an hour? Anything is possible with God if you believe in Him. And still I struggle and cannot surrender everything to Him - even when your spririt is crushed and broken your shred of all too human pride keeps you from yielding to the Grace flowing from His seat of mercy.
Wash over me, O Blood and Water.
Break and humble my heart. If it be Your will to trample and crush what insane dreams I have (must it be from the sitra acha??), let Thy will be done. For Thou art the potter and I am the clay. I am nothing, nothing at all. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I blaspheme again and wish I were dead.
paint splatters Monday, October 4, 2004 03:23 p.m.
The Daily Whine
Facing a crisis in confidence right now, having no direction, or rather, appearing to have no way forward. What am I doing.
I have no bloody idea what I'm doing
Why do I even bother. I'm not brilliant in any way, just mediocre. As if it were a crime. Perhaps it is a crime, in the society I live in. Where mediocrity is unforgivable. You must be brilliant. Or suffer forever under the absence of presence, of zero confidence and the wicked voice that tells you, you are nothing, nothing at all.
paint splatters Thursday, September 30, 2004 10:03 p.m.
Ashiteru
"You'll get over it..." It's the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don’t get over it because "it" is a person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and noone else can fit it. Why would I want them to?
The fluttering in the stomach goes away and the dull waking pain. Sometimes I think of you and I feel giddy. Memory makes me lightheaded, drunk on champagne. All the things we did. And if anyone had said this was the price I would have agreed to pay it. That surprises me; that with the hurt and the mess comes a shaft of recognition. It was worth it. Love is worth it.
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. What then kills love? Only this: Neglect. Not to see you when you stand before me. Not to think of you in the little things. Not to make the road wide enough for you, the table spread for you. To choose you out of habit not desire, to pass the flower seller without a thought. To leave the dishes unwashed, the bed unmade, to ignore you in the mornings... To say your name without hearing it, to assume it is mine to call.
I've thought a lot about death recently, the finality of it, the argument ending in mid-air. One of us hadn't finished, why did the other one go? And why without warning? Even death after a long illness is without warning. The moment you had prepared for so carefully took you by storm. The troops broke through the window and snatched the body and the body is gone. The day before the Wednesday last, this time a year ago, you were here and now you're not. Why not? Death reduces us to the baffled logic of a small child. If yesterday why not today? And where are you?
-- Jeanette Winterson Written on the Body
I wonder if I dreamt it. Hearing your voice after so so long, your voice. And yet how sad that we should seem to drift further and further apart, away and never coming back pperhaps. In the long hours I have dreamt of you, wondered about you, thought about you. And yet somehow knowing you will not do the same. Be quiet like a flower blooming in reverse, not unfurling but curling inwards and inwards. To be silent. Or is it what they call withering, the closing off and dying.
paint splatters Thursday, September 30, 2004 12:01 a.m.
Birthday
--back to the drawing board for now--
paint splatters Tuesday, September 28, 2004 09:51 p.m.
Mid Autumn Festival
From my window and see little children with their paper lanterns, candles shimmering and guttering with each step and giggle, rubber sandals and plastic slippers scraping the coarse ground underfoot. The moon had hung heavy and orange and red when dusk fell, but now there is an aurora of light, halo of brightness that rings and encircles its round perfection. I remember Mid Autumn not so long ago; perhaps when I was much younger it held more meaning then - we would guess "deng-mi", lantern-riddles written on little strips of paper hanging from the orbs of warm and orange light, pick at mooncakes cut into little triangular blocks of sweet lotus paste with dashes of salted egg, dark and orange against the greeny-brown crush of sugar and melon seeds. The adults would sit stately at round circular tables, drinking tea and fanning themselves in the heat, while mothers fussed and shouted across the playground at their children playing with the flames from worn-out candles. There would always be a bonfire; sparklers would whistle and crackle while we drew shapes in the air and stared at the showers of light issuing forth, faces illuminated, then at once dark again. The older children would tease and laugh, wreck the paper lanterns and bring forth newspapers, play with matches and burn the candles while toddlers sucking thumbs with fat wrists enclosed in the hands of maids and grandmas would try to venture closer, closer, and yet closer. Puddles of wax, ashes and charred remains of paper lanterns. Someone would always get burnt, stung by molten wax or copper wires while twisting the flimsy wooden sticks into place to form lantern-handles. In the morning all that remains will be ashes of memories, a grey haze in the mildewed morning.
This year from my bedroom window outside is dark and quiet. A solitary child creeps along, her pink and yellow lantern belting out a tinny tune harsh and jarring to the ear, a song that loops over and over in tired succession: "It's a world of laughter / A world of tears..."
paint splatters Tuesday, September 28, 2004 03:57 p.m.
Perhaps I am very stupid to stay cooped up at home. I felt deflated, and sad, so while I wave happy people off to Sentosa I turn my back firmly and go home. And waste my first precious day of momentary release at home, curled up in my bed nursing my headache. Sigh.
paint splatters Saturday, September 25, 2004 09:10 p.m.
I am alone, once more, this Saturday night, and so I speak to you, this strange screen before me on which I tap out my thoughts. I have stopped writing now, my Muse is playing coquette perhaps. I hope she will come back soon.
Somehow I feel myself sinking again into the dark murkiness, again. There is no way forward because I don't know what I'm doing. I feel so old and tired, and am brooding too much perhaps. I wonder why this is happening now, and all I want to do is to curl up in a corner of my bed and hide, burrow deeper and deeper into the curve of my wrist and cradle of my arm. Mediocrity.
On the bus home today from The Arts House I passed by where the Central Library used to sit, at the junction of where Armenian Street hits the main road. The S-11 coffeeshop has been closed off as well, sadly, just as how the Drama Centre was closed a couple of years ago. That place will be special for me, simply because it was there that I pattered across the stage for a glorious two minutes holding up the sponge puppets of Japanese cranes sewn in white and flourescent fabric, clothed in blacklight illuminated by the ultra-violet tubes at the stage wings. And it was there that I lived, part of my life, for the whole day, for a week, sitting cross-legged on the concrete ledge outside the dressing rooms, breathing in the smell of the theatre and laughing with the dancers. And now it is gone. The Central Library has been reduced to a heap of sand and rubble, a crane sits heavily on the mound of what was once a warm red brick building. Next to it the old History Musuem is being spruced up, and further down the road SMU is building its city campus. Things change so fast now, I barely have time to glance at it, to reach out before it is whipped away, for another change, another renewal. I am so tired.
When we reached Orchard I saw someone I once knew with her boyfriend, their arms entwined around each others' waists as the bus filled up with more people. I turned my face away because it seemed awkward then, but she never noticed me, her wavy fair hair held together by the green hairy band swung around her shoulders, her back to me. Nearing school I saw Clement, Peiwen and Guiming walking on the pavement outside the line of shops leading to Coronation Plaza, and somehow something sighed within. There are things that seem to excape me so quickly somehow. I struggle to hold on to what is dear to me, people and place.
paint splatters Friday, September 24, 2004 10:58 p.m.
It's nothing but shout shout shout all the time I feel like screaming and I want to push it away, hard as I can. Why can't you just shut up I wonder.
For some odd reason a bit of memory flashed and hit me squarely while I was preparing dinner. And I remembered how it was like when he died. I remember we were in Ronald-kor's car crammed in the back seat because mummy was already there; I remember it was very late that night and feeling terribly tired but he drove especially fast because our father was dying. I brought papa's handkerchief and was crying into it I remember. I sat most of the journey without my spectacles on so everything was just a haze of dim and amber twinkling lights. Dim and amber twinkling lights, yes dim and amber twinkling lights.
I wish she would stop yelling. I just want to push it all away, as far away from me as possible. Maybe it's true, I want to run away from my problems. Because I can't do anything about them.
paint splatters Friday, September 24, 2004 09:48 p.m.
paint splatters Friday, September 24, 2004 07:31 p.m.
It's Friday evening, and I am alone at home, after choosing to skip the church meeting, after choosing not to go for dinner. I sit alone here and blog-surf, thinking. I feel incredibly tired and somehow very vulnerable, and also very lonely as well. It is as if, if only something could release me from my strange pent up discomfort, the welling up of the emotions and un-wept tears will be released, somehow. Open up the floodgates, let me cry, let me cry please, let me cry to relieve myself from my frustration and loneliness. I want to take the bus down and kneel before the monstrance holding the round wafer of my Lord, to pray in His presence and ask His forgiveness for being so terribly weak and of such little faith; to let my tears slicker down the side of my face, to renew, begin afresh afresh afresh.
I went back to RGS today because I missed her and I missed the comforts of the Art Room and I missed her too. And Crystal as well; I'm sorry for being so incredibly nervously giggly and hiccuppy, I couldn't help it. It was like going home after a long day. I wonder what plans God has made, I am a terrible believer of Divine Providence most times. Which doesn't help to explain why I worry so much but yet know it's pointless. But there seems no way around anything at this point of time. Education is an investment; I am worried I will not be able to further my studies even, nevermind what course of study to pursue. Money is always so complicated, and unfortunately something which I cannot ignore now, 18 is an awful age to be, you are still growing up and yet feel you are already an adult one moment and yet again a child next. And I feel trapped somehow, and wonder why my interests should lie so against the interests of my country and the State and the pragmatic, practical people I will meet later on in life. In life. It is such an unfinished sentence, a big question mark. I don't know where I'm heading at this point of time, and somehow I am feeling so disgustingly lost it is tiresome. I know what I want. But at the same time from all practical considerations I cannot have it. It is okay, I tell myself; make more sacrifices, it does not matter. Things will work themselves out somehow, I will not die even if I am not entirely happy; there are other things that can make you happy. But yet I cannot imagine how things will be like - will I be tapping away at some office computer ensconced in some claustrophobic cubicle closing in on me. I cannot imagine it, and I hope it will not be that way. How utterly insane.
paint splatters Sunday, September 19, 2004 07:43 p.m.
I miss you terribly, terribly.
Like Hansel and Gretel, Come Dance With Me lighthearted and airy we will twirl and do pirouettes and draw circles in dreams together.
Cryptic, but I don't care.
The darkness is closing in on me and somehow I feel like I need to talk to someone, even if it's just a blank expressionless screen. When I hit the 'done!' button I may see my words on the screen and talk to me, to me, to me. Hedonism indeed.
paint splatters Saturday, September 18, 2004 11:50 p.m.
It is Saturday evening going into Sunday morning.
I have what one might call an epiphany - not violent or overwhelming, but perhaps simply an odd thought. My brother is probably just as lonely as I am, sometimes. Tonight there is no one at home except for him and me; sister is at camp and mother at work. He wanders around rooms and opens doors and switches on the television, flips books restlessly, and like me, cannot study either. I have forgotten how to talk to him, or perhaps even to anyone in particular; it's a highly unnatural excercise I realise. I hear his laughter in the next room; he is watching a program on television. I sit in my room, holed up with the door closed and the windows shut and the curtains draped in heavy cloth, shutting out the sounds of everything but the keys tapping away and the whirring of the computer, breathing in my breath and the air recycled by my own lungs perhaps. My books are everywhere, one is an armrest and the other is a footstool. Papers and paperclips in my prison of persistent self-deception. Rate of retention is zero I think. And I wonder what happens next.
paint splatters Saturday, September 18, 2004 08:14 p.m.
Voyeur
And he would meet her everyday at the bus stop in his school uniform, while she in her white blouse and green pleated skirt would smile brightly at him and slip her arm through his, walking in silence. And he would stay even after darkness fell, and they, both still in their uniforms, would sit side by side by the dim pool of amber on the wooden bench, twittering and playing with each other's fingers and saying silly nothings while the world watched them cautiously from windows and wondered.
Sixteen, sixteen, sweet sixteen. At sixteen their world was perfect and their palms formed a perfect cathedral of hope; their wrists snaked and inter-twined in a web of childish affection. And he would wind his arms around her and hold her while she sat almost on his lap, soft hair in his face, a leg casually thrown over the other. Kiss me, kiss me, and don't leave me. And the world watched, hushed behind curtains, peering from windows and whispering conspiratorily to husbands in the bedroom - Look there, how shamelessly daring they are!
paint splatters Saturday, September 18, 2004 03:40 p.m.
Feeling terribly unmotivated now, and pretty much knowing that I cannot really finish and that my memory is dreadfully limited.
After the examinations I will bring my sketchbook with me, find a spot to sketch and people-watch perhaps. I've never gone so long without drawing properly and it is most unusual and very unsettling; I think I have lost it, just as I think I have lost knowing how to write the way I write. Feel-write. After the examinations. It seems like such a long way away, an interminable week and more stretching beyond to beyond, and then after that a month.
paint splatters Monday, September 13, 2004 07:53 p.m.
I am so afraid, I am so afraid, I am so afraid.
Stupid fraidy-cat.
Oh but I am sick with fear; and yet I am dead with fear. There are those who fear for their lives but I fear blankness and nothing to say and nothing to write and nothing to show for the two years of learning.