mist-curls-round

[mist-curls-round]

Period

The fake grass rustle beneath your steps.

Walk to the end turn to your right, then again end and your left, and the right and right. Finally, the floor is sqeaky white again, and you infront of the women's toilet.

You sigh. Abit further and the package below probably overflows.

[mist-curls-round]

青白缘尽

“小白。” A voice calls to her, a familiar gentleness from aeons ago.

She spins and looks at him, with newfound happiness that you had not seen for hundreds of years.

How her body arches toward him, ready to bolt at a moment's notice. How the curve of her smile is bent like a crescent moon, how her eyes shine. Bittersweet, relief and raw happiness.

It is a slap of epiphany that you knew so long ago.

Thousand years together, you still couldn’t win against a moment filled with intense yearning and sudden loss, rekindled by hope.

Rushes of wind cut off by cars speeding, drizzles of rain turn heavier.

It’s time for you to go.

You reach out to him.

Wary of your action, he tries to pull back, but you grasp his palm.

“青。” Your sister warns.

You smile at her. “没事，只是来个祝福。” and hold her palm with your other hand. “千年万里终于找到了。”

Like a broken dam, your life force seeps out and flood into them.

“我与姐姐的缘分在此诀尽。”

Alarmed, she tried to pull her hand away. But like a magnet latch onto its polar end, she couldn’t budge. “你- 停！“

“不是说过会永远在我身边吗？！“

“千年了，想换个方式陪。” You grin with your canine teeth exposed.

It isn’t as scary as you imagine, as your hold on the world slips as away. Instead, it is bittersweet relief and exhaustion.

With just enough life force for one more day, you step back. The glow of your energy settles into them, granting 许宣 an ethereal glow.

“我祝你和许宣，早日登仙。” your voice sounds ghostly.

“青！” Her hand passes through you as she tries to hold you.

“姐姐，永别。” and you dis-materialise into the rainy breeze.

[mist-curls-round]

Sunday, Alarm rings

Gentle morning shines, Grandpa reclines, tantrum brews, Coffee, not salty!!

[mist-curls-round]

The Cage of Ilino River

Doing some self-studies on New Criticism while reading The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sanberg Page 21-24.

1. Symbols: Water => walls => spiritual cage that haunts him in his life. 2. Paradox: Water is fun, warm, safe, but its is also dangerous. 3. Ambiguity: Why do the kids ignore Chaim in the first place? 4. Tension: Between what Chaim wants (His need for respect/attention) vs the Kids & Stromska who doesn't care about that. 5. Irony: Instead of respect and power, he forced into a death march and build up internal cages that haunts him for the rest of his life. 6. Pattern: Water and river, stones and smile. 7. Unity: His attempts to gain respect with the power behind him, instead find himself inside cages within the rivers of smiles that haunts him until he dies. A pervading sense of distrusts.

[mist-curls-round]

A Diamond Ring. Amphibian's Flee.

A diamond ring. She twists on her index finger, and pitches her plans under the artificial cold air —to the child who gives her a charming smile, and hopes she will stay.

The child shifts in her seat, she opens her mind and ears, —her thoughts flit and flow, comparing as the lady speaks with slides and bravado.

-

What a green amphibian, it hasn't been there for long, but already it wreaks internal havoc, and sow ugly discords.

It coaxes the tadpoles, and smile at its peers, and croaks to its elders' words.

Odd that these work out. Perhaps it is because it is new, they do not see its true colours yet. A weird balance, delicate.

When it leaves the small pool with telltale seeds of discontent, the elder begs it to stay. Such Power! —How the tides turned.

The tadpoles look up and see a courageous martyr, —an idealistic fool. Such Admiration!

The peer sees a loss of a comrade. Kindred, they thought. —someone to bear what they refuse to take. FOOLS!!! It is destroying your cobbled nest! Can't you see? It is merely changing its colours. Its claws the same across ponds and pools and puddles. It evolved from a harmless tank bred frog, who croaks obediently at its owners. Now an untethered animal.

-

The speech ends. A quiet plea, hopeful. Rare politeness. The smiling child hesitates.

Latch and leech on for longer survival? Or move before its colour unravel?

... ... It still has some conscience.

[mist-curls-round]

The Ceiling

Look above, there, what do you see? Shadows cast by the ceiling fan, like an uneven cog, zig-zag zig-zag, dim fluorescent light flickers. No, no. Look again. There. What do you see? Splotches of water stain, a little further away from the ceiling fan, left-right, left-right, the revolving fan creaks. No, no. Look again. See where his eyes stare. How he curls into his shrunken frame. Do you see them? (I can't see them.) Those shadows, dancing. Away from the fan, away from the light. They dance and dance, hovering above, hiding in the dingy living room, under the humid night sky, beckoning, come, they smile.

Do you see them? Those ghosts of his long-dead sibling? That spectre of his dead son.

[mist-curls-round]

You promise yourself of tomorrow that you will not act this way.

You control how you play. You do your best.

[mist-curls-round]

SPark

Discord flares, it heckles the uneven murmurs, spikes rises so high and thin, as if they blend in the air. And you ask yourself, Are they disproportionate rants? Huff* You don't know, you are not them. (Stop pretending to be them.) The only thing you can do and should do is control how you play. Stop sowing discord, let them rant, but do not be the ugly spark.

[mist-curls-round]

Thoughts are easy  to catch if you catch them  before they dissipates,  once caught, they are easy to be put down.  Timing, is all you need.

Feeling, however,  has no form or preexisting vessel,  you have to bestow your words  to contain them, to keep them. You need courage.

Just do it. Anything helps, you utter the words out.  You express your expressions. you write what you think. Everything helps, it does not need to fester within.

[mist-curls-round]

Curses

Curses are nothing.

If they are mindless decrepit old beings.

Yet, there will be a time when you can stomach no more, think this way,

He is a plant that needs to be groomed and fed. That is all.

[mist-curls-round]

Hagia Sophia

Which would you prefer?

To gaze from afar with childlike awe and imaginations unburdened by physics? (Fantasies spark at every thought, flit and flow.)

To dream an epic of you wading through the ancient tombs and relics, secrets lore conjured like doodles and prompts.

To feel free high above and deep below all at once, the rush, the adventure. And occasional sombre.

*

Or to gape in person with unbounded appreciation of histories withstood time and bombarded by cluttered interpretations to pick? (But at that moment really nothing crucial comes to mind.)

To touch a mundane silken wall and be amazed of its dull colours and imagine its vibrancy during its heyday?

To walk the marble floor of Kings and Priest, or the carpeted ground of Sultans and Ulamas?

To hop and hope to peer into the giant jar, hopelessly, for the truth buried within?

To crane your neck and look above of the juxtaposed representation of Two Gods, reflecting brightly upon your skin and iris?

To feel that choked relief that you are here- You are finally here.

[mist-curls-round]

Old Man of Road Four

You watch this old withered man, shrunken beyond his time, laying limp on the antique reclining chair, muttering incoherently, eyes dull and daze.

Some days he murmurs about his family long dead, Some days he yearns his dearest son, long dead, Some days he talks about a past as if it is a present during his adolescent years, living in lockup fears and communist curfews, begging to go home, "Bang, mana Jalan Empat, 107?" "Sini turunkah, bang?" "Tolong saya balik, moi."

Home, home, home. If this is not his home, where is? Which home?

His left thigh is broken from a stubborn fall, he can no longer walk. His movable area is just 4x4 marble tiles. But his baritone voice echoes the entire Road Four Street and bounces in the dead empty night.

Neighbours respond in kind. "Diam-lah!!!" on a particular dead night, and hollow space between apartments across when the dogs are asleep as well.

He gave your parents life and existence, and in turn you who are living in this abode, sustain his life before his death. So, you stare at him, day and night, his darkening turf of hair, his rosy cheeks and dry skin, at the living room, sit beside him, with the rest, alone talk to him, pat him, laughs and chuckle, and through the camera place conspicuously at him.

How long do you reckon he will stay on?

[mist-curls-round]

Brown Paper Bag

It dwells at the top of your speaker, Oh your speaker who is dust coated again,

No, that is not important(not yet), Soon, the same dusts will settle on it too.

It pricks at your right temple, You look up at it (it sits above your table desk), Its exposed top flutters inaudibly as the fan breezes by, It dares you to take it down,

Come, Look- Look within- See what my innards have become-

You smother down its pickling yearns. You sniff the air, Not today, you intone.

*

Its dull brown hovers within your peripheral, Always there, silently, waiting, and festering, Growing, And asking-

When are you taking me to the trash?

[mist-curls-round]

Photo Here

The photos were never there, since I remember to look, Dusty light and humid air dance by the open doors, They are there, working each on their own, sharing topics that never seems meshes,  Their voices raise higher and higher, The kettle screeches.

He chases visions of dreams not taken, Bygone stories of conquests and pride, Of great deeds done, and others' failures- that never his.

She follows the stream of present living, Past, present are the same as always, Conformity and expectations are hers, There's nothing to boast.

Why am I here?

Their photos old and grey, buried beneath years of retirement and faded memories, Their withered hands no longer hold, (I don't know) Tropic air breeze through, curtains behind raises, They are there, just there. He shouts but hears nothing, she replies and she screams. He glazes and sees only familiar shadows, She sits and wheel herself by.

Television with too many buttons, An empty living room, He stares and blinks, twitches his fingers and tapping his toes, She slaps his jacket at him, she cleans his bruises, Change your clothes, it's time for weekly mass.

Does he know why we go to Mass when there's no one there? Does she know why we go to Mass when they can't understand?

He pushed her wheelchair, to where he thinks she is heading, He stops her from moving, he doesn't know, but he remembers, Who is he, He shouts, where is my money, he glares, Where is he, he thinks.

She climbed to her bed, rolled to aside, She moves to the far corner of the bed, He sleeps on his own makeshift bed, He sleeps on the wooden tiles and he sleeps on the other side of the bed.

Why am I still here? The dreams I watched, The realities I see away and beyond aren't here. There's no photo. No photo here.

[mist-curls-round]

20210122

When I look back to my scattered writings, I’m often amazed and equal part confused by the quality of writings I once produced.

They were so serious and melancholy, and yet beneath there was a desperate quiet whisper for acknowledgement screeching.

Most of them are now gone, swallowed by my inadequate organisation skills and broken external drives. Many that are kept intact are half completed, ironically. As if i was tethered to the ambitious thread that i will complete them some time soon. 

Trying to recall what was I feeling when I wrote them are often return in dotted emotions and patchwork memories of the feelings that I once felt. Other times, it is hard to believe it was written from my mind which now struggle to even conjure something delightfully sombre out.

I don't think I'm feeling what I am supposed to feel. What I thought I would feel.

I just have to ease back into my habits of writing again, so that the imagery and words that once stream deftly might return again. As simple as that, like Margaret Atwood say, just write.

And don’t forget to organise and stash them. Lest I forgot I wrote them once, ago.

[mist-curls-round]

Your time will come, and it will go, and it will be quiet. You might not even notice. The nagging sense of trying to be easier - because you never see anyone else crying on the train. The mist curls round. The compost heap runs dry. You are crying on the train. Your friends say you’re too serious. The world seems like a serious place, where  everything is too much and too little at the same time, Especially you. You make a list of people you love, and people you don’t, just so you don’t forget when the day takes hold. You are always too something. You are  out on a limb.  You must take hold, and take heart. There will never be time to be fine, if you don’t make it.  And if you don’t, I’ll see you later.

an ode to difficult people | ishani jasmin (via ishanijasmin)