The Vagrant Experiences of a Cheese Addict

28/09/09

2009-09-28T21:32:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up with the word "eviscerate" on my lips and in my mind. I have no idea why and no idea what it signifies. Was it a dream I had that I can no longer remember? Strange.

2009-09-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

I am a fairytale going wrong.

I used to be a thought soft from the heart of a blossom blooming on a warm summer night.

Twilight stains my cheeks.

I am the neon lights in the letters advertising a motel where humanity goes to decay. To sate a hunger that will not be appeased.

The last flicker of a dim bulb before it loses its life and gives in to the seduction of the darkness. A grand house by the highway with the lights of, dark and abandoned despite its grandeur.

The lone star that makes supplications to the sky for mercy from the clouds so that its shine can reach those who may watch for it.

My hands clutch my words in my palm and ink touches my fingers blue. What love is there in the tar sealed roads that lead to no particular place and I am the red in the leaves of trees that are just beginning to realize autumn.

Happy endings and prince charmings and maidens in the first blush of innocence were traded for a moment. One moment that lingers and the sun sets in my eyes.

Morning will remain a fable. The fairytale is at an end and the song sung now is a dirge.

The Come-Back Blog

2009-09-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

I don't usually wake up with an urge to blog. In fact, I usually wake up wanting to go back to sleep again but that's just me. Truthfully, I had envisioned my return to the blogging world would be heralded by a finely crafted entry that detailed everything I want to say with exquisite articulation. Alas, that is not to be. Here I am, three quarters awake, the residual strands of a dream I just had lingering like cob webs in my mind - faces, occasions and feelings I don't recognize, it has to be a dream - and this urge to spill out of my head and into the world.

There are so many things I should have spoken about but I didn't. It wasn't because I couldn't but because I didn't want to or maybe time was not on my side and that elusive feeling was gone before I could translate it into ink. Thoughts are usually like that.

I've been growing older and changing which is usually what accompanies the latter. First I fought against changing because I felt as though the world was trying to box me up and categorize me so that I would make more sense with my existence. I refused to be and behave in a certain way simply because I was expected to. But then I felt as though I was wrong in fighting myself and my change. For example the change in my writing style. It no longer drips with passion as was its wont to do. Perhaps it is because I am slowly beginning to find a meaning in this chaos but also perhaps this change is inevitable.

I used to burn with jealousy for my younger self who wrote with such passion and such abandon and took it all for granted; not realizing that some day she will no longer be that person and so will lose that passion. Maybe I'm wrong - I don't think I have lost my passion. Maybe I've just steered it into a direction; towards a goal. I like to think that anyway.

It's the day before Eid and I'm sure the whirl of the day will rob me of any eloquence I might delude myself into thinking I still have left.

Fungi have a phase called the absorptive phase. In this phase, all they do is what is suggested. Absorb food, necessary nutrients that will later help them grow. I like to think that I am in one of those phases right now. I'm absorbing life, observing, thinking, experiencing and sometime in the future, I will have enough material in my head to do something concrete with it. Writing wise, I mean.

I really want to write a post about my trip to Fiji. I have distanced myself enough from it to actually write something not totally unbiased but you know, not as emotionally ridden as it would otherwise have been. Soon. As soon as possible, in fact. For my own sense of peace.

Talking to Myself

2009-06-16T02:43:00.000-07:00

There are several things I have realized about myself in the twenty five years I have known myself and yet everyday something new compels me to stop and rethink the person I am. Recently, ever since I came back from New Zealand and got back in touch with high school friends, most of whom are married either with kids or not, I've been thinking about marriage. And what it means. And whether it is in my future. And if I even want it in the future that will somehow map itself out for me. I was immersed in these feelings of half envy, half scorn and I was trying to make sense of my own single worth.

But then today a friend started talking to me about what's actually happening in this world. Things I have become an expert at turning a blind eye and deaf ear to. The miseries in Darfur, the outrage in Iran, the pain of the Palestinians and the fear in Tanzania. These atrocities are being committed every day in this world I live in, reported by people who are horrified at its happening but unable to stop it and I am immersed in the pettiest of internal debates.

This conversation led me to think a whole lot. About myself as a person. As a person who lives in this world and as a person who is adept at living blind and deaf. I feel selfish that I cling to all my petty comforts and concerns when people out there are doing everything to simply survive another day. Why don't I watch the news more? Why don't I take an active interest in politics and debates and issues that we as a people are facing today? But I feel as if I have wrapped myself in a tight bubble because seeing them suffer, seeing them hurt and not being able to change a thing is more than I can bear. I feel guilty that I can live in a country where I can practice my religion, express myself freely, be who I am without being persecuted. An accident of birth? Why do I deserve to be as free? And since I am free, do I not owe it to the world to try to change it? But what can I change? How can I change it?

Peace is not something we are too familiar with. Materialistic things we understand and obey, but this mythical peace? I cannot claim to speak for other people or even know the true perspectives of other people but peace to me is unattainable as long as we exist. It's an unrealistic goal set by people who should know better. But how long are we to be the whims of a certain group of people who keep us in the dark from the knowledge that pertains directly to our own well being. And how long are we going to accept the decay of our own humanity?

I really don't have any answers to any of my questions which seem to fold unto themselves and increase in number. But I keep feeling that I should be doing something but I know myself too well. I will do my best to forget every bad thing I hear, telling myself that it can't happen to me, happen here but knowing anyway that I am wrong, that it can and when it does, if I'm not helping anyone now, who will help me then.

So much for consistancy, Mr. Heart

2008-07-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

I have a feeling that being myself will someday lead me into deep trouble. Who I am and how I am are so much at odds with each other that it is a miracle in itself that I haven't folded over in half just from the pressure of keeping me awake.

I have noticed something about myself recently. I have no stomach for violence. Even if it is in movies. Honestly, what kind of world do we live in that we watch people fight and die as entertainment? What does this say about humanity that some of the bestselling movies showcase wars in intimate detail? Doesn't that make you upset? How can one person hurt the other? Of course I understand revenge and anger but how can you hit a person, shoot a person and hear their painful whimpers and then not die a little death yourself?

This was not mean to be a sermon about what's wrong with the world. Everyone knows that there is plenty wrong with it. I am just attempting to castigate myself about my placidness with the way the world is going. Some soul searching so to speak. What can I do? How can I accomplish the purpose whether imagined or real that I have of existing.

I know I exist for a reason. I have something to do. Everyone does. It's like the world is a great play and everyone's got parts. We are God's entertainment.

To revive this dead thing, I name myself a Necromancer

2008-07-10T23:57:00.000-07:00

There is a colossal anger simmering inside of me. It is as though everything that I have stored in me, every pain, every injustice, all the ire that these things made me feel individually have accumulated inside of my body and I feel the anger thrum in me. I am angry. Truly angry. And I revel in this feeling because it makes me feel so alive. The frown that has planted itself in between my eyebrows and the bright glitter in my eyes, these all serve to remind me that yes, I am alive. That yes, I feel and yes, it is good to feel.

I have heard from so many people the past few days and they all invariably end up saying the same old thing all over again. "You look like you are doing better."

Mm, do I?

I must have some unknown talent in acting. I effectively pushed all thoughts of despair aside and moved on, determinedly walking through life. I lost the poetry - yes, I did and it was okay. It will come back when it wants to.

You don't recover from the death of a loved one in mere weeks. I am learning this now. You simply don't wake up one day and feel okay. You don't accept it all of a sudden. There is no time limit for grieving. And it's not something that your friends can help you with.

I don't blame them.

I'd get tired of the same uncomfortable topic if I were them too. It's such a sensitive thing. How do you console someone who has lost someone to death? What words make them feel better - let me tell you, it's certainly not 'they're in a better place.'

I wish I could strip away the frivolities in life and live it as simply as possible. That I could exist linked from one moment to another and these moments would shape my life the colour of a sunset. I find myself thinking macabre thoughts. Fearing that every single day I come closer to losing someone else. I would much rather die than lose someone else.

That's it, I think. As far as catharsis goes, I believe this place is the best.

"If less I ask," tear blind she mocked, "I may be less denied." - Fannie Heaslip Lea, The Dead Faith.

A Sleep Deprived Cache of Words

2007-09-29T09:06:00.000-07:00

The perambulations of a somnambulant soul. The repercussions of a forced oblivion. A transient existence hinged upon the firmness of thought. The molten thoughts of a fae wind grappling with the boundaries of a tomorrow today never meant to let happen.

A phantasmagoria playfully creates life out of the distinct sounds of the morning traffic. In the moments between pulses, you take a chance and seek a reason. In honor of the illusory purpose some higher power granted you so you would have a reason to be.

A few photons culminate into a ray of light that shines its way into my deepest secret – where is my soul? A snap of his fingers and it would rain effervescence. But my soul is somnambulant and my eyes are wide open dreaming an existence that soaks the colours out of the days.

Sometime in the autumn of my soul, as leaves do I will cleave gently from that tangibility and tear myself away from that reason and promenade the cobbled pathways of a sublime that is etched in the spirals and towers of some distant aerial city.

I always hear you when there is silence.

The Return of the Old...

2007-08-21T22:13:00.000-07:00

I realize I have been gone for quite a while now but I recently thought to myself that I might like to start blogging again. Just as an excuse to have a more organized mind. And this in some ways will be good for the next school year that is a week and a half away. A very important year for me because this year, I have to prove myself. To my teachers, to my school, to my parents, to...myself. I always feel like an underachiever. I have the potential for greatness I am quite confident of that. I just don't always want to be great. For the most part, I am all longing and no doing. My biggest flaw. My weakest point. I suppose now that I have identified this weak point, I can work to overcome it. Get some willpower going. We'll see.

Anyway. That wasn't the purpose of this blog. This blog was supposed to be a celebration of my old bibliophilic tendencies. Which has been curbed ever since I started reading mangas. One word: bishies. It should explain all and if it doesn't, you are so missing out.

Here are the books I most certainly will be spending money on over the course of the next couple of months (or more):

1. A Lick of Frost - Laurell K Hamilton (October 23rd, 07)
2. The Outlaw Demon Wails - Kim Harrison (Feb. 26th, 08)
3. Holy Smokes - Katie MacAlister (Nov 6. 07)
4. The Sweet Far Thing - Libba Bray (Dec 26, 07)
5. Bride of the Water God - Mi-Kyun Yun (Oct 15, 07)
6. Promise 1 & 2 - Eun Young Lee (Sept. 1, 07)
7. The Devil's Right Hand - Lilith Saintcrow (Sept. 1, 07)
8. Hissing, Volumes 1 - 8 - Eun Young Kang

There you go. It's not as many as I thought it would be. But I reckon it will increase, maybe exponentially given enough time.

I have to go finish the chapter of the fan fiction I am writing.

Hello Mr Purple Handkerchief,

2007-05-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

I died.

Humble Pie and Crazy Cream

2007-02-03T22:50:00.000-08:00

Drink. Check. Hoodie. Check. Crazy hair. But of course. I haven't been writing much recently. The xanga blog is pretty much dead and I will close it down after I'm done saving the three (or four) years of stuff in there. This one, I am not passionately involved with but may use for cathartic purposes when it becomes impossible to keep stuff inside.

So. Things have been coalescing, mutating and changing in my head. All relationships, except for the ones I have with my family and one friend in particular are strained. Whether that's my own fault or circumstantial, I don't know. I don't talk to anyone, make no overtures, not unless people seek me out first. I will only talk to them if they talk to me. I won't do anything else. I refuse.

As for things of a romantic nature, I don't want to get involved with anyone. Life is much simpler. And any hint of anyone wanting me in that manner, tends to get me pricklier than a porcupine. Especially people who think I owe them something. Who want some claim on me. Maybe it's bad, maybe it's a flaw but for now I just want to simply exist.

Building walls carefully, so so carefully. I won't let you hurt me again.

2007-01-18T23:00:00.000-08:00

Black button eyes. Blue rock and roll.
This life is like the seedy back streets of some random city, bathed in an orange glow from
the sad street lights. Rain drops performed choreographed motions in glorified abundance on the foot paths.
There are a pair of yellow stilettoes sitting in an alley, poised for flight. A funeral hearse composed of melancholia
waits at the front steps of a house and somewhere in the city, a clock stops ticking eternity. This silence that
resonates so deep it touches you raw, in it is coded a thousand words, this silence is speaking to you. Should you choose to listen.. before the last leaf falls from the autumn-struck trees, before the first snowflake on a bare branch - come and find me.

Who turned off the stars in my sky? A pierced lip, a pierced nose, metallic glamour. How many ways will you
hurt yourself to keep from hurting? You could be a bracelet, chainlinked, loops of metal going round and round - a misplaced ferris wheel. Breathe fresh this morning time. Fragment yourself and become a prism. You are opaque. No light emanates from you, through you. Shatter and shine.

So in a field filled with brazen green, there is a well. Climb inside, wave goodbye to the sky and close the lid. Just be.

I coloured myself empty.

2007-01-11T19:54:00.000-08:00

I am, in my own peculiar way, happy. These pages remain blank and perhaps will remain so for a while. The pages of my paper journal however are flourishing.

Envy (or stepsister's lament, re: cinderella)

2006-12-29T01:18:00.000-08:00

What thoughts crystallize in your anguished eyes?
What incantations do you whisper to the dark?
Hidden and veiled, you became the mystery
Sojourned from being the secret keeper to being the secret itself.

You promised to translate my soul into words
Work out the tangles in my weary destiny
But now you stand, head turned away
do you see me?

What mornings have dawned within you?
I beg for Serenity, you lie in his arms.

To snatch a feeling from your heart and evolve it into my own
I breathe the same air you do yet I remain as I am while you
become more than you are

What magic you wield, sister
That steals my light and brights your own.
Though I stand beside you, corporal and here
in the presence of you,
I too doubt my existence.

And How I Have Neglected You

2006-12-19T15:09:00.000-08:00

And for that I apologise. But life intruded. Life. I spat it out as though it were bitter. Life! That's right. Do it with me. Put all the venom you can in it.

Oh well, that bored me. I'm feeling stupid. Like schoolbook dumb. Wait k, I have to go make cha, tea, that. Wait, I'll be back. I promise.

2006-12-18T00:06:00.000-08:00

love guruuuuuuuuuuuuuuu am in love with you.. what advice would you give to that

Get in line baby

2006-12-12T21:37:00.000-08:00

are you sorta like teh "dear sherly" person u knwo givin advice on love

yes

dear love guru, i am in love with somone who is oh so wrong for me..what should i do , signed hopelessly in love

eat chicken

huh
how is that gonno help

i'm the love guru
u dare question me?

2006-12-09T16:02:00.001-08:00

What? Oh yeah, I'm alive.

Sniff.

2006-11-27T14:03:00.000-08:00

The Foaming Vagina

2006-11-26T14:28:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Rose and I again viewed the "family planning section" in the pharmacy area (how politely they word it, they do.) (some background? Read the previous posts for part one, that is the first visit to the FPS.

Perusal of the products lead to us exclaiming over one such item which claimed to make your vagina foam. Foam? You ask. Foam, we reply. So I immediately thought of rabies and dogs foaming at the mouth. And I wondered why anyone would want to foam THERE. (Do I sound enough of a virgin yet or shall I continue? If you are doubling up in laughter, fie upon you, FIE I say!) So Rose and I promptly trotted up to Barb, who because of her being married for a gajillion years, we thought she'd know about foaming vaginas.

Oh.

Foaming vaginas.. that is the product is used to induce tingly sensations. Yes. Prudish though it may be, that's all she'd say (after she had talked at length about viagra but that's another story).. tingly sensations. All right. So Rose being Rose pondered..

"So.. like, I'm supposed to spread and he's going to be like.. ready honey.. and then spray?"

We both agreed that that would be a bit of a turn off.. like.. "honey, I can't turn you on but this spray can can!"

Hmm...

ipso facto (i dont know what it means)

2006-11-22T11:43:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa,

I'm going to be very good for the next thirteen days. You will be amazed the utter seriousity seeping out from each and every pore, (what's the word? studiium, latin for eagerness and zeal) yes, I will be studying with studiium (n. third declension) and since I will be good, I think I shall gift myself (and others obviously) so here is a list (which is actually a way of procrastinating but I have 13 minutes before I have to be good for 13 days).

Books I'm Dying to Read (and will read):

1. Deception of the Emerald Ring - Lauren Willig
2. Light My Fire - Katie Macalister (okay it's trashy but it's funny trash and I deserve something FUNNY considering I'm currently reading Sophie's world by Jostein Gaarder)
3. Mistral's Kiss - Laurell K Hamilton (ooo, I will not miss this for the world)
4. The Adventuress and
5. The Three Incestuous Sisters both by Audrey Niffenegger
6. Widdershins - Charles de Lint
7. The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
8. The Interpretation of Murder - Jed Rubenfield
9. In the Belly of the Bloodhound - L. A. Meyer

oh. My thireteen minutes are up.

Breathe me a sigh, then relief.

2006-11-15T18:41:00.000-08:00

Hello folks, Miss Hyde's gone. You can come out of hiding now. Once a month, I become a monster. You know what time I refer to? It's mentally exhausting. I get depressed, not enough to hurt myself but close.

This weekend is going to be fun, full of studies but with a little bit of time to have fun. I insist. In some other news, I talked to someone really fun today. I was surprised. He was more than I expected him to be.

I also ate a blue candy, now I look like some drowned victim off CSI. So very attractive. And I am a genius. You disagree? Well you try to convert D-altrosan to D-altrose with water and aqueous dilute acid.

Yes, I said so, I am a genius.

2006-11-14T01:23:00.000-08:00

Let's try this again.
Crimson night. Crimson night. And what else? Oh yes. That blue moon. Orgy of the senses. Music. Atmosphere. My tears condensed on the windshield. Why does it always have to be this way? Why does it hurt, always wrenching my heart free from my soul, why why why, and a single sad why multiply it with vague simplicity to whatever's free in your life. Life, a run on sentence with new beginnings where the endings haven't quite properly ended and why should they, what right do endings have in my life, no right at all, to interfere in what I have, no, not at all, be shamed then.

Brushed myself away in the middle of a nightmare and it continued while I was awake, malevolantly waiting for me to close my eyes again.

I'm strange. Strangily strangy stehjrt[r. That's right. I am and you aren't. The end.

2006-11-12T15:49:00.000-08:00

I'm so tired of being myself.

An Urban Song

2006-11-07T18:51:00.000-08:00

Soul less. Sparks of cigarette butts. Empty cartons of stale milk. Smudged lip gloss. Half used tubes of blistex. Smell of turpentine. Damp. Rain. Grey. Skies and thunder. Specific flavours of crudity. Condiments during happy hour. How many times will you breathe today? Shadows. And dust. Purple heart on the gray pavement. Days old band aid. Cast down eyes. Untouched books. Life. Cast away. Repetition. Drop a quarter into the red telephone, call Life up. Hear the dial tone. User not available, please try again. Silence. The damp taste of tears. Like wet earth. Stuck in the middle of the pedestrian crossing. Yellow raincoats. Too sweet sugar cakes. Bruised elbows, hurt heart, skinned knees, hurt heart.Whirling in orbitals in the hours after midnight. Stay firm. Lift your shoulder, your hat and then your lips. Stay firm. Say goodbye. One vase. Blue forgetmenots. Outpour. The silence. Soul less. Segue to a full stop. Journey through paragraphs. Stop. End it. Here. Now.

I caught a broken star and it burnt my hands.

Corset Entry

2006-11-06T17:53:00.000-08:00

I am pretty certain that the silence will continue until it has exhausted itself out.

Rain rain go away and I'll give you a cookie.

2006-11-03T08:12:00.000-08:00

The rain is incessant. It crowds my senses. I don't do too good today. I don't at all. A silence grows in me. Because I haven't written anything, I feel full. Too full. All these words circulating in my head, with no way out. I hate writer's blocks. I dislike the lack of inspiration. No, maybe I do not have words anymore.

I love the bus/skytrain station on rainy autumn nights. Last night, everything was washed with a golden yellow, as if some star had burst to illuminate us. There was specific disattachment on everyone's faces, enclosed in their own little worlds. The yellow leaves of the trees were dancing, merry even in the cold. And I sat on the wooden bench, staring rapt at those leaves. At the raindrops falling. And it didnt matter at all, at that point, nothing did, just that I was alive and I was lucky to be alive in that moment. The beauty of this metal world existing side by side with the natural one, it made me happy.

That is the most beautiful thing about Vancouver. The green-ness. Even downtown, the foliage has been preserved, there are trees everywhere and while metal giants do protude and dot the landscape, they somehow aid in the grandeur of nature instead of taking something away from it.

I think I'm beginning to forget home. Or rather, get over its loss. Slowly.

The rain always reminds me of the rain dancing we did under mango trees. If ever you get the chance, get drenched in a tropical rainshower.

Apparently, there was almost another coup in Fiji. There are people there who will play upon the feelings of the natives and the indians like it was a violin - stir up racial hate just for their own gain, chaos increases the bulge in their wallets. I'm glad we lived on the Western side of the island.

Yeah.

Where Nafiza Talks About Everything

2006-10-29T22:51:00.000-08:00

I've been composing this post for the better part of the last eight hours. When I was being stifled at work, bored out of my mind, smiling genially, unmeaningful smiles at strangers, words would flit through my mind, thoughts would come together in a grand climax and trumpets would sound when I made some paticularly (or so I thought) witty observation in my head. But now that I actually sit here, clicking away, my feet hurt, no throb and my eyes feel heavy and the words slug through my mind, dawdling, not fast and frantic, no, nothing at all like that.

Work today was fun. Not the work itself. The lunch hour. The things three women in their early 20's would talk about but made funnier because we were all so different from each other. Rose, a Kenyan, Stephanie, snow white Canadian and me, lord knows what I am, Indian? Fijian? Eh. Rainbow of colours cept with the red missing. Yes, so yeah our conversation, I have to share some of it. No really, I do. What I can remember at least.

We were discussing Laurel who left her boyfriend. Yes, it's gossip but it was freezing and we were walkin to the subway which at that moment seemed very far away. Anyway. So Rose says,
"When he lost his eye, he must have lost his mojo."
We all gasped.
"I must protest on behalf of all one eyed people everywhere!" I said. "In fact, I command you to apologise to me and through me to everyone else." But I was talkin to the night air cuz they had gone on ahead.
Now I realize that Stephanie doesn't actually talk very much. But maybe it's because she was overwhelmed by Rose and me. We create a lot of ruckus.
Rose asked me, "Is a 100% error a bad thing?" We stared at her mutely. Wouldn't you?
Then Rose said, "Next time we walk, I'm bringing the car." Hehe. I love that girl.

Me: What's the name of the chicken that's made with buttermilk?
Rose: *stares* Butter chicken?

I've been doing odd things all night. I was upset all day cuz I thought I missed my best friend's birthday. So I called her and she didn't answer and I saw all sorts of red flags in the midst of those unanswered calls. Turns out her birthday is on the 29th of NEXT month. I'm such a genius.

Moving on. Let's talk about love.

I was reflecting the other day. About love. Sometimes I see some guy and I think he's cute and then after a while I realize that he resembled an/the ex. And I feel annoyed, feeling that even though I have moved on consciously, even though he has no hold on my emotions, my subconscious still relates attractiveness on the basis of his traits. Of his primary attraction, like hair, mohawk, etc.

I do want love. I know I do. I'm secure in that knowledge if not the knowledge that I will get it. I don't want to talk about it however. It's too complicated and even though I had originally planned to write about it, right now, I will hold my cards close to my chest.

Speaking of which, if there is any guy who reads this, please take into account that speaking to a womans chest will get you kicked in the balls. Seriously.

I am not subservient by anyone's perspective. I'm getting tired of typing. Meh. I was going to spill my soul on this. My soul refuses to cooperate. Oh.

I paged Code Blue on the P.A instead of Code White. Now, people will not let me forget that I did. Huh. Code Blue, if you didn't know, at Walmart, stands for Bomb Threat. Yeah.

Now I shall go rest my head somewhere.

"I'm nobody. Are you nobody too?"

Tell me who wrote that and I will love you forever.

And oh, no googling, yahooing or msning.

And no cheating.

Yours,

Butterchicken.

2006-10-26T23:08:00.000-07:00

Munchkins and munchkinettes,

people. and peoplies. i am in a strange mood. today has just been five different shades of amazing. and i do not mean amazing in the good sense. amazing in the sense that these things actually still happen and happen to me. sigh. i think i failed my exam. fuck fuck fuck. three times again. sorry. allah tawba. gah. i feel guilty for swearing. my mudder taught me well.

you know, i haven't written a single word of poetry.. in physical form.. actually that's a lie. i did write something but i don't know if i want to share, it's a bit too personal.. not in that sense, oh i dunno, my head hurts. Flunk school?

my parents are pretty awesome about it. tell me to try again. etc. no pressure. i love them because with regard to academics, they never give me grief. isn't this petty? what do i care? oh about the lack of capital letters? yeah, they annoyed me. i have to study latin. i like latin. it's a challenge but the hard work actually pays off. how cool is that? when i study, i get gooood grades. tehe.

okay. i'm annoying myself with this annoying piece of annoying fr'higtu'dbrgubsdubfgfuz. see what i mean?

2006-10-24T19:51:00.000-07:00

Gosh darnit, people. I am not about to go kill myself. It was a creative expression. Like one morning after saher I went to bed and I couldn't get the image of the woman in the note out of my head. It was eerie. I know the entire thing is disturbing but I don't choose what I write about. It's very strange at times. In this instance, I tried to not write this, but that damned woman wouldn't leave me alone. Ghostwhisperer, much? I don't know. I've said this before and I will say it again, a lot of the times when I write this stuff, all I am, all I feel like is a conduit. I am a vessel, sort of, I am the writer but the words aren't mine. I don't know how lucid I am or this sounds but eh, quit worrying.

The Suicide Note

2006-10-21T09:22:00.000-07:00

Did you call my name when you walked into the house? Your cheeks must have been flushed. It was chilly today, wasn't it? You put your black leather bag on the sofa and sat down beside it, stretching out your long legs and arching your back. You are tired. Maybe you call out my name again. You aren't too concerned with my lack of response. You get up after a minute, walk into the kitchen and open the fridge door. You stare at the array of food then pick up that sandwich I made you and bite into it.

Chewing, you make your way to the bedroom. Frown at the closed door. Call my name again, hesitate and then open the door.

What is your first perception? I arranged myself as always, a feast for your consumption. I took my clothes off and turned my head away from the door. Do you realize that I am dead? Or do you step into the room, a delighted smile lifting your lips while your eyes drink in my body. I was splendid, wasn't I?

I cut my wrists. Precise vertical slashes. I wonder if it hurt. I suppose I could have chosen an easier way but I wanted the drama of the blood. Don't worry, I was very careful on this side of life, not one drop fell to the floor. I wouldn't want to stain your carpet.

When I don't look up to some comment you make, do you get concerned and walk closer? Seeing the wrists, does cold fear refresh your senses? My eyes, my vacant eyes and my face, they will probably haunt you for the rest of your life.

You probably try to revive me. Shake me. When do you notice the note?

Are your eyes desperately scouring the note, looking for that prescribed reason? I hate to disappoint.
Now what will you do? They don't have handbooks for these sort of things, do they? You are breathing too fast. Take one deep breath. Exhale. Call the ambulance, the police will follow. Report my death. Then call my parents. Tell them their daughter's dead. And oh yes, remember to act bereaved.

2006-10-13T17:49:00.000-07:00

Announcing a brief hiatus.

Heartbreaks and heartaches, you know where to reach me.

Valete.

2006-10-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

Just so you know that I can be blatantly orange any time I so please.

Observations of the Past Week

A disgruntled Santa hands out trashy tabloids at the skytrain stations in the wee morning hours of the weekdays.

They exist on the periphery of our own existence - these pavement lovers with their bold signs "I'm Hungry" or "Feed Me." I used to hand out money to them without concern as to how they spent it but then I realized that they too have their proper limbs (and they d0) and they too, if they wanted can work (grey grey job but it feeds the hunger). I do not want to feed their habit. You can recognise them by the tinges of desperation colouring their iris blue. The gaudy clothes they wear, impudent unrealized rebellion, the skin pallid and bruised and their jittery countenance as though life itself is a conspiracy. We pretend they don't exist, we don't see them littering our streets - funny, littering as if they were trash to be thrown away and hidden - so am I supposed to feel for them? It's known life is difficult and I will not condone beggers, not unless they are not whole. Work.

Shade. Sigh.

Disclosure

2006-10-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

I wish I could scream at him. I wish I could screech my anger out. Hook my fingers into claws and scrape the skin of his smile. I simmer with the bare vestiges of control.

You were right. At the end of it all, you are alone. I have never in my life felt so empty. And when I feel this way, I start shutting down. I will go numb and function with the skeletal and necessary emotions just so I can sort of sip life every once and now.

Then. I am no overemotional person. I wish I had boxing gloves. I feel alive from the inside out as if life is happening inside of me. And not from the outside in.

I think by the time I actually get to go home it will be too late. No, you can't call me eternally pessimistic, not me. I actually just deal with the shit than ponder over it. But this time - it's different. I've been ravaged, battered and I don't know. I don't want to talk to anyone. They all want something from me and right now, I am not going to let anyone take anything that I don't want to give not even for the sake of politeness.

The exquisite sense of release that I usually feel when I write is fading. It's as if there is a chunk of feelings I must push aside to actually get to the words waiting. City stark blue cold and that's all that will remain.

Petunias. Crumble. Dusty daisies weaving blindly by the roadside. And the ever persistant hunger. And the thirst. And the books, the paper and the finely veined leaves holding on to the trees.

Midmorning Ramblings of a Deprived Sistah

2006-09-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

Hello world. I was going to vent in fury, vent in anger, ventifly - gah. No energy though. None at all. Where can I dofgbsbgsfbubfsubfsiubgsuibgfsdubfasudbsifsgfbsuivfsudbsufbsi dgsdifasudbsubfrsuvgsdufb I feel like static.

Hissss said the tv to the air. The air inert and smug ignored as it ignores everything except pressure changes of the most scandalous variety. But the earth is an easy target. Smoulders so satisfyingly. Hiss and burn, make me burn. God. I'm so.. something, I don't know what. I made a list of things to do and that is the only thing keeping me going. Oh and the fear of flunking out. What does not kill me will make me strong, YOU HEAR THAT, YOU B ASTARD. I am not addressing you, darling nonexistent readers, I'm reading no wait, addressing that shish kebab in the sky, not God, I don't dare insult God, he is trigger happy with his lightning bolts, ya hurrd? I don't feel beautiful.

Tea. I need tea. And something to eat. This should be illegal. Am I tired? I woke up at 5 am on Thursday morning. Went to bed at 3 am on Friday morning and woke up at 6 17 am (and I didn't even sleep properly those three hours).

Dear God, fix me, I've broken myself. Please bring any parts you can spare. Thank you.

Boundless repitition. Listen to this sentence or rather read it. Mea culpa. It means My blame. Nominative. Hm. It could also mean my fault. Magna cum laude. With much praise. Fuck. Allah tawba.

Subservient substantive. Neuter. Weiner. Blah. My head. Your head. Explosion. Volcanoes. Oh. I can listen to music. remy zero. Yes.

L.A Love

2006-09-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

He sings the traffic red
And the raindrops covet him
He paints the sunset blue

Irascible spontaneity
She blooms a flower yellow
He is the God of Bill Boards
And she, the Sunflower Queen

Their cosummation
coalesces the world anew
Bubblegum pops in wonder
And the sidewalk pulses with heat

Slashed denim and black eyeliner
Like trends and mid day t.v dramas
One hour is all it takes them to live a lifetime.

Because..

2006-09-24T06:49:00.000-07:00

Since these are only words
and I don't have to mean them-

I wish you would build me a forever
from the forgotten feelings of the beginning
A fine mist and an early morning
when the day wakes up and stretches softly

But-
it's as though we are fighting Autumn
Sewing each leaf back on the trees
Moving backwards on escalators

The desultory taste of the night
like the scent of old cigarette smoke
clogs my throat, coats my tongue
and my eyes smart

I suppose if it was Wednesday
You would hold my hand and give me a yellow daisy
Not because you love me but because
you love Wednesday

The record is stuck on that same damn note
Something about dark heat and rain, the timbre of his voice...

He sounds like fresh crisp snow

I am stung. Even with these words which couldn't
possibly mean a thing, couldn't break your soul and carve me into it, even then
I am stung.

Yours, With inkstained fingers
and nothing else.

Softly please, the fear sleeps...

2006-09-22T17:35:00.000-07:00

I construct my days of random pieces of paper I find on my daily ramblings through life. Sense sense we make no sense where we live, we live in a state of no sense, lost people on berry littered paths, a chirality to my life, surgeon me up, cut and paste experiences, weak blood, blood weak, bleak. Frown a little and call it sweet. So we return to that moment of blue notes and lipstick kisses with the innate knowledge that no coupledom awaits us, no other partner to ponder with, smile at and you make peace with it and you are okay.. as okay as it is to be while lying through your teeth, the song tells me that i think i know but i have no idea, i have no idea about a lot of things in this world. cup your hands around my neck and sing the traffic red, you know, don't you that i only exist in the moments you perceive me? when you leave so do I and it's as if I never was. Concepts and philosophy et Latin, video. Pero quiero hablar en espanol mas. Algun dia.

Strawberry love bubbles through cherry cherry lips and yellow umbrellas taking the place of the sun. black clouds led an invasion and took over the sky and the rain falls in some anger and i stand there on the grey grey sidewalk, raindrops falling from the ends of my fingers and the tip of my nose, funny funny i didn't know that raindrops were salty..

People strangers pressed on every side of me, more intimately than I have ever been with anyone, strange strangers and we are in the sky in a train to somewhere destiny promised us little glory.

2006-09-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

I sat alone.
Breathing with time.
I can't write but maybe the words are miffed with me.
I lost my joie de vivre.
I am going to buy a new one.
Voltaire is what I'm reading right now.
One sip of a page at a time.
Because there are not enough hours in my days.
I wish I didn't have to sleep.
Or that I didn't feel fatigue.
The hell was up with the weird dream?
It was so very detailed.
A ghost dream.
The colours, the feelings, the everything so exquisitely rendered.
The ghost even.
Bizarre. Bizzare? I'm forgetting how to spell in words.
Latin is fun.
I feel stretched thin.
Now I know what sliced cheese feel like.
Hunger is only a feeling.
I can conquer it.
I will conquer it.
I wish I could sleep some more.
Books and sighs.
Colloquial orgasm.

2006-09-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

My "best friend" told me that spending time with me is "wasting time."

Hah.

I suppose the proper term now would be "ex-best friend." Not that I indulge in mediocre scream fests and whatnot. I am lying, you know. This. Made me so mad I could spit. Wasting time.

We see or rather, saw each other once every three weeks or so for a grand total of three hours at a time.

I'm oozing bitterness right now, you hear? I never want to talk to her again. I really don't. I'm outraged. I'm more than outraged. I'm beyond outraged. I'll breathe. Once. Twice. Three times. Nope. It doesn't work. I'm still mad.

I don't need people like you in my life, you hear me? I am done soothing your ego. I am done, period. Oh yeah I know I'm no good friend, I have my eccentricities. I have my own quirks and I am entirely too human.

But really. Ravneet, come on now.

I suppose I'm hurt too. And when I get over being mad, I'll be really sad. But fuck it.

I feel abandoned. Alone. It's a familiar feeling.

2006-09-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

I didn't ask to be different. I truly didn't. Today I feel like 22 going on 42. I feel that if I were to die right now, I'd going without feeling that I haven't lived a lifetime. I have lived a life. And for some reason, I feel like it has been long enough. Maybe this feeling is my own neuroses, my own feelings but God. When I say I'm different, I am not saying I am in any way unique. Perhaps there are other people who feel like they are the odd piece of some puzzle.

I didn't grow up thinking about getting married. I mean, I had the nocturnal dreams of someone but it was never getting married. *grins impishly* I thought it was just me. I dream about having someone I can be close to yet I won't LET anyone get close to me. I say people are cold but somehow it's ME. I have myself in a little box somewhere and the face I present to the world is less friendly than I mean to be.

School is fine. I've realized that I need to get my ass in gear and work hard at it. I can't just skate by on brains alone this time, damnit. No more wasting time online. More's the pity. And I'm going to make a conscious effort to get involved, really actually involved in school. Interact with real people. I can do it. Rowr. And I need to buy new jeans. It's crazy. Stupid thing. I just got it two weeks ago *wails* and it's already falling. I should find time to eat. Otherwise I'll go around with that hungry starved look - wait, isn't that supposed to be sexy?

All right then. I suppose there's nothing for it but for me to go and face the day. I hate buses. I really do. The hours I spend in them everyday is SO bad. I am seriously going to look into residence or moving closer to school. But my mom's at home. Sigh. Okay yeah. So I was going. Ta.

2006-09-10T19:11:00.000-07:00

Chilled tapioca pudding is good.
Create new post.
10 cent miracles sold by the road.
Take me anywhere you want.
Sometimes I feel like a blurb for everyone else.

2006-09-08T01:04:00.000-07:00

I kinda like this idea of no comments. I feel like I can post whatever the hell I want without waiting for someone to respond or feel bad if someone doesn't. I need to cut my fingernails. They are gettin hella long and I never was someone who could go for manicures, I mean, not to say that my nails are nasty or anything like that. It's just t hat well.... I don't quite know what I'm trying to say.. so I will.. er.. move on.

The frequent updates are more for my peace of mind than for anybodys reading pleasure. I don't even know that anyone does, read this, that is. Blah. Okay. Bear with me here. I've been up since 5 o'clock yesterday morning. And now it's 1 this morning. Good God. Yes, well, I shall be off to bed in just a wee bit. Lotsa things to do tomorrow. Not the least of which is to go to the bank and get some stuff sorted out. And do some hw and shopping. And reading. Weekend, I'm working. I lost about 7 pounds this week just running around - let's hope I don't burn myself out before ramadan.

School.. is okay. I haven't made any instant friends at all. I feel like an outsider. But the school itself and I, we get along very well. It's such a beautiful place. I keep reminding myself to take a camera.. maybe this monday. It's utterly gorgeous.

Um. Yeah. Finally started to read The Neverending Story. I like the first two pages, haha. I need to clean my room like right now but I need to sleep as well. Bloody hell. Okay. I'm going to bed. so I will wake up early tomorrow.

Gosh. What a waste of words.

2006-09-06T21:03:00.000-07:00

So things went from crazy to down right insane.

There are several extra people in my house. Not that that bothers me (my nose is growing longer) but the kids are good people. The father? Not so much. Bum's tryna take this moment to inveigle his way into the good graces of.. who? I don't know anyone who isn't fed up with him.

School's crazy. The commute will kill me. Unless I can manage to make that time productive, I will absolutely die. Three hours a day. Three. Sigh.

Oh.

Yeah.

Nisha Khala died. It was sudden. Nisha who? She was my aunt's sister-in-law. Okay, that doesn't explain much. Her kid, Javed = my first love (? I don't know if that's the right word but I guess I can use that to describe it) But more than that she's - hah, she WAS a very charismatic lady. At least in the earlier years. She laughed and joked and was the general life of any party or gathering. She sobered up much. I'm in shock, am empty, don't feel any grief. Maybe I've come to terms with the bare facts of death. It happens. move on. Maybe i'm just full of shit.

Anyway. Gotta wake up soon. Havta read some stuff.

Take care.

2006-09-05T21:14:00.000-07:00

The first day of school.
Crazy.
Am exhausted.
I had this entire blog in my head. Ready to be typed out.
I can't.
Too tired.
Story of my life.

Oye

2006-09-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

Don't vurry. I'm not dead yet, sillies. Just been playing hooky with blogger. Apologies sincere and heartfelt. If you need them. If not, pocket it anyway, I may run away again.

Watch the space for updates.

New look. A mi me gusta mucho. I don't quite know how to get the comments working in it but there's a tag board on the side that you can use to talk to me!

hasta luego mis amigos.

And a little bit of lemon, please.

2006-07-21T01:11:00.000-07:00

We rule the days right now. With fervent avowals of a future domination of this unprepared world while flip flops (bejeweled, of course) dangle from otherwise bare feet. A tall drink of something cold sits cradled preciously in my hands and I incline backwards, causing my tshirt to ride up. It's a hot day. An invasive heat, this.

Languor is mandatory and we give in gratefully. A fan whirs somewhere and there is a fly weaving through the air on top of the table.

The house is dark. And we are dark. The only sound outside is that of the tree leaves swaying in the heated breeze and the cars whizzing past on the road outside. We sit in silence, content for the moment with our own thoughts. Soon, the world will intrude on the makeshift peace we've constructed of silence and twigs. Soon we'll head towards the kitchen, grate cheese, cook minced meat, cut up tomatoes and eat cherries. There's a little banter no one hears and we eat dinner in absent camaraderie.

I tug my shirt down and pull my skirt up and try not to look into anyone's eyes. The kitchen floor is cool beneath my bare feet and I feel the water trickle down my arms as I wash the dishes, taking tender care with the china. We pretended to be royalty with fragile dishes - Gods of Cutlery maybe?

We sit and talk about inconsequential subjects, the weather, the cars, the blue boy with the long eyelashes. Words flow freely and there is laughter and a strange cadence of unsaid things peeping through the words being spoken.

They take me home.

I get out of the car. My purse dangles from my fingers and I lift a shoulder in farewell. I say hello to the flowers, turn the key in the lock and step into my own house. I walk up the stairs, greet my family and smile at them. I walk into my room. Close the door. Open the windows. Pull down the blinds. Sit on the floor. And fall apart.

Take Two?

2006-07-11T22:48:00.000-07:00

I have no poetry in my soul. A blankness reigns. And I let it, for the moment, content with the nonfeeling. A part of me tries to reason with me. I can write. Yes, I know I can. But why do I allow myself to be judged by the way I do is decidedly beyond me. I wrote this very crappy story right now. It is so bad it made me wince. And there was no prerequisite illusion about its grandeur (I may not be making sense at all but bear with me, I'll share the story presently and you too can laugh at my asinine attempts, it really is tawdry) and that in itself is sad. So I will share its horribleness.. so you too can see how far I have fallen.

---------------------

The summer cleaves to the burnished lawns and the sunshine dusts the red dahlias, decadent by their very presence. There is a hint of forever in the air. My bare feet cling to the marble floor of the foyer. Its coldness anchoring me to reality. The front doors stand wide open, promising liberty if I am brave enough to take a few steps.

"Are you coming with me?" He asks, carefully, blankly. But he's too late. I know the havoc my refusal will cause.

I glance over my shoulder to my father. His patrician features and his eyes are all arranged at their severest. And again, he'll try to intimidate me into submission.

It's what true what they say about forbidden fruit, if you will pardon the cliche. They carry an irresistable appeal. If you are strong enough, you will remain unscathed by their temptations. But I have always been unerringly human.

We played with each others emotions, affection shyly colouring our conversations about this world and the next. We were both so sure of our control, firm in the belief that all we were and all we'd ever be, were friends.

Except that night he accidentally brushed past me, causing me to lose my balance and fall into him. And his hands grasped my waist and our essences mixed. Awareness of him flowed through me, exquisitely painful. I spent an eternity wondering about the feel of his lips and the warmth of his skin. Innocent gestures gained sacred importance.

I knew he was impossible, he knew I was forbidden and yet... We somehow forgot to keep our eyes shut while dreaming lest our dreams escape and so they did.

Life progressed and now here we are. At this juncture in time.

I told my father about him. Knowing full well what he'd say, hearing his words before he uttered them.

So he gave me a choice.

One one side, my father who has expected me to be the dutiful daughter all my life and I have complied. My unspoken compliance led him astray. He believes and perhaps fairly that he does know better.

And on the other side is..him. What words could I use that would correctly convey to you the depth of feeling I have for this man. He makes the sun shine.

How do I choose between him and my father? One gave me life. The other keeps me alive.

I owe my father my entire existence but do I spend all of it thanking him for it?

And love is an unstable feeling. It could disappear into nothing. Do I leave my family on the basis of a fickle feeling?

There is a patch of sunshine spilling in from the open door. I take a deep breath and look at both of them with agonising precision.

I know what I have to do. I can't tear myself into two. There is a third road and it will be one I walk alone but at least I will be in one piece.

Comme ci, comme ca

2006-07-02T15:51:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm a voyeur. I share secrets with the mirrors. If they tell me theirs, I will tell them mine. I haunt corners where the past always lingers.

Do you ever feel like you are the wails of a violin? A music note? Sometimes I feel like I might be. Or the beat of a lali. Drum beats.

Or like a petri dish full of something to be poked and analyzed. I feel like that often. Especially when certain continue to ask me.."but how do you feel?" Why can't I just feel the emotion without having to dissect it and analyze it? The thoughts in my head are mine and I like it that way.

I'm becoming someone else. Who is not me. Or perhaps is me but more defined. I like myself better now. Am not so needlessly cruel to myself. I'm still not the stable one paragraph one subject one topic kinda girl. But I'm settling. Yes I am. (Just like trifle.)

I sleep.

Untitled

2006-06-22T10:41:00.000-07:00

A packet of nails. A glass of darkness. And me.
One hour of silence. Eyes full of sleep.
Two thimbles of light. And the ambivalent pain.
A matchstick struck. The answering brightness. The softer shadows.
One song of forever. That initial betrayal.

We are not enamoured of bliss.

The stale gingerbread house. The salty eye water. And the clumsy cacophany of Goodbye.
One closed door. The empty room.

And me.

Excerpts from Sabr, My Notebook.

2006-06-05T16:05:00.000-07:00

How it decays-
chipped teacups ever full of fragrant tea
Tea and scones
or fresh green mornings
The melody of childhood
we basked in its warm hands
The lustrous innocence
Pealized afternoons
One orange notebook
will be all I have of my youth
Make the magic, sister
I have the corset blues
They sing my veins afire
Corset blues and corset blues

-
If I didn't want him - listen now
If I didn't want him and didn't care
If he wanted me, why then does it hurt
when he doesn't want me after all?

-
Will I ever be beautiful enough?
At the end of it all,
will I ever be enough?
Somehow, someway, someday?

You can never glorify the silence too much
We only deal in conundrums
And sleep.

-
Stardust and stone turrets
I catalogue my stars by their brightness

-
It is Sunday
A square gray piece wall,
a rainy gray Sunday.

-
There used to be a sense of home
in the freshly cut mornings
A peculiar tightening in my chest
As of the lacing of the corsets

-
Shake my soul, sister
Bring me alive
I'm frozen in heart and mind
Sweet marigold
and flirty hibiscus
I yearn for the sweet salty taste of home
How my words mock me for their own reoccurances.

On Tomorrow

2006-05-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

A cinnamon darkness spreads its
softness over the broken pieces
of tomorrow.
It's an empty house, this soul of mine
an empty house devoid of tomorrow
A caricature of goodness
outlined with soft blue kohl
So we work towards chaos
subservient submission
to the materials which peg us alive
Compose a few motes of dust
to make me happy, compose do
Life is a lucubration of sorts
I perceive conjecture from the sunshine
Please send the Future a consolatory note
on the demise of Tomorrow.

One Last Moment

2006-05-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

It was at a secluded table, protected from the prying eyes of the overly intrusive world by a flimsy wooden barrier. The walls were gleaming mahogany as was the table, a rich dark mahogany, eloquent in its opulence. Yellow light spilled over from various candles, designed to bathe a person the warmest glow. Amr Diab sang hauntingly in some corner but the real music came from the other side of the screen; the clink of glasses and the spice of conversations.

It was here we sat. You, me and our silence. I don't know when I had first noticed the presence of the Silence. It didn't make itself felt until I realized that it had replaced the caress of your fingers on my cheeks. And then.. it grew.

We slept with it snug between us. We ate with it occupying the third seat of our breakfast table. It was possessive of the pauses in your call whenever you phoned to break a date or tell me you'd be late.

Was it malevolent, this silence? Yes, I believe so.

Some days I would ache for your inconsequential chatter. Remember times when you would talk to me about anything instead of carefully weighing out your words in a limited quantity so as not to offend our silence.

It was yours first, this silence. But your complete surrender to it left me no choice but to embrace it as well. Resentfully yes.

And now we sit at this table, at this restaurant listening intently to the things we don't say.

You clear your throat and my eyes jump to your lips.

"So when did this become goodbye?" I ask the Silence.

A dissolution of my life. Incongruity embroidering your actions, you pull the stack of papers towards yourself, hesitate, then sign it, damning yourself and damning me.

I nod at you once, a precisely choreographed movement. I gather myself, my dignity and leave.

Aside: Is there anyone who can help me change the template, cuz the pink is hurting my eyes now.

Short Sips of a Long Drink

2006-05-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

1.
The night is drenched with
unfinished dreams.
There is a fat orange moon
holding dominion in the phantasmic sky.
And the stars shine in soft supplication to him.

A night flower blooms -

there is a chasm in the darkness
a deepening of the languor that
arrests my submissive soul -

2.
I have to write you a story
of the third house on the left side of my street.
It's protected fiercely by
azaleas and marigolds
and the grass boasts immaculate
chaos in the sunshine.
Sad, ragged curtains peek out timidly from
the unwashed windows on the first floor
the faded rose pattern on it speak pensively -

But I will save that for a molten afternoon and an acquiescent ear.

3.
Forever demands a wrathful reckoning
and I have no truths to tell.
You are so glorious in your surety of the universe
So convinced that all doors have keys
what if I showed you one path that led past
destiny and settled somewhere behind a
door built for the entire purpose of remaining closed.

4.
My streets are long stretches
of cobbled grandeur.
I stumble in the footsteps
of calamitous pirates
who stole the songs from the cowrie shells.

5.
I sit cross legged on my downy sheets
enraptured by the night
Eolian kisses grace my inky fingers
I pour myself into you
through these words,
I gift you with slivers of my soul
they carol in the midst of the jangled syllables.

6.
I am always saying goodbye
a farewell to you, beloved
That is my complaint to the universe.
I am composed entirely of goodbyes.

7.
And so,
the emptiness spreads.

8.
I spent the better part of my Sunday morning
in a teacup,
pondering the crevices in my battered heart
Weary and worn
an old leather shoe, with brown crease marks on the sides
and a scuffed tongue

My thoughts are a dusty china blue.

I am an afternoon under a mango tree
I am this and that too.

I wonder if butterflies ever wish to
return into their cocoons.

Just Before I Capitulated to Exhaustion

2006-05-08T10:59:00.001-07:00

The scent of today intoxicates me
Overwhelms me, captures me,
The here and the right now
I live my life dancing from one glazed minute to another, we dream of lemons
yellow happy lemons
exuberant with melliflous
glee. It's a precarious balance.
And I sulkily demanding a return
from you. An admission, some grand miracle,
sanguinity, slip from me a tangerine collapse
of the innermost walls of the beating machine in my chest and
feel as keenly and with acute innocuity - love me on the
behest of my overworked dendrites - the
tear ducts in my eyes await your mercy.

We are estranged from tomorrow. A hostile
estrangement and we don't speak of
blushing twilight and that smooth velvetness
that is the night. Look, I keep the silence
in my head. I adore the silence. I love
it and keep it close to sing me of peace.
Dance to the Shangri-La. Eat a pomegranate.Loquacious words; they tumble off my tongue
in hysterical savagery. Did we say love? Feel.
Feel for me then. If not love, which we don't believe in anyway,feel for me and then eat a pomegranate.

I sold my soul to the peddler of lost dreams who sells his wares
on the last road before Heaven. And he gave me a scroll to write myself in. So now I detail myself,
etch my own existence anew, with my own quill
and....

I think I fell asleep then. Hah.

Amor Mio

2006-05-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

Tag shag (no pun intended, really, *winks*). My Perfect Lover. The Man. (Yes ladies, I'm sorry, I am straight. As a ruler.)

The Perfect Lover as according to Nafiza the Ubiquitious

I don't think he exists. Seriously. I have no expectations. At all. This makes me sad but I have nothing I want to say about a future shadowy lover, the ultimate expression of my desires. Someone human enough to love me. Love me as I want to be loved. Raspberries. Satin sheets. Soft light, dark night. What not. And all of that. And none of this. Intelligent. Charming. Everything. And nothing. An idea. A thought.

*shrugs*

I don't know enough people to tag them but if you want to do this, consider yourself tagged, yes Dhiraj, I know I'm breaking the rules but I'm a rebel.

I break rules in my sleep. Tch.

Ramble, Rumble

2006-04-27T22:15:00.000-07:00

Listen

or read (which might be better)

Alice,
she moved out of Wonderland.
Packed up herself, the rabbit
and the cheshire cat
(because his smile was copyrighted, they left it behind)
and moved.
Now they live
on the craggy cliffs of NewFinland.
I am lost.
Irrevocably lost
existing in the space between heartbeats
and no more.
I barely even register
on the today's consciousness.
When the sun shines
I am happy.
Deliriously.
When clouds blanket the oppressed sky
I scowl and my mood sours
I am sure I have a condition
described in the heavy volumes of a medical journal.
Some novel disease.
Colour me lavender, will you?
I have smudged hands,
I am a pretend poet.
I write pretend poetry
in expression of pretend emotions.
I am well, cupcake.
Love me tomorrow.
I play with needles
and a hammer I call Thor.
The correlation is obvious. Sparkle your smile.
Use the burgandy lip gloss, in 830, Raspberry Punch.
Yesterday,
I saw a man holding dead stars in his hands
He told me they flowed out with his tears.
Ginger my tea, ginger my tea
Celebrate me.
Sugarcane and sunshine
I can almost taste the glorious cadence of home.
My grandmother
stares at the phone and talks to it. She says people with little
fingers, little bodies and big souls live in it.
I let her have her thoughts and she lets me
have mine.
Millions die every day
but if it's a starlit night
my bed mites and I,
we sleep peacefully.
I search for you
in the softness of the night
and the darkness of the sheets.
Yo no quiero el dolor
pero el dolor quiere mi.
On pink cheeked mornings,
I kiss apples and flirt with trees.
I promise eternity to the grass.
My hair seduces the wind.
Hebeeni?
Lah la.
A funeral procession, I believe it's a necessity.
Bury it deep and call it gone.

I don't speak your language anymore.

In a songwhile

2006-04-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

I'll tell you a story.

Life in Verse

2006-04-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

Listen

Or read:

I have sunshine in my soul
Cracks in the turquoise walls of me
The luscious green of the tomorrow
tempts me terribly.
I have music in my eyes
and golden harps cradle my mind
Sing nightingale sing
Your song might save me from winter yet
It's a cold twilight today
An orange miracle The God showered
I live my life looking for bridges to burn
And then watch the ash float down
A tangible expression of my Sorrow
but even Sorrow succumbed to Hope
And the Sun has promised me
He said I'd drown in his light
He'd suffuse, effuse and
elucidate my entire entire existence
for half a minute.
Sunshine tastes like ripe jackfruit.
Or ripe jackfruit tastes like sunshine
Of all things I miss,
I miss the peace most.
Black currants.
They say he hung himself
On a branch from that Jackfruit tree
And we see him swing every time
we play "Do you Dare"
And we dare
Our hearts thump in gregarious rhythm
like the beats of some possessed lali
Deseo de volar, Deseo de vivre
Too late, by a century and a smile
I can write in complete sentences.
But it won't work for me right now.
Pentiambic meters.
Hello? I am a broken bard
On the wrong shores of life
I pretend. I lied. Lo siento.
I can't write at all.
So many others to steal inspiration from.
Bee, drink my soul away.
I am a jigsaw puzzle, yes I know.
Scatter me.
And when I die,
I want to be buried by the roots
of a sunflower plant
I hear they talk to the dead
They shall shine me some sun
And in any event, deificate my
death with their life.
Sunflowers it is.
And I've always wanted
a blue tea kettle.
And a garden wth begonias
and bouginvillea.
Goodnight monkey.

A Deification of the Solitary Senses

2006-04-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

It's a beautiful night outside. Windy. Passionate. I am so tired. My souls hurt. Or is it soles? And does it matter? I worked and worked and worked. No silver spoons in my mouth. I have to return to work in 8 hours. And somehow mentally and physically heal before them. I always wanted a miracle. An orange miracle. Thank you God. I had this whole thing typed out in my head. Like how I'm the petals of a crispy yellow daffodil and his alternate sentiments determine my fate. But I am tired. And we'll do this some other time. I hope you are well. And yours are well too.

I've been feeling

2006-04-09T00:48:00.000-07:00

this deep desire to just vanish. Disappear into myself. And you know what, I just might do it. From the online world at least. For a few weeks. And I'm utterly sick of men. Isn't that sad? I've never had much to do with them but now, I'm just tired. Washed out and drained. What am I talking about? I have no idea what I am talking about. Absolutely none. I am tired of myself. Who I am. Why I am.

Basta.

I want to feel that peace I felt again. Feel that sense of amazement I felt at the wonderness of the world.

It's raining outside. Soft candid rain. There's nothing in my head. Nothing at all.

Dramatic feelings call for dramatic actions. I do too have will power. Let's see what happens next.

In all Ernestness

2006-04-07T00:18:00.000-07:00

I'm trapped in a coconut. There are deep ponderings floating around in the musty space that I call my head but I am trapped in a coconut and no words will come out. Deep pools of obsidian fire burn. Let's not be pedantic. Give credit to lemons. Because they are due. And do toast your toes. In the slippery sunshine. And don't be jealous with your words. Lavish them and flaunt them. Wrap yourself around me. Be a red jelly bean. Go celebrate your love. In fact, throw away your tie and rejoice. Rejoice now because heartbreak gives no warning.

If this seems insane, please let it be so because I am heart weary and heart heavy and damned hearted out it seems. Cut the cords a little and I will breathe a little and you breathe a little too and together we shall live this summer out.

Take it how you will

2006-04-03T22:47:00.000-07:00

I have lived.
And it was a crimson life.
A forgotten symphony
of some lauded composer.

And I have lived
with aquiesence to my existence
That is, I exist
And it was enough.

I was the sanguine beats
in the Kalahari
seductive and savage
And I lived

But the song,
It's over.
And it was a burnt orange life.
Now the sun bleeds all over my heartbeats.

I have lived
a crimson life
with magenta streaks

You evoke me into being
I am but an expression
of your desire

I have felt
orange derivations of a normal life
Lost in a discordant tangent.

You exist
So I capitulate to the pain
Yes capitulate and glory in its attentions

I fold within myself
A castle of dominos
I have a reservoir of tears, you know
glistening aqua blue
shimmering behind my eyes

It rained inside me today
and you held me

You are you
and I am you
Is it enough that we are
Should we even be?

In Anticipation of the Summer..

2006-03-30T16:12:00.000-08:00

I have started to make an Official Summer Reading List 2006. I can have 50 books on the list and therefore have 20 spots empty. If there are some books that you think will well do to occupy a spot on this list, please do share. The books lucky enough to be chosen are:

Danse Macabre - Laurell K Hamiton*
Behind the Mask - Thomas Harris*
A Fistful of Charms - Kim Harrison*
Definitely Dead - Charlaine Harris*
Startled by His Furry Shorts - Louise Rennison*
Empire of the Ants - Bernard Werber
The Stranger - Albert Camus
The Little Friend - Donna Tartt
The Fall - Albert Camus
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
1984 - George Orwell
Charmed Thirds - Megan McCafferty*
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
The Masque of the Black Tulip - Lauren Willig
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Thus Spake Zarathustra - Nietzche
The Naming - Alison Croggon
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel - Susanna Clarke
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
A Feast of Roses - Indu Sundaresan
The Twentieth Wife - Indu Sundaresan
Inkspell - Caroline Funke
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
The Book of Spirits - James Reese
The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
.....

Conversations with Dorothea (formerly known as Dora)

2006-03-27T20:56:00.000-08:00

When I saw my manager, I said to Dorothea the Doll,

"What an embryonic disaster."

She didn't comment.

Where Nafiza is Wrathful.

2006-03-23T23:18:00.000-08:00

My head is so incredibly full right now. Yes I know that you don't care but fuck you, it's my blog and if I want to say my head is full, I damn well will say so.

It's sort of liberating to be a potty mouth. I remember once my mother made me eat chilli cuz I swore. Which cured me of cursing. Or cussing? I don't know.

Why am I wrathful? Yes, I know that you don't care about that either-what the hell, just stop reading already, damn you. You are harshing my mellow, bastard. So anyway, I'm sorry all you nice people, I don't mean to - isn't debilitate the most delicious word? - sorry, small attention span - aside, I will debilitate you, you acrimonious piece of gutter scum - yes, I don't mean to harsh your mellows either. Please accept my fervent apologies and sniff a jasmine flower.

I haven't been watching cartoons recently. It's because my grandmother dominates the TV. (erlack, random image of my grandmother in a dominatrix costume, excuse me while I barf up my intestines).

A blog is supposed to be cathartic. Siphon off my stress into syllables and squiggly letters called words. I have way too much time on my hands. I need to get another job. Which I will. Insha Allah.

I'm hyper. I don't know what I want to talk about. Well I do. But I can't. It's that simple. I wish I could go home, damnit.

I made a new friend today, JD. She's awesome. I'm actually interacting with people. Y'noe, the kind I can actually speak to outside my imagination? Aren't ya'all just proud of me? I know I am. So my conscience is a whore.

We'll leave you (my conscience and I) at that enigmatic statement.

[And you just go suck a lemon.]

The Morning After

2006-03-20T13:52:00.001-08:00

Corset blues

and a
dirty red stiletto.

Rumpled sheets,
savage hair and
smudged kohl.

Illicit yearnings.
The emptiness.

A sudden realization.

Glimpse

2006-03-15T22:44:00.000-08:00

“Love?” The word tasted foreign and entirely distasteful on her tongue.
“Yeah, love.” He said it again.
“A novel concept.” Sarcasm was one of her best weapons.
“It exists.”
“Yes, in books and silly dreams constructed on faint hope and innocence.”
He shrugged.
“Ever the romantic, aren’t you?”
“I am not bitter or cynical like you.”
She glanced at him. He had his face turned away from her.
“You court heartbreak. Woo it. And when it falls victim to your seductions, you glory in it.”
She started.
“Why ever would I court heartbreak?”
“Because it’s the only way you can feel any emotion.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is. Heartbreak is not inevitable in every relationship. Yet you refuse to believe otherwise. Safe in your anticipated pain.”
“You make no sense.”
“Yes I do. And it scares you that I do.”
“Heartbreak is a fact. Everything ends.”
“I know it does.”
“And just because I refuse to emotionally entangle myself…”
“You knowingly choose the wrong people. Choose them knowing that sooner or later, you will taste some flavor of pain.”
“I’m not Cinderella, you know. Happy endings are a cliché.”
“How can they be a cliché .”
“I don’t offer you forever.” He said in the soft darkness.
She sat silent beside him.
“I don’t offer you a happy ending.”
He breathed and a silence was birthed.
“I do pledge you passion. And sincerity.”
“How can you expect me to accept a pledge you can’t guarantee. You say you don’t want me forever but for a little bit of eternity. A thousand forevers exist in eternity. Passion is short lived. You ask too much.”
“What if I promise to break your heart?”
She turned towards him.
“I do not court heartbreak.” She repeated.
“I’d make you feel.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Don’t deny it.”
“I’m not.”
“I’ll leave.”
“Go away then.”
“And not come back.”
“Don’t.”
“But you want me.”
“Yeah.”

Achoo.

2006-03-15T02:05:00.000-08:00

This post and the following are excerpts from Ganna Girls Slumber Party Numero Dos Cientos y cuatro.

2006-03-15T02:04:00.000-08:00

2006-03-15T02:02:00.000-08:00

2006-03-15T01:46:00.000-08:00

Pithy Me.

2006-03-13T21:08:00.000-08:00

4 more minutes and I would have been lost
His desuetude to me
would have consumed me entirely.
As it is, I realized upon a blink
before the credits rolled,
that this is not how I want my story to end.

A Piece of My Soul

2006-03-11T23:03:00.000-08:00

Life is a truth unto itself. You live, you love, you discover and you be. Youth is a grand exposé. Read and weep and be.

So many thoughts and feelings clamour inside of my head. Clamourity clamour. Flutter around in my subconscious like phantoms of possible babies inside a woman.

I find it easiest to talk to strangers, those who don't know me and those who in all probability don't give much of a fuck about me. I like talking to them because at the end of that conversation, they take theirs and I take mine and we part ways and it's forever on a plate of mishaps and whatifs.

Don't talk to me about Love. It's a dirty word. And a four letter word. And the most illest used word ever. It's like a whore. Used and abused and wrung off all that was beautiful in it. It's a phantasm. Yes and I'm a cliche. Please, we'll mark me as a statistic, use a black marker cuz I like black.

Some people crave polka dotted ice cream. Others security offered with that london blue topaz. I crave a peace. A cessation to this incessant feeling. I wish I wasn't so empathic. Fuck. I'd feel a stuffed teddy bears pain if you were to place it in front of me. Sad.

I'd disappear into one of those Enid Blyton kids books if I could. How pretty my life would be. High tea at Cherry Orchard farm with my gajillion cousins, none of whom I'd have to marry. I find it highly disturbing that my Aunt would actually suggest something like that.

People judge. Then they categorize you. I hate that. I abhor being categorized. I am not lacking in vicissitude. Perhaps that is one of those most annoying things about me. A moth because butterflies die. Moths do too but theirs is a death that is a realization of weakness, they succumb to the allure of the flame.. and burn. I will burn.

Useless prattle, I know.

You are not obligated to read.

A Journey

2006-03-08T20:58:00.000-08:00

A blue night appears
adorned by a fresh breeze of rain
A half cast lamp shines allure
on a dusky velvet street corner
The rain drops marvel their own elegance
in that warm patch of golden light.
The light that holds the night
together.

You were the croon
in some singer's voice
mellifluous molassas
The sway of a belly dancer's hips
You were the grace that epitomizes
a coconut tree
The riotous colours in some Spanish arbol
Electric vibrance.

And what dreams you dreamt
Of sailing to Gibraltar
in a tiny paper canoe
Of kissing the moon
Of siestas stolen
on sunflower petals.
You would trascend your physicality
and burn with the meteors.

But now,
blue night, fresh rain, half cast lamp
and that dusky velvet street corner
contain the foundations of your wounded hope.
Reality kissed you all over and in your soul
a sorrow weeps.
You look at the half cast lamp and think
that once your eyes used to shine as bright.

Mangoes

2006-03-05T19:07:00.000-08:00

Hellow Ladies, Gentlemens, and other vaguely Vagrant Miscretins who have taken to lurking around this site. I realize that this post is late by 6 and a half hours but we shall, as good humans do, blame Walmart for it. Remember, from now on until death or eternity, whenever anything goes wrong, blame Walmart and your life will be complete with fat babies and low prices.

I have very important things to discuss. Like my burgeoning coolness.

I, Nafiza, scratched my hand on the side of a shelf and blood gushed out in blatant defiance to me calling the wound a scratch. So being mortally wounded, I rushed up to the jewelry counter and looked around for a something which I could apply to the fatal wound to have it stop bleeding. The bread was too soggy and the perfume stung. By then, I was seeing extremely creative stills of interesting moments in my life (like when I sat on an anthill and stripped in front of all and sundry, and that time I climbed a tree wearing a dress and my crush saw my knickers.. yeah, very interesting). Then this lady gave me a bandaid. And not just any bandaid. A Winnie the Pooh bandaid. I am so cool, I tell you. I proudly showed off all day. *pops collar*

Next thing I wanted to talk to you about was something I forgot I was going to talk to you about. And don't worry if that didn't make sense to you, it didn't make sense to me either. I feel yawney.

Oh yes, I remember. Wisdom teeth suck horses arses. My mouth was feeling pretty happy and comfortable as it was and then along comes this stupid tooth and starts messing things around and tearing gums apart and creating pain and madness and grumpiness and forced changes in diet.. i do not want to eat soft food. Do I look like I'm about 2 mnths old?

HMPH.

There were some other things I was going to regale you with but since I'm so tired and oblongs, I'm going to go take a nap

Yes, I'm glad you finally realized that the title has nothing to do with the post. Heheheh-ahem.

Excerpts from Within

2006-03-02T16:21:00.000-08:00

My favourite pair of shoes in the entire world would be the one I am wearing right now. My blue jumbo slippers. They lavish my feet with adoration.

I don't need you. No, really, I don't.

I have a letter for the Weeping Willow on the road.

I await my moment of somnambulance with barely restrained eagerness.

Adore a room full of colour.

Orange is my favourite colour. Zesty, fiesty orange. Spicy orange with a hint of sunshine. Orange my life. Orange my forever. Orange me orangier. Orange yorange.

I used to link flowers to make garlands to put around my head so I could dance. The frangipani is gone but shall we ring cherry blossoms and try again?

I'm sending my GrandMother to India. They need her there. You can put her in that big box by the pink Elephant. *big fat evil smile* No, no return ticket necessary.

So.. I am in love. With a dead Greek. With a very Dead Greek. Why can't I fall for available men? Oh wait, I know. Because then I'd have to do something about falling for them. And falling hurts. It always does. And don't tell me the good points about the falling.. nope, zip it, I said, zip it.. yeah that's right, just like that. My Dead Greek Man is Demosthenes. Rowr.

Chocolate lowers blood pressure. Msn.com says so. And I believe msn.com. *nods solemnly* Eat chocolate. It's good for you.

Ok thanks, bye.

2006-03-02T02:31:00.000-08:00

2006-03-02T00:54:00.000-08:00

Theory of a Pineapple-In-Training

2006-02-28T14:16:00.000-08:00

I, Pineapple In Training, am now going to regale you with my latest theory about Boys and their Fickleness. Okay, let me amend that statement. The Boys I Meet and Their Fickleness.

They are all gay.

The Universe agrees with me here. *pats self on back*

Or I am hideous.

But we'll not believe that. Because the Universe says that even The Hideous deserve some niceness.

I am not even green like Elphaba. I do weep green tears though. How do you think I will look with green eyes?

God Bless Mini Eggs and Solidarity. And Pineapple. And Sunshine.

My entire being clamours to return home. Home. I'd lie on that knoll in the middle of the sugarcane field and let the sunshine shine my hurt away. I'm going to fade away if I don't get home soon. I won't even grumble about carrying the pails of water from the well UP the hill to my house. I won't be that big of a baby when it comes to shooing spiders away. I will do ALL the housework. As long as I can go home. I miss it so so so so so much. You don't understand. You could never understand.

I will never ever whine about the dust. And the silence. I will not be queasy about frogs on the ground in the night. And the stupid buses that are always late. I have so much here. I used to have one basketful of clothes and that's it. I used to thirst for books. I promise I won't anymore.

When I get home, the first thing I will do is cry. I know it. I will smell the sea in the air and weep. I will reacquaint myself with the mangoes trees and weep. I'll bawl at the empty house where my kaka used to sit. The house stripped of its people, where we used to have Diwali celebrations. Where my kaka used to read the ramayan and tell us stories. He's gone now. And the family is gone.

My house with the arched walls and the porch and the garden and the well and the banana trees, the henhouse, the tamarind tree, the tank, verandah. And my Daadi's house. The aangan. The people. Lord, I'll cry. Someday. Someday I will go back home.

Insha Allah.

It Tingles AND Vibrates!

2006-02-25T10:32:00.000-08:00

Last night, I was at work from 3:30 (okay it was 3:40, I was late, bite me) till 10:38 (8 minutes extra, I am saved!).

I work at Walmart. ... ... ... Save the stuff about them being evil. I know they are. *yawns loudly* How I know they are. (It doesn't help that I have to go to work at 2:30 today come back at 11:00 and then go back at 9 tomorrow, bastards!).

So anyway, let's fast forward to the tingles and vibrations that you are waiting for, don't deny it, I know you are waiting for it.

Rose (es sudafricano and my partner in crime) and I went to the pharmacy cuz one of us had to pick up a prescription. While we were there:

Rose: OMG, Nafiza!
Me: What?
Rose: Condoms!!
Me: Oooooo

Hey, we are virgins. And women. We don't come across it too often and the chance to actually unabashedly look.. well, the temptation was greater than either of us could resist.

So here are some observations that we made:

1. All of them say they are 100% satisfaction guaranteed. May I ask how they do that? If say someone using one says, "I wasn't satisfied!" what do they do? Rose says they send over a representative who will guarantee the satisfaction, if you know what I mean. Hmm... is this all a conspiracy or a grand scheme?
2. Why do they come in sizes? What man would actually walk up to a cashier and go, yeah, give me the small?!
3. Neon ones do the most business. Eh? Perish the thought.
4. The tingle-promising ones don't do as much business as the vibration-promising ones.

While we were hypothesizing, we didn't realize we were subject to the attentions of the males wandering the aisles one of whom practically choked on his soft drink when I (unfortunately) asked naively, "Well, what are the flavours for?!"

Now it's time for pancakes.

I Thee In All Faith Hate (Or Dislike Very Strongly)

2006-02-23T07:54:00.000-08:00

I was tagged by him. So here I am, obliging.

1. I dislike the management, no, the corporation that is Walmart. Yeah, they are one of the biggest employers on this planet right now and they reproduce faster than bacteria but here, come closer now, at the heart of this all they are is just money making bitches who will work the souls off your feet so that they can make the biggest profit ever.

2. People who don't say please and thank you. I don't care how long you have known me, you observe the niceties and I'll be nice to you. (Unless you've caught me at a bad time and especially if you have woken me up. At work, I meet a gajillion people to whom simple courtesy is rocket science and that is really sad. Can I please wring their thick necks?

3. Celery. I don't care how good it tastes with peanut butter or how good it is for you. I abhor/hate/loathe it. And no potential boyfriend/husband had better eat it. I am not kissing a celery eater!

4. Narrow minds and discriminations.

5. Chauvinistic males. Unfortunately my culture specializes in them.

6. Chemistry labs where I haven't studied beforehand and end up feeling like a doof when I can't extract the given compounds. Arrrrghhhh!

7. My lacking intelligence. Can I be smart already? Please!

8. Waking up early severely displeases me.

9. I dislike Calculus and therefore Isaac Newton. Couldn't he have just gone out and gotten laid and therefore acted the Math out of his system. There's something severely wrong with a man who invents calculus when he's just 24. Really. What was his mother doing?! She should have taken him to a doctor who would have leeched the silliness out of him. Sigh.

10. John Hopkins. That British poet? The one who wrote the Wind Hover. Well, I dont hate him per se.. but his poetry makes my head hurt and it's too early in the morning to not hate him..

11. Lastly, that lilylivered, adulterous, guttersniped nincompoop. Yes I am talking about Sir Lancelot. What the hell? He swives his best friends wife, is the indirect cause of the death of The Lady of Shallot and people still think he is the epitome of male? Doesn't say much for males, does it now. Peh!! String him up and watch his toes twitch in rhythm to death. Oh my, I'm violent. But i HATES the way he is lauded. Remind me to do a post about Sir Lancelot.

There. =)

Birth Days

2006-02-21T00:34:00.000-08:00

Twenty two glorious years on this Earth.

1. a smile in a leaky cauldren.
2. a cricket drunk on dew drops.
3. manna from an imagined heaven.
4. silliness on blueblack starry eves.
5. giggly friends crooning in crooked rhythm.
6. sugarcane juice and sticky faces.7. the scent of the sea, how i miss the scent of the sea.
8. baby bras and full fledged wanton ones.
9. cramps, broken hearts and seashells.
10. affaire de coeur with words.
11. summer sunshine and red slurpees.
12. ice cream when the clock strikes 3 in the morning.
13. utter abandonment. and purple hurricanes with green gales.
14. metermorphosis.
15. eyelashes black as sin and hands in tandem to forever.
16. autumn. starter heels. (i never graduated from them.)
17. shabby coffeehouses and whispered conversations in pentiambic meter.
18. dreams as large as the olympic stadiums in sydney.
19. candy floss on apple sticks.
20. home and hearth and grassy knolls.
21. an orange dawn.
22. a thirst for more.

I am Nafiza

2006-02-18T00:28:00.000-08:00

And now my hair knows who is Boss.

Outpour

2006-02-14T23:07:00.000-08:00

Write my life out with bloodless fingers clutching a depleted pen empty of its ink it refuses to record memory Write my life out of hiatus and urge it into the highway and write it out of the blackness, the hopelessness, the shroud, the wailing and the sadness Write it out of the hearse and out of the grief. Write my life back into the place sunshine smells like sweet rain and pain is as rare as finding three-leafed clover in a field of red tulips Write my life out of Death, funerals pyres and the almost consistent hurt Take a journey inside of me, travel the battleground and take stock of the survivors and note the dead Travel the path created by the mascara when it abandoned my eyes and eloped with the tears My hands clutch the air in a vain attempt to wrest control, to create control where none exists, when destiny knocks insistently two doors down, the yellow sunflower door marked 7. I hide under my blankets and pretend not to exist. I am who I am and I am a cliche. One marigold to forever served with cream and grapes. Write me a violet sunset and end it with the lament of a nightingale.

For Mr. Valentine.

2006-02-12T23:45:00.000-08:00

I think of him
I think of concrete
Tall city buildings
Reaching for the sky
Inertia calling
in some vast man-made forest
bathed with the yellow sunlight
that makes concentric rings around eternity.
I think of him
I think of softly cracked pavements.
And city dusks.
Twilight is the calling card
for all flavours of Darkness.
I see him walk
Poetry flailing in his wake
Sombre stance, body swathed
in broken pieces of yesterdays hearts.
He stands still in front of me
I see snow falling in his eyes.
Happiness didn’t ask what form I preferred him in.

From the Diary of my Soul

2006-02-10T11:34:00.000-08:00

I have been sleeping with the year for nearly five months now and his curves still present me with unfamiliar curves.

I feel like a firebrand
Cinderella, consumed by the soot that accessorized her
and now, she leads an army of chimneys
to rebel against the constant fires.

Mail my life to me in an unmarked brown package.

I am in search of a truth that renders me obsolete.

I sell bottles of Silence labelled Peace. 60 heartbeats the price of one.

My entire life is graffiti. I am a secret splurged in bold colours on someone else's wall.

It's raining sobriquets.

No Words Will Ever Fill this Void

2006-02-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

Death is the culmination of Life. The end we all journey to.

I am either tainted or blessed by my encounters. People die. They do.

I didn't go to the funeral. I hid in my room, curled up on the floor and hoped to hell it the hurt would ease.

I'm still hoping.

I called Pratho last night. Blubbering. Crying so hard my entire body rocked back and forth with the force of my sobs. This is, I will be entirely selfish, so unfair.

Six months and six days, we buried my uncle.

Today they buried my other uncle, his elder brother.

My hold on sanity was growing stronger. I was healing, damnit.

Now I have to start all over again. We have to start all over again.

It's strange the friends I count on. Kuber, Pratho... I love you both. Thanks for being here for me. Even when you aren't physically around. You make me realize that I do matter. And I could perhaps never make you understand how much you helped, just by being on the other side of the phone. Thank you thank you thank you.

Princess Uncharming (Queen Bitch will do too.)

2006-02-07T01:05:00.000-08:00

Can a person exist on cheese and orange juice?

Here are some things I have wanted to say but haven't because I shouldn't but am going to say now anyways.

Preeti, I'm not calling you again.
I'm dedicating Martha Wainwright's B.M.F.A to Tawab. Happy Birthday, darling.
I am getting sick of people.
Do all boys just want one thing?
How do I make my parents realize that failure isn't that bad an option?
I admit it, I'm a shopaholic. Get me some help.
Pratho, I'm sorry that your dog died. I don't know how to make you feel better but I am sorry.
Ravneet, yeah okay.
I do feel incongruous.
I'm an ugly duckling.
I hate PMSing. It is driving me crazy.

There. I'm done. Well, for the moment, anyway. *sigh*

The Last Moment

2006-02-04T22:04:00.000-08:00

So smile
as incandescence
seeps from your wounded eyes
A transient future
a hopefilled dream
stands alone at a rendezvous point
that destiny will never make.

So breathe
as you are confronted
by your own mortality
Your passions and regrets have made their farewells
and receieved their boarding passes.
Give in then
Give in and goodbye.

And understand
the improbability of peace
the impossibility of forever
and as your eyes flutter shut
the betrayal of eternity.

Bakra Qiston Pe, Books

2006-02-03T17:22:00.000-08:00

Now admittedly, I have a wacky sense of humour. I blame it on ^ him. Yes, I do. If you don't understand Urdu, everything that comes out of his mouth will be loud and annoying. If you do know Urdu, well, you will be amused beyond imagination (unless you are one of those constipated types who refused to be amused by anything, keep away from me in that case). Okay so they are loud and they are incredibly biased for the Pakistani side of whatever war they were currently fighting, and the makeup is garish and the women are mostly ugly with a few exceptions and the men are uglier still. But the genius of Umer Sharif, the writer, director and actor is that he takes common things and adds a large dollop of absurdity to it and wham! It's a hit. I sincerely recommend it. Get it from here.

Now on to my other favourite topic. Books. I have been visiting my library like crajie. I know it says that Im reading Grapes of Wrath but I'm sort of.. reading everything else but it. I don't know why it seems so painful for me to get through. I admit he writes beautifully but *sighs loudly* I don't know.

But...*brightens* here's a list of the books that I will be reading!

The Big Over Easy - Jasper Fforde (The man is a genius.)
Princess in Training - Meg Cabot
The Grand Tour - Wrede and Stevermer
This Must be Love - Sutherland
Missing Abby - Weatherly
Perfect - Kellog
Sophie - Burt
Mermaid Chair - Monk Kidd
The Book of Love Letters
THe Book of Nonsense
Kissa Kahani (written in Urdu)
Mother Goose in Spanish
Jorge Else Curioso (Curious George in Spanish, hehe)
Perfect - Natasha Friend
Summers at Castle Auburn - Sharon Shinn
Gone from Home - Angela Johnson
Court Duel
Crown Duel - Sherwood Smith
One Night - Margaret Wild
Now You See It - Vivian Vande Velde
Trickster's Choice - Tamora Pierce
Truth or Dare - Celia Rees

I loooowe reading.

The Wrath of Ravneet

2006-02-01T19:10:00.000-08:00

jbc1ca: so when are u taking me out?
canadian_kudi85: excuse me?
jbc1ca: when can i take you out?
canadian_kudi85: like when hell freezes over...TWICE

*dies laughing*

And in a completely unrelated note, here's my first poem in spanish, do not laugh!

Yo soy Nafiza
De donde Canada
Y antes de morirme quiero
volar con los párajos

Yo vengo de sol y las estrellas

y la tierra triste

Y hacia exito voy:

ahora soy entre belleza

En vida, en paz soy.

Chandarmukha and Preetam

2006-01-31T01:21:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a Pratho.

(There was a Nafiza too but that has no bearing on our narrative so we will disregard it.)

This Pratho was a seedhi saadhi bachi. Pagal si. Bimbo-ish. (I mean that in the most loveable way possible and yes I know my spelling of lov-whatev is questionable, in fact, the entire emotion is questionable, no comments Preeti, we know you are in the throes of the grand pasion, pero soy soltera.)

So anyway, she wasn't really seedhi saadhi, i'm on meth, thas why i'm making this up, god so tired, let me sleep but oh yes, ahem, my story.

Pratho is trying to settle permanently (permenantly? damnit, my spellings gone to the dogs) in Nerdsville but nerdsville is going away, changing countries or something, kinda like a moving island, we have one of those in Fiji, which is a lovely place is Fiji, which is where I come from, did I mention it is a lovely place? Anyway, Pratho became Devdasia. Now we want to know where she can find Chandarmukha and Preetam. And of course copious amounts of alcohol at reasonable prices.

I might drink in sympathy with her. Considering I'mma have to avail myself to a flashing monkey this Valentine's to give me my tingles, yes, and his hipshaking, oh my Allah, it puts the passion in passionfruit...sighhhhh. Anyway, so if u see those two, please be sending them my vay, thank ju.

Yes, I know we are certified crajies.

But we are adorable.

Admit it.

Not cute though.

Adorable.

Bye.

To Sir PervALot

2006-01-28T00:04:00.000-08:00

I hope your butt falls off. And that your wife discovers you for the lecherous ass you are. And that you come home to find that you have been living inside your brain and what you thought was reality was just a complex and sadistic joke God played on you.

Sincerely,
The Girl Who Will Slap You Somewhere it Will Hurt More If You Try Touching Her Again.

To The Sunet God

2006-01-25T00:34:00.000-08:00

I will decorate your body with tangerine kisses. Sprinkle comfort on your burning skin. The twilight clings to you and I want to be numinous. Share your sunshine and I will save you from the night. Your fingers are slender and poised. Siphon my impatience away.

I may keep you for a later delight. You could be my midnight snack.

Whet your appetite. Passion is an art and I am a fledgling connoisseur.

Empty Roads - Conclusion

2006-01-23T18:07:00.000-08:00

The leaves of the frangipani tree glistened in the moonlight, the same moonlight which was bathing his Sorrow, impudence in its every beam. Hope felt Sorrow stir in his arms, her legs entangled in his and he shut his eyes closed, as if he could capture her essence into himself...

"Hope felt a wind comb her fingers through his hair and he opened his eyes. Joy.
"I'll call you with the wind, Hope. You will answer, won't you?"
"Do I have a choice?"
She had looked at him, her fair smile tinged with a sadness as out of place as the song on Sorrow's lips. "No."

"Sorrow felt Hope still. She opened her eyes slowly, luxuriating in the way his warmth embraced her outside.
"Did someone call you?"
He turned towards her, his eyes widened in surprise.
"You heard it too?"
"I heard the wind whisper your name, Hope."
"Yeah."
"Who called you?" Sorrow already knew the answer.
"Sorrow. I promised Joy one answer to her questions."
"You are leaving."
"Sorrow-" Hope tried to keep Sorrow in his arms but she spilled over, leaving his side, turning her back to him.
"You will take the Road away."
"I will come back."
"You still feel for her."
"I will always feel for her."
Sorrow felt herself disassociate. Felt her soul leave... Her body was a tree during a hurricane. The winds ravaged her, damaged her but still she stood, physically inert, living, breathing, being. Her sanity however was never as lucky. She felt herself bow to receive the blow better.
”I am not leaving forever.”
”They sell Forever in tins labeled Bliss in the store.”
Hope saw the emotion leaving her eyes, saw the blankness drop in. She was marble.
”Go, Hope.”
”Will you be here when I return?”
A smile tried arranging itself on Sorrows lips and failed. It left in dejection.
“Hope, Joy spills Sunshine. Cup your hands and capture it. Sip it golden into yourself. What need have you of me when you have Joy.”
“I left Joy.”
“You tore yourself away. You felt that she didn’t need you anymore. And you, Hope, your entire sustenance is someone else’s need. I need. Perhaps more than anyone you’ve ever known. So perhaps you felt like you came home, to a broken Sorrow.”
Hope hurt. It was true perhaps, that Joy hadn’t needed him in the end, but that wasn’t the entire reason he had left. He stared at the flowers the frangipani tree had sacrificed for their night, the flowers who had sacrificed their scent to Sorrows skin…
“I couldn’t stay with her because she didn’t need me. That’s true. But I couldn’t stay with her because you called me constantly. I heard your song. It pervaded me. Led a siege on my consciousness until all I could hear was you. I begged the Road to lead me to you.”
Sorrow cupped Hope’s face in her hands.
“I know I mean to you. I do. Your every thought is a reply to mine. I may be the piece that your puzzle needs to be complete...
“No, Sorrow. Puzzles can be completed by any piece that is shaped often enough. I can fashion a piece to complete a puzzle.” Anger danced her fingers on Hope’s skin. “Joy called me. I told her that I owed her one reply. One reply and that is all. So I will travel to her, I will take the Road away from you, I will leave but listen to me,” Hope wrapped his fingers in Sorrows hair, welcoming the ire of the tangles, “I will come back. And if you are not here, or by the Road singing me back, I will search and I will find you. I will find you.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope found Joy in the purple blossoms of the Jacaranda tree.
“Joy?”
“Hope!” She burst out her welcome in a smile that paled the beauty of the flowers. Even the sun hesitated before shining again.
“You called.” Hope looked at her, feeling the familiar quickening in his heart.
“I did.” She offered him a flower. Hope took it and felt himself falling back into the rhythm that Life is. He now made music with his existence. “A Storm blew into my city, Hope. He spoke of a sad road and a Sorrow who sings to it.” She paused and turned to him, beseeching him with her eyes. “He told me, Hope, that you now sing Sorrow’s song.”
“I do.” And Hope smiled.
Joy watched him and felt an alien emotion try to grab her senses. Despair? Sorrow? He was looking at Joy yet his eyes traced features which were more haunting, which lacked the sunshine that sang in Joy, which hid in the darkness of the night.
“Come back to me, Hope.”
“Joy…”
”I make you smile. I make you glow.”
“You do.” And she did.
“You said you would love me forever.”
”I will.”
“Then I don’t understand! You are my Hope! I let you leave, yes. But that does not mean I will let you stay away from me. How can you not see it? You belong with me.”
“Joy. I was your Hope, yes. But you will still shine without me. These flowers you spend your days with find their succour not from the earth or the sunshine but from you. Even darkness cherishes your light.”
Joy tensed.
“Sorrow is my everything.” Hope gave a half-smile. “How can I wax poetic, attempt to explain… when you feel a feeling that words fail…you’ve found what you have been looking for.” He took a deep breath. “I will love you, forever perhaps, because to know you and not love you is an impossibility.” And he kissed the air on top of her lips.
Joy lowered her eyes to capture that strange fissure of pain that stroked her heart. She nodded at him, serene, and then disappeared into the comfort of her flowers.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope breathed sharply. He felt the air rush down his throat and his fists clenched with the urgency that drove him to return to Sorrow.
Sorrow was in the stars that accompanied the moon’s nocturnal wanderings. She was in the wispy mists that embraced abandoned houses and dreams over stolid landscapes.
Hope rode Secret, racing the night to get to Sorrow. A hundred concerns voiced themselves to him.
She was in the emptiness of his hands.
Hope met the road and felt he might shatter. There was no song to guide him through the darkness.
She was in the absence of the song.
He reached their house and flung open the doors.
Sorrow was in the reigning silence.
The frangipani blossoms now lay wilted. A wistful sacrifice? The trees were stubbornly quiet. They did not speak to Hope. He went to the river, wanting to coax the secret when he realized he had known all the time where she would be.
He traced his steps to the orchard, to that blueberry bush she called “Mother.” And he found her wrapped in its thorny arms.
“Oh Sorrow…” He gathered her from the bush. She lay limp in his arms, her eyes closed, her cheeks decorated with the comfort of the thorns.
“Sorrow…”

Empty Roads - continuation

2006-01-23T00:42:00.000-08:00

“What took you so long?” Sorrow asked the rider. She moved back slightly. He overwhelmed her with his existence.
“You weren’t ready for me.”
“Did the roads not carry you my anguish?”
He shrugged.
“Did you not care that I did not realize that you are?”
“Of course you knew that I am.”
“No, I had no idea.”
“You knew.”
“I did not.”
“Fine, you did not. That is why you did not wait, did not sing me a temptation, a whisper of invitation the road would carry to me.”
Sorrow turned away and prepared to go back to her house. She looked over her shoulder.
“Who are you?”
“They call me Hope.”
“Hope?”
He smiled again, his lips turning up and his eyes deepening.
“And you are Sorrow.”
“To a drop.”
“A tear drop?”
“What else.”
“This is,” and he gestured to his horse.
“Secret, I know.”
“Not much of a secret if you know.”
”Follow me.”
He picked up Secret’s reins, leading and following with the same breath.
“Why are you Sorrow?”
“The same reason you are Hope.”
“I fulfill you.”
”What makes you think that?”
“There is a tale I was told when I was a child. Before the Creator made Sorrow, she was part of a puzzle, tenuously held together by pieces which fit and completed each other. One day struck by some fancy, the Creator picked up the puzzle, and flung it to the heavens. The pieces scattered all over the world and the Creator could only find half the pieces of the puzzle. And from those pieces Sorrow was created. The Creator found the other pieces over Time, the other half of the puzzle and the second half was fused together with tinges of marigold and called Hope.”
“A pretty story.”
“You disbelieve.”
“I don’t not believe.”
”Is this where you dwell?”
They had reached the house. In the moonlight, it looked dark, cold and utterly forbidding.
“It is a charming place.”
”You mock me?”
“I do.” He smiled at her.
“Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like it.”
”You lie.” And he smiled again, wider. His eyes searched the air around her, as if he would breathe in her very essence.
“Come.”
”Only if you give me your hand.”
She stopped and turned to face him. Her cheeks were hollow and her eyes dark. Hope reached out and touched her face. She flinched.
”I sang for you. I sang at midnight, wishing on the death of a million stars for you. The road gifted me with you and you are mine. I will not give you my hand. I will take yours.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorrow did not like mornings. Never mind the crispy freshness that pervaded atmosphere at dawn or the squeaky newness of the world the early mornings were characteristic of. Sorrow preferred to sleep through all of this and wake up only when the Sun had moved up in the sky and the Beloved night was not too far off in the future.

That’s why, perhaps, she was (unpleasantly) surprised when her eyes flew open at dawn. And as soon as her eyes opened, remembrance of the previous night’s events immediately evaded her mind. Her eyebrows knitted as she remembered just how…annoying her Hope was.

She got out of the seductive softness of her bed and padded to the living room where she had made him a makeshift bed. She walked over to the couch, which was also his bed and poked tentatively at the lump that was possibly Hope.

He didn’t move. So she slipped her hand under the covers and touched his arm hesitantly. He felt real. Just then he turned and lay on his back and Sorrow looked in wonder at his face. Winged eyebrows framed eyes that boasted the longest lashes she had ever seen. His lips were full and she reached out to lightly touch them.

They were soft. Her questing fingers skimmed down to his chest and she felt the strength in the corded muscles of his chest. Sorrow drank him in, all her senses attuned to her exploration. After a while, when it seemed she’d burst if she remained looking at him, she turned to leave. But all of a sudden, there was a shackle at her wrist and she felt herself falling backwards. She ended up sitting in Hope’s lap while he cradled her body.

“You were looking at me.” He whispered sounding smug.
”You are mine.”
”So you were looking at me.”
“Yes.”
”You like?”
Sorrow raised her black eyes to his gold ones and found him smiling. Again.
“My turn.”
”To?”
“To look.”
He traced his fingers through her black hair, lifting it away from her neck. Skimming his fingers over the back of her neck. He brushed his fingers over her forehead, eyes, and grooves on her cheeks from the tears she had shed, her lips. At her lips his fingers stopped and he traced the outlines of her lips in fascinated concentration.

“What are you doing?”
“Memorizing your lips.”
”Why?”
“I usually kiss with my eyes closed.” He grinned.
Sorrow felt a strange expression fighting to get out. She felt her lips stretch for the first time and felt herself smile for the first time. She stopped smiling and looked at Hope wide eyed. He smiled smugly.
“Your first smile was mine.”
”Was not.”
”Was too, and I am not giving it back.” So saying, he lay back onto the couch, carrying her with him.
“Let me go.”
”Nope.” Sorrow sighed and settled into the alien feeling of another body beside hers, around hers, holding hers.
”What am I supposed to do?” She asked him.
”Sleep.” He mumbled into her neck.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorrow slept. Cocooned in Hope’s warmth; her body yielded to his shape and she slept a thousand sleepless days away. When dawn impetuously announced the presence of the approaching morning, she opened her eyes to Hope’s gold, blue flecked eyes staring at her.

“What are you looking at?”
“You.” He smiled, just a hint of pleasure in the left curve of his mouth.
“Why?”
“You are beautiful.”
”I am?” ”Oh yes.” And saying that he buried his face in her neck. Sorrow squirmed.”And what are you doing now?”
”Breathing you in.” Laughter was skipping lightly in his tone.
”You, Hope, are strange.”
”Have you ever been kissed?” Hope asked her curiously.Sorrow got up from the couch, depriving herself of Hope’s warmth. She avoided his gaze. ”You have? Who was he?” Hope’s voice grew darker, his eyes flooding with something that Sorrow called Jealousy.
Sorrow shrugged. “He doesn’t matter.”
”He does matter. Some part of you was defined by him. Tell me about him.” Possessively, Hope pulled Sorrow onto his lap, her back to his face. So Sorrow orchestrated a hurricane and conjured up Storm with her words, using the gales in her narration to lead through the pathways her broken relationship had frequented.

Sorrow gave herself liberty and gave herself Hope.

There was a frangipani tree in Sorrow’s garden. It had bloomed and Sorrow had stared in wonder at the blossoms drenched in fragrance. The fragrance of a frangipani flower seduces effortlessly, its tendrils enveloping and nibbling.

Hope told her of his lost love. Sorrow thought it made sense that he had one. Her name, he said, was Joy. She was incandescent. But as much as they loved, Joy didn’t need Hope. In fact, in the face of Joy’s brilliance, Hope felt himself fading. Just a little every day. So Hope fled and as he did he heard Sorrow’s song and he knew he belonged again.

Slumber Party

2006-01-21T04:59:00.000-08:00

A Requiem For Heartbreak

2006-01-20T19:09:00.000-08:00

I did not love him.

He didn't love me.

Maybe an affected affection. A fondness. A solace.

Maybe I am flawed in some irreparable way. Not beautiful enough, not thin enough, not smart enough.. just not enough.

I look at my life and I make a necklace of heartbreaks listing each subsequent year of maturity. I will not cry.

I don't know why I made him into a weakness of mine. I am stronger than that. I am. Yet, I let him have power over me. I feel like cyanide. Bitter. Tired.

But the least I deserve is respect. Courtesy. Am I not worth some effort? Do I not desrve some niceness? Everybody wants someone to love, right.

I hurt so much right now.

He was suitable. Right religion. Good family. Decent to look at. But I don't love him. Is it a bruised ego I suffer from? But I am the one who ended it.

Now all I need is strength. Of will and emotion. I won't spend the weekend crying. Life goes on. No one knows that better than me. This is just one more thing I will have to get over.

But maybe I can be forgiven a couple of tears...

Secrets and Midnight: Part Two

2006-01-20T10:34:00.000-08:00

Perhaps it was meant to be this way. Perhaps Life had no other purpose than to end. Sorrow stilled as another wave of grief hit her and she convulsed with the pain.

He was endless, ruthless, the envoy of some dark Monster who imbibed on pain to live. Her name, as chosen by her Mother, was also a title some would say she was born into, or born for. Sorrow thought it was melodramatic, the cadence of her name painting a pain she now thought as familiar as waking up in the morning.

Loss coloured her life with deep black and gray strokes. She was used to it. Perchance, last spring, she had stumbled onto a group of children and from their lips issued music and they had glowed with a strange Power Sorrow could not identify. She had stared in wonder as their bodies had become infused with this light, this yellow light, that try as she might, she could emulate.

She knew it wasn’t a strange Power, knew she herself had experienced it, in some other lifetime.

Sorrow looked at the road, shining in the moonlight and felt perturbed at its continuing emptiness. She had sung countless songs, countless times and yet it remained stubbornly empty, bereft of the grooves that the other roads boasted.

Grief. Over what she had known-oh she remembered his slight smiles; each one had a different story, a different beginning and a different end. At first she had resisted his curious glances, his bold overtures and his presence. But if nothing else, he had been persistent in his efforts to brush off her mystique onto himself, and he had almost succeeded.

Indeed, it had almost become so that Sorrow was a wraith alone and only became a tangible entity once she was with him, almost but not quite. His name had been Storm. And he had been intent on invading and conquering. But Sorrow was not just a storm, at her deepest depths there raged a hurricane, munificent in its rage. And Storm hadn’t been able to give in and adapt to that intensity. He had feared to be consumed by it so he had fled, taking the same road that Sorrow sang to.

What is the purpose of a road? To take people away? To bring people to their destination? If so, Sorrow thought, this road was just half a road. It took people away from her but never brought any to her.

So Sorrow stood, looking at the road, knowing that if she stopped singing, it would end. She wasn’t sure exactly what would end but something would. So she sang once again, one last time, in that crystalline stillness of midnight. Her voice linked to the dew falling and made a riotous dance in the air.

And that is when she the horse and then belatedly, the rider. First she heard a strange pounding, and the road tensed and her voice caught, abandoned by the dew. Then she saw it, eluding the whispers of the night and the mist. Sorrow’s eyes widened until they filled up her face. The horse was midnight; the rider was dressed to emulate the horse. She called him Secret. They rode the night towards her.

She stood, caught in the fulfillment of some ancient prophecy. And even as they stopped in a wild rush, almost but not quite trampling her. The horse stilled and the rider climbed down from its back, sleek in his movement.

He had midnight hair, midnight eyes and a midnight smile. On his cheeks, Sorrow bloomed. He walked over to her, his gait confident of a welcome. He stopped when he was so close she could see the blue flecks in his eyes. Smiling a crinkly smile, he said, “You sang?”

*I Sing to Empty Roads: Part One

2006-01-19T10:41:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, in the lesser known kingdom of Nowhere lived a girl. We won't give her a name yet because we are not quite sure which name to give her, which name would single her out from others among her age bracket and render her unique among her contemporaries.

Suppose she sang to empty roads, at the brink of midnight, when the night is enthralled in the secret feud between itself and day. She would slip out of bed, grab a shabby shawl from the side of her bed and leave her warm covers for the dark clovers of the night. She would putter her way out the front door, outside, across the gravel, outside the gate to the empty road which glittered in the moonlight and sing, in celebration of the moonshine.

We don't know what she wanted to achieve with her ephemeral singing, all her songs were in languages we don't understand. We wondered if she awaited something to come along the empty roads, a frog prince perhaps, or a pumpkin coach but we didn't dare ask. But night in, night out and night in between, she would make her way to the empty road and sing, a sad siren song, in hopeful seduction of some unfulfilled dream.

This girl had a mother once, a very nice and kind one, one who smelt like cinnamon cookies on sunshiney afternoons. Afternoons when yellow butterflies danced with the flower sprites, paying no heed to the harm that came of the association. Flower sprites considered butterflies (yellow ones especially) a great delicacy. Her mother was beautiful, who put ribbons in the girl’s hair, plaited and neat, and who knitted her stockings and sweaters to keep her warm. But one day, the girl's mother went away.

She left a little note by the blueberry bush, saying that she took the road to a heaven which called her even more urgently than the need of this one.

The girl fell in love with the boy who lived across the river and together they stained their lips with the red of raspberries, sating their senses with each other and nature. The girl found solace in the many smiles of the boy and called him hers, his each eyelash belonging to some unexpressed longing of the girl's.

One day, when the leaves in the forest rustled with startling ferocity, the boy packed himself up and walked out of the girl's heart, taking the road to a kingdom better known and more fertile than the humble harvest of the girl's kingdom.

The girl had a father too. Before she had her mother or her boy. She had her father. And her father was a soldier. Big, brawny and shiny, like the medal on some general's shoulder. Her father carried her on his back, tickling her till she pealed bright petals of laughter, falling helpless to the charms of happiness. But her father had to leave too. And he too took the road. And he too never came back, his bones creating a home for some plant in a foreign land.

So the girl sings to an empty road. Crying tears which react with the night and form sooty pathways from her eyes to her chin. The girl, singing at midnight, in a glassy cadence of losses lost past and future. We will call her Sorrow.

*This entire story comes in seven parts and is being posted not in its entirety to conserve some of its mystery. It's all copyrighted, confer the clause at the bottom of the page. =)