the art of letting go

being a grown up
the super ego prevails
heartbreak of the id

Song of solitude

(A crooner)

Those that I have loved
have never loved me back -
If you love me, let me go,
they say. In old romantic movies
people always come back 
in the end. Out in real life
no one ever comes back.

Silence never leaves me
Solitude's breath is ever on my neck
Smiles and laughter deceive me
into thinking there is nothing that I lack.

Thousand Islands

So I sit in swells of solitude
as the current says goodbye.
each of us marooned 
in our own lot 
in a Thousand Islands -
in constructs of wood,
encased in stone,
or seated bopping up and down
on a dinghy, one of many
festooning the shore.

Those that I have loved
have never loved me back
in quite the same way.
Better to have lost in love
than never to have loved at all
they say, but they don't say
both leave you, leave you lonely.

Silence never leaves me
Solitude's breath is ever on my neck
Smiles and laughter deceive me not -
for the something that I lack.

Scab

Madness is when
the mind gets stuck
on the wound that never healed,
when the scab that can be picked at
starts to bleed and before the clot can be formed again
you pick it apart, just so you can stay there
in the pain.

Because underneath the life you lead
that scab itches
and when you run your fingers across the surface
you can feel
the bump
the inconsistency -
the knowledge of your failure to gain
full closure.

So in order not to be
exposed in your ugliness
your scabby state naked to the world
you clothe yourself in the business of everyday life
and cover over your wounds
with the mask of sanity -
you deny ever having been hurt at all.

---

On coping with sa-stammering

The other day a proz- s- saic^
friend mused:
I wish I could write music or poetry.
I didn't know what to say because
I'm always lost for words -
groping for them
in the greyish p- m- m-uddle
from which the right word can never be extricated
by my clumsy tongue

(instead some subpar subs-
titute stutters its way through my pharynx
unsuccessfully conveying
the glistening clarity I see/think/feel
in my head

mixing orders of
words up by the time they translate to

spoke- o- on tongue)

How do you convey the simultaneity of graphic thought
ad verbatim?
The words that delineate in a mental landscape
transmute not to linear argument.

Which is why I so admire Rhet-t-
-oric which seems to work
with the smooth efficacy of a Butler
redeeming you to his point of view.

While my words are some kind of Scarlett
lett-er -lett-ing on my stupidity instead.

Oh my silly friend
the silence of my prosaic grin
is saying only this:

If I could say in it prose,
I would not need prosody.

^Prozac is an antidepressant drug that was once widely prescribed for depression, particularly in the USA. It can also be used for the treatment of OCD, panic disorder, bulimia and PMS. In certain rare cases, it is also used for ADHD, and Asperger's.

Oh to be...

...listening to good friends playing good music, live

...a dancer in class with a good teacher and pianist

...performing on stage

...able to run

...with someone I can be absolutely comfortable with

...singing and playing the piano

These little comforts I used to take, I can't seem to find.

恭喜什么发财？

Why do Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day have to fall on the same day? It's like some cosmic schadenfreude specially planned to remind me of the cavities in my life.

14:10

Only 50 minutes more,

to 3 pm - class dismissed.

I look around at these familiar unfamiliar faces

belying what they feel and think -

I smile and look away

knowing they cannot know me

any more than I know them.

Only a few more days till I return

to a swelteringly humid little island.

Only a few more days,

but it can't come sooner.

And only far too soon before I'll be back

in another giant flea-ridden furnace.

Who really knows another's hidden landscapes? For

Each heart knows its own bitterness -

Incapacitating fears and debilitating sorrows,

private tears we never cry and never let on,

lurking in the shadows, weighing down our souls.

The little, everyday tortures we'd never dream of sharing,

we're burning in our own private little infernos.

Different ghosts haunt different corners,

different trusts I know I've broken,

different hopes misplaced in me -

another set of haunts to avoid and run away from.

Another set of demons turn me cold.

Still I try in vain.

Beneath the sweetness of smiles and

the concerted effort to turn away

the tiredness and

tightness

in my chest -

老了， 累了-

the growing apathy to

this world's concerns,

I rest on the Word

alone.

But I confess, in a hell that is both hot and cold,

the warmth of such a comfort's hard to hold.

My spirit's distance only superseded

by the distance the spiritual can seem

from my earthly fallibility.

I'd rather something more tangible, but

all the world's a stranger.

For no thing can thaw this heart,

no one else can share its joy.