Reminiscence of an imaginary conversation.

Love is tiring, but...
But what?
I don't know, it somehow seems right, but...
Too many buts for love.
Smiling. But it' s love, I don't know
Maybe it's not.
Don't say that!
Why not?
Because...I feel...loved?
Maybe it is then.
Don't say that either.
Annoyed. Why not?...You're wierd about this.
I can't help it, it's not easy.
Loving or being loved?
Maybe both. I wanna hate first.
Why?
If you can't hate, you can't love.
Or vice versa?
But hating is easier. Isin't it? But I don't think I can hate.
Then you can't love.
Well...if it's a want, then no. It would only be an mirage then.
But what if it's a need?
I guess I'll know when I'm about to die.
Laughing. It'll be sad if you have to wait so long!
Atleast I'll know.
What's the point? You'll be dead.
True.
Then?
Don't you see? I'll die knowing!
Is that important?
How can I die without knowing?
Knowing that love is a need?
I would only know how to reminiscence.
And you need something to reminiscence about?
I wouldn't have died without it. That would mean something.
It would.
It needs to mean something.
It does.
Life should need love and what's love without reminiscence.

Holidays in places that don't exist.

We all have holidays, we go for one everyday, sometimes every moment. We go off to places our hearts desire, we go to places to escape. Sure the holidays exist but the places don't. These holidays can last from a few seconds to a lifetime. It's all with the help of imagination, the biggest means for an escape.

I have these imaginary holidays everyday, I go to these imaginary places. I have no sense of direction but it shows you what you need to see. That should be good enough to hold on till the next one. The mist sets long enough for a momentary disorientation, I lose my way. This happens everytime. The key is to stride forward more confidently despite. The sun, colour and smell are blotted out by a physical invasion of white obliterating clamminess. The silence is uncanny. Push on, because sometimes, we love with nothing more than hope and cry with everything but tears.

These are my holidays. We think they show us what we want but they merely show what we need to see. Needs and wants are different only because one can sustain life while the other just gives the illusion.

I see different things everytime, different people, different siutations, places I know I can never reach. But does that mean they don't exist? It's not only about the place. That's just a metaphor. To see that person. To see that siutation. At that time. But I know that place doesn't exist. That's why my holidays do.

The Escapist.

I wonder about a lot of things. About us, about them. Sometimes I wonder so much it's hard to perceive the difference between reality and imagination, my world from the real one. Is it wrong to be an escapist? Escape from the things you've done, the lies you've told, the secrets you've kept. How long do you continue before facing any consequences? I actually started beleiving in the loss of conscience. I was wrong. When your guilt finally overcomes your selfishness the soul feels heavy and the being even heavier.

I am here, writing this, what for? The answer is simple, the ability to understand it anything but. You can also escape, just stay a little ahead of the truth. But once it starts catching up, the conscience seems to reappear. We do so many things without understanding, without thinking, without facing them.

How do I justify my existence? I was born, it's my parents fault. I have no other defense. A long time ago I used to believe that good things always happen to good people. Maybe I need to wonder hard enough. Face the past, you say. Then let it go. It was a long time ago. You say it cause you don't know me. You say it cause you don't know what I run from. I can face it all, but not now, not today. I am an escapist.

The Prodigal Country & The Impenetrable Forest.

A few nights ago I was coming back home in a taxi. The driver was in the mood for conversation or so I guess from all the questions he had to ask. Most of them revolving around the fact that I was a foreigner here, why did I like Singapore so much and so on and so forth. In a way he understood why it's so, mainly because from what he had to say it sounded like he had come a full circle. Belonging to a country but only through a passport not the feeling. Most Singaporean's around my age feel trapped here and can't wait to move on. Sometimes in order to get what we want we don't realise what we gave up and when we do, it might be a little too late and we end up belonging no where in particular. In his coming back to Singapore it wasn't the taxi driver who was the prodigal son coming back to his country but it was the taxi driver welcoming the prodigal country with open arms and finally a sense of belonging.

"The person I have in mind is lost. That's the picture I'm getting. He beleives he is lost in the middle of an impenetrable forest. His head is full of trees. Branches he's bumping into. The sun is sinking. The shadows are darkening. Paths that lead nowhere. I make my way through the forest. I find him. With a swish and a flick everything vanishes. The paths straighten out. He can get on with it. He looks at me without gratitude. Get on with what, he says. I say, I come all this way through woodlots and darkness to find you, I've cleared the paths and you still don't know?
You don't understand much, he says. Why do you think I was lost in this impenetrable forest in the first place?"
Obviously, for me to find you, I say.

A life or two?

I now wish to live at a lonesome place,
With none to converse, none to communicate.

I would build a house without a door or wall,
There wouldn't be a neighbour, there wouldn't be a watch.

If I fall sick, none should come to tend,
And none to mourn if I fall dead.

To have met my friend was not my fate,
A longer life'd have entailed a longer wait.

There is little difference in life and death when we are in love,
The same one sustains our life for whom we wish to die for.

How they say one moment is enough to change a dream, a person or a life. It's so ironic how long it takes to build anything solid, something with a meaning, a purpose and how it takes just a moment to destroy it. One moment in time. Hardly seems fair but life seems to have stopped being fair quite sometime ago so why the same pain every time. It's quite sad how we never realize the consequences of our actions, how blinded we are. Life was about living in the moment, the realisation that it should not came at quite high a price. But despite what has happend, I still believe in us, always have, always will, that what we had we still do. This happend because of us and I know it was you who paid with nineteen years, something I'll always regret, I can never be quite sorry enough for what this has taken from you. I know you have to take your time, I'll wait patiently as you once did. In the end despite how this has changed you and me in different ways, one thing remains the same, us. I know we are strong enough. You're still my dream and my reality.

Rare transitory moments...

As every passing day grows into yesterday, I feel better thinking about tomorrow, It's as if I'm getting closer to a strange and unfamiliar place I somehow need to be at. It's uncomfortable because I know where I'm going and when, but I know it's because I've never been quite more desperate than now.

As I turn older, it seems I'm being forced by some unknown invisible power to be more of a conformist every day, really ironic since I still laugh at the merest mention of the social sanctions imposed upon us to become accepted members of our so called "society". Where is the wisdom and courage required to step outside the norm now? For all one knows there mightn't be any wisdom in taking such a stand but I persist in being the same old, because if you change, almost everything leading you to this time and place, in your life, transforms into irrelevancy.

Maybe we should come out of this facade already, this illusion that our life becomes, because at the end it still looks curiously unfinished.

Has anyone ever come across unpretentious beauty? When is the nature of your joy purely dependant on feeling loved? But to even analyse this nature is to lose hold of it, despite its physicality. Any love affair which comes to happen spasmodically results in a detached, civilized, agreeable and undemanding process seemingly occupying more energy than time. It's understood my time can never completely be my own but my heart most certainly can. The past misdemeanours are liberated, all this simply for justifying self-sufficiency as well as a smaller regard for sentiment. I realize it's only the imminence of loss which reveals most things for what they are. For me these were, at best only a solace, at worst a trivial squandering of time and energy.

For me this was important to do, it's understanding, relation or portrayed meaning, as unimportant. There's a lot on the surface to dig past and getting through probably not worth any person's time or effort.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Racial Issues, Skirmish and That Person.

One thing I'm really glad about is that December is finally here. Apart from sitting for four disastrous exams, turning 22, losing all my cousins to India and another less than perfect ending, it's pretty safe to say November hasn't been an ideal month. There are times when the months promise so much and the coming months even more but then those promises are sometimes forgotten and you start wondering about the remaining ones...

Anyway that time will tell, but one thing I already know is I sometimes feel a little dissapointed in a few of my fellow asians. What is this obsession about turning white or becoming white? It's ok for everyone to have their preferences in terms of their partners but having a preference in turning into a completely different race is absurd. What is wrong in being an asian? Anyone who is should be really proud culturally or historically and seriously if you do dream about turning white, brown, grey or freaking red, you're fucked up with acceptance issues, go see a shrink.

Last night I stayed over at Vuong's place because this morning we went to play skirmish (paint ball). There were thirteen of us and even though it took like hours to get there, it was f*****g worth it. $80 and 600 paintballs later we realized we had to this again. From forest maps to open fields with barrels and messed up cars it really was awesome. I have seventeen bruise marks on my body including one on my cheek...Damn you Joe! Everybody was bruised and battered by the time it finished and I got a few head shots, no I didnt get anyone on the head or anywhere for that matter, but they did get mine, so all in all it was pretty painful. The marks from a dark red have gone to blackie black, ummm maybe that's a sign of healing!

That person...now that I've reached here and the time has come to write about it, I feel very hesitant, the end is always the end, there should be no beginnings after endings, what's in my past is always forgotten without meanings or memories, then, why does this one stay...then...but...maybe will continue some other time when the heart is more obidient, more willing to listen...

Seeing Sideways.

I have an exam tomorrow at 8.45am, so far my preparation is pretty awesome, I've already done my revision two times over on chapter three about Analytic and Harmonic functions, so now I'm ready to see what chapters one, two and the little bit from chapters four to thirteen are about...
DON'T PANIC SAM...DON'T PANIC!!!AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!

Since I lost my conscience alongside my virginity a long long time ago, everything's easy, like I'm stressing out but not because there's a chance I might flunk or do badly but because of what I'm going to do in the ruddy examination hall for three hours, I mean come on, how many times can you take a bathroom break or for how long can you pretend you're thinking real hard. On reflection I feel I shouldn't have made fun of the kool asian dude during exams last semester when he showed up just to write his name carefully on each of the eight sheets and slept out the next couple of hours or so...

On the opposite hand, even when I've aced an exam, (I have this feeling after every exam till ofcourse the results come out, I wish these bloody examiners made less counting mistakes while adding up my marks), I see a couple of people taking sheet after extra sheet after extra sheet and I just keep wondering like what the f**k are they writing, I mean I just did great and I finished in the normal sheets and these guys are like what a.)writing a story b.)writing everything twice just incase the first one gets magically erased c.)against mother earth or d.)trying to freak everyone out? This one time I did take a couple of extra sheets as well, only to use them to cheat in the next exam, bombed the damn exam cause nothing on my cheat sheet actually came, so much for cheating and passing.

Anyhow I went a couple of days ago to watch this new Indian comedy movie, Garam Masala, which everyone was raving about and how funny it is with one foreign critic even describing it as "I've never had so many laughs in an Indian movie", I went with my cousin and my freaky younger uncle and in the whole movie we were like "huh"..then.."huh"..and.."huh"...for the whole three hours we bloody didn't laugh once but did feel like crying a few times, SERIOUSLY YOU F*****G BLIND RETARDED CRITIC, UP YOUR PAID DUMB ASS! Despite being a slut, I never felt so screwed before...

Love in times past....and now.

I sometimes think about the emotion love, the way it is now and the way it's portrayed to us, I wonder if our perception and feeling of love has changed over all these years, when I say us, I mean humanity in general. Was the feeling of love we feel now different from the feeling people felt say in the 1800's or maybe as recently as life in the sixties or seventies?

Is our feeling of love now pure in any sense? Love has become more of a physical feeling than a emotion. Our society has become quite modern, which is understandable as we keep evolving all the time but should our feelings evolve as well? What I really wonder is has sex become more important than love? What was sex before? Is it just the gratification of a human need or does it serve a higher purpose in life? From what I see, everyone has different answers to these questions, I guess it depends on our mentality and character and where we come from in life.

I think the term love< meant a lot more in life before than it does now, people use love for their convinience or to suit their purpose. Before when you said you love a person, it meant something, maybe choosing that person for your journey through life but now forever is a taboo word, forever doesn't exist anymore, I say why not? Is it all about meeting the right person? Who is this right person anyway whose going to come and rescue us? How do you actually judge who's the right person, our society is shallow, looks count. Everything starts with physical appearence but there should be more to it, you cannot know he/she is the right one till you spend a lot of time with that person. The hopeful say I will meet him/her someday, but don't we all think we are the right person for someone? Everlasting love always starts with friendship...

I know this is a very complicated issue with lots of variations depending on the person, I know both sides of the story, I knew when it was about physicality and when not. I'm not hypocritical, I've been there and done that but people change...

One of my friends honestly beleives "you should marry someone who loves you", she says "it doesn't matter what you feel because in the end no one can make you as happy as that person, looks are transitory, people who like a person just for the way they look are in for lust, they care more about their gratification than the other person's emotions". Does that sound right? Someone who loves you...how can anything sound more right?

What does poetry mean to you?

"I carry your heart with me( I carry it in my heart)
I am never without it( anywhere
I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling),

I fear no fate( for you are my fate, my sweet) I want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you,

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart( I carry it in my heart)"...

By - E.E.Cummings

I saw "In Her Shoes" a couple of days ago, long overdue as well. It was very touching and I would reccomend it to people who have missed out. This poem is actually from the book of the same name by Jennifer Weiner on which the movie is based but I was really glad they kept it in the movie as well. It can have different meanings depending on your perspective of the person you might have in mind.

I have always seemed to have this morbid fascination with poetry, or more crudely, lines...maybe because what's written can affect me when most other things don't. I mean that's the idea behind poetry anyway, isin't it? To try and portray your feelings and emotions using words, if someone can understand them, all and well but if they don't, it's their loss.

What people write honestly is the most in-depth revelation of their character, their feelings, their thoughts, you cannot get more familiar. When someone writes a couple of lines about how they feel, you know it's coming from the heart, you cannot write about love or loss unless you've felt it yourself, it is personal.

If someone says poems are boring, I can understand in a way, it's like if you love music doesn't mean you love every song( some songs are poetry anyway), its the same with poetry, they haven't probably found one which they could relate to, well in most cases anyway, for some it's the lack of emotion for the idea which the poem is trying to convey while the rest don't understand anything written period...

"There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go."
By - Tennessee Williams (Just a line, not technically poetry but so true)

"I just hope to sleep
And never awaken
Nothing left in this world
Could replace what you have taken...."
By - Sandy Cheney

"Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most constantly?

The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who will call the wild-briar fair?

Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
And deck thee with the holly's sheen,
That when December blights thy brow
He may still leave thy garland green. "
By - Emily Bronte

"Hiding within this pink cell,
fairy white grass sweep from
left and right in that lullaby
sung by the sighs of the hollow trees
that lay so heavy on her heart.

She waits in the same spot, listening
and sometimes hoping. Every time I
try to decipher those twin windows;
so beautiful and blank,
your spirit so lovely and
your tender violence shakes me
in happy fear.

In times of your presence,
i feel almost complete.

In times of your absence, I debate.
I apologise. and I pray; that I could
be every thing you ever wanted - "Salvation"

But when you find out who you really are,
isn't it a little too late to change?"
By - Shawn

I really could go on forever but should stop...