Non-sands and breeze-blocks

The sands of time make a heavy trove
a chest unlocks and heaves
a sigh -

I see you
in the glimpses between 
in sunlight and blue skies
in white sand and surf
in counting knots
in sweet abandon
in memory and music

I close my eyes, or leave them open
it matters, not
as it dissolves today and ten years ago - 
I edit my life 
in a blink.

I am happy 
and thoughts of you
in breezeblocks
are best left unaltered;
would that they could be washed away
by the tide of time
and the keeping of a life
much richer for having had you in it
but all the more so for not; 

Cognitive dissonance swells 
memory cements
as life informs wisdom
and impulse slips by
a chest unlocks and heaves
a sigh.

A mac between two windows

Restored when you revisit -
refreshed the pane stares back at you.

Through the looking glass
what once felt a bittersweet torture -
the years apart -
has become
a lopsided work of art.

breath/life/willy nilly

breathe in to inhale

quince scent in the unwashed sheets 

wrinkled of you still

an empty bed is

harder than your shoes to fill

an empty heart, harder still

breathe out to compose

and create composure still

rememb’ring not love

broken composure

lost in the passage of time

not love, but self will

Love like a double-edged sword.

'There's a reason I said I'd be happy alone. It wasn't 'cause I thought I'd be happy alone. It was because I thought if I loved someone and then it fell apart, I might not make it. It's easier to be alone. Because what if you learn that you need love and then you don't have it? What if you like it and lean on it? What if you shape your life around it and then it falls apart? Can you even survive that kind of pain? Losing love is like organ damage. It's like dying. The only difference is death ends. This? It could go on forever.' 

- Meredith, Grey's Anatomy Season 7 Ep 22

Constantly torn between the romanticism of love and the reality of it.  One minute, one day, one moment in time, you're filled with the possibility of love.  The next, reality hits you in the face and you realise its impossibility.

So I face reality, and I realise that as much as I make out of my friendships, there is a gap between my ideal of friendship, and the reality of what kind of friend I can be.  We're supposed to feel, then think, then act accordingly.  But there's a gap.  A gap I wish I could fold like a piece of paper to make two ends meet, but I can't.  

Then, there's the gap between what I make out of the friendship, and what my friend makes out of the friendship.  We all have different ideas of intimacy.  There's always an imbalance somehow.  And as much as I'd like to bridge the distance that exists between one person and another, there's a gap.  A gap I wish I could fold like a piece of paper to make two friends meet, but I can't.  I'd rather not break the ice if we both get caught on the shards.

Meredith: We are not better! [pause] Cristina, a psychiatrist given several opportunities has deemed me unfit to do my job.

Cristina: Well he'll get over it, just go back in a couple of days.

Meredith: You are not better!

Cristina: Well, in a couple of days I'll be better too.

Meredith: In a couple of days you'll be married.

Cristina: Are you trying to talk me out of this?

Meredith: Look at me and tell me you're sure.

Cristina: Okay, you know what? You don't get to do this. All you get to do, is help me break the tie between the lilies of the valley and the peonies. That's it.

Meredith: No, I do get to do this. Derek is the love of my life, but you're my soulmate. I do get to do this. I mean, why can't it wait six months? Your flowers aren't going anywhere! You broke up with him because he couldn't choose you. Just why does it have to be right now?

Cristina: I think, I think you should tell Derek about the miscarriage.

Meredith: We are talking about you.

Cristina: We are talking about us not being better? Then you need to tell him.

Meredith: He's not ready. He's not okay.

Cristina: You're not okay! You should tell him!

---

Cristina: I never gave you any crap about your post-it.

Meredith: You look beautiful.

Cristina: I know. How's Owen? Is he good?

Meredith: Owen's perfect. He's perfect.

Cristina: Thank you.

- Grey's Anatomy Season 7, Ep 1

If only life was the way they portray it on television.  To have the soulmate, the friend who sticks closer than a brother (Pv 18:24).  To have the kind of friend you can crawl into bed with at the end of the day, and be welcome, even when they're married.  To have sentiments toward each other that are equally reciprocated.  But reality is that such friendships don't exist beyond the silver screen.

And if I already feel that way about my friendships, what of love? What is love?

They say it is better to have loved and lost, than never have loved at all.  But if all I feel is an emptiness that belies my sense of loss, maybe I've never really loved at all.  Maybe, I never will.

There's a reason I said I'd be happy alone. It wasn't 'cause I thought I'd be happy alone.

Mis-Sings

All the missing pieces
are marked by empty time.
And empty kinds of places
make for empty frame of mind.

My mind is full of fullness -
of time and times gone by
lacing all the streets I wandered
with laughter and with love.

An isle of memories remains -
a-head I wonder on
the streets that have been laundered
dry of memorabilia.

This place is waiting to be filled,
I know this in my head.
But in the streets of far away,
my heart is dis-placed instead.
And empty kinds of places
make for empty frame of mind.

Caught dancing en arabesque, first and last

Today I was talking with a friend and it got me revisiting Carla Bruni, who IMHO, has the sexiest voice ever, when she sings in French (don't even get me started on L'excessive). I've been almost reluctant to listen to her English songs for fear of ruining her impossibly sexy appeal. But I had iTunes on shuffle, and realised that the song titles, and the lyrics were oddly familiar...

Googling worked wonders to discover that...she was singing some of my favourite poets! Serendipity ftw!

At Last the Secret is Out

W.H. Auden

At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
the delicius story is ripe to tell to the intimate friend;
over the tea-cups and into the square the tongues has its desire;
still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.

Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh
there is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.

For the clear voice suddently singing, high up in the convent wall,
the scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall,
the croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
there is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.

Those Dancing Days Are Gone

W.B. Yeats

Come, let me sing into your ear;
Those dancing days are gone,
All that silk and satin gear;
Crouch upon a stone,
Wrapping that foul body up
In as foul a rag:
I carry the sun in a golden cup.
The moon in a silver bag.

Curse as you may I sing it through;
What matter if the knave
That the most could pleasure you,
The children that he gave,
Are somewhere sleeping like a top
Under a marble flag?
I carry the sun in a golden cup.
The moon in a silver bag.

I thought it out this very day.
Noon upon the clock,
A man may put pretence away
Who leans upon a stick,
May sing, and sing until he drop,
Whether to maid or hag:
I carry the sun in a golden cup,
The moon in a silver bag.

\Pineapple skies and passionfruit/

I still have those stacks of polaroids in

that old shoebox under the stairs -
                                                   rom back then with nothing to do but

\aughing in sundresses
 running around barefoot
  while the smell of lush grass
   ascends and intermingles with
  sun-dried laundry,
 creating a world where
  everything could be involved
   in great games of make-believe
       and hide and seek could be played
   in the castles we built transcending
 the stratosphere and
glistening with promise, refreshing
mouths melting ice cream
    as tongues meet softness and
   in softness,
  warmth and coolness combine
 unique and sweet
passionfruit tang

                          -ented now,
dusty and faded, dimming gradually sur-
                                                                passed by everything to do but

/-hrow them out

It's a bittersweet symphony

It's funny how we all have preoccupations with our scars and wounds. We've all poked, picked at and scratched our scabs, or rubbed our bruises (or at least thought about it), and even though there's a kind of pain that comes with that, it's not the unpleasant kind. Even wounds that have healed completely, leaving scars or keloids, feel somehow odd to the touch.

Every one in a while a song will hit you in an odd place like that. I recently lost all my music library after taking my computer for repairs, and a friend of mine was kind enough to supplement my loss with his albums. So I found out how much I liked yet another Singaporean artist, Olivia Ong.

Olivia is only 4 years older than me, which makes me realise just how old I am!

Sweet Memories

by Seiko Matsuda, also sung by Olivia Ong, lyrics by Miss er

なつかしい痛みだわ ずっと前に忘れていた
でもあなたを見たとき 時間だけ後もどりしたの
幸福？と聞かないで うそをつくのは上手じゃない
友だちならいるけど あんなには燃えあがれなくて

失った夢だけが　美しく見えるのは何故かしら
過ぎ去った優しさも今は 甘い記憶 sweet memories

Don't kiss me baby we can never be
So don't add more pain
Please don't hurt me again
I have spent so many nights
Thinking of you longing for your touch
I have once loved you so much

あの頃は若過ぎて いたずらに傷つけあった二人
色褪せた哀しみも今は 遠い記憶 sweet memories

Translation

by Moo

natsukashii itamidawa
(it's a pain that lied in my memory)
zutto mae ni wasureteita
(that I did not remember for a long time)
demo anata wo mita toki
(But when I saw you)
jikan dake atomodori shita no
(only the time went backward)

"Shiawase?" to kikanaide
(Don't ask me, "happy?" )
usowo tsuku nowa jouzujanai
(I am not good at telling a lie)
tomodachi nara irukedo
(Although I have friends)
anna niwa moeagarenakute
(I could not have that much passion)

ushinatta yume dakega
utsukushiku mieru nowanaze kashira
(I wonder why only the lost dreams look beautiful)
sugisatta yasashisa mo ima wa
amai kioku
(sweet memories)

Sweet memories

Don't kiss me baby we can never be
So don't add more pain
Please don't hurt me again
I have spent so many nights
Thinking of you longing for your touch
I have once loved you so much

anokoro wa wakasugite
(We were too young back then)
itazura ni kizu tsukeatta futari
(Two of us hurt each other in vain)
iro aseta kanashimi mo ima wa
tooi kioku
(The faded sadness is already a memory of long time ago)
Sweet memories

I miss my piano.

Lonely, lovely night

Rounding the corner,
jasmine suspended,
delicate and heavy -
one fears to break the atmosphere
with an offending breath.

Still I press one foot ahead of another,
head set on going home,
heart ruffling itself
like a bird too fat to fly
away into the darkness.

Still I slow my gait,
and my head looks up in spite of itself
at the glitter
a careless child strew in the dark velvet
that cloaks us by night.

And every night of every day of this week I find myself wondering, will this be the last night I will see the stars
from here.

Steaming the window pane with a sigh
on an early morning sleepless night
(it's still dark),
I promise myself I will return to this
place that I have grown to love.

We're all in this together (=

So today I don't have to do go out of my way to do something random. The high school reunion tea was today, and it was great to go back to AC and meet up with everyone again. People who said they were coming came, and people who said they weren't coming came. It was all good. It was just nice being there again, and realising that some things never will change. Like Dr Ong's speeches.

I loitered until I was amongst the last left, and somehow I just couldn't bring myself to leave Dover. It's funny; I didn't really expect myself to be this nostalgic, especially since quite a few of the people who were significant to me weren't there. Cheryl in Cornell, Ally in Shanghai... The sense of diaspora was just tangible over the chatter and nostalgia.

I only wished I could have gotten the chance to talk to everyone I wanted to.