too soon

Everything has been too soon. You having to go, too soon. Me missing you after you've gone, too soon. Us fighting over things that haven't happened, too soon. You wishing I'd call you and tell you everything's okay, too soon. Me doing those very exact things, too soon. You and I worn out from all the effort, too soon. Us missing us, too soon.

You say we are like a bad diet. I overlook the consequences of bingeing. You overlook the consequences of starving. I say hey it's better than not dieting at all.

Just before we binged, I have been working on a shelf taller than me. There is safety in not reaching, just slightly out of grasp. If it's just air you're wildly swinging at, there is nothing to break.

Maybe we got there too soon. Even if it took a year and a half.

I just hope that one day, we won't be too late.

do you wonder how I am tonight

When everything has gone horribly wrong, I think I would still be okay somehow.

Because I still have this song.

***

From the Bottom of My Heart -- The Wallflowers

Fire on the porch on a summer's night
All of my things are there inside
Black smoke rise up, burn on burn higher
I smell leaves and burning tires
Dogs in the meadows barking wild
Blackbird rise up, tell me what have you done

I'm not drunk and I'm not sad
There's nothing inside that I want back
Let me touch your lips, let me see where you're at
Do you wonder how I am tonight
Then don't lose time looking in my eyes
Not every tear means you're gonna cry

From the bottom of my heart
Comes a cold dark feeling
There is nothing but dust
In the layers I'm peeling

From the bottom of my heart
Beats a rattling drum
Marching back up the steps
Into the rays of the sun

Under crushing skies of grays
Paralyzed with phantom pains
Before this room became just a place
Where I just sleep through endless days
Spinning webs and carving names
Where thoughts break up, exploding in space

But I once crossed a quarter mile
Through black pools of razor wire
And cut through the steel
with the edge of a file
While singing rhapsodies in stride
Hellbent and dignified
Now my time has come
Who you fooling and why?

From the bottom of my heart
Comes a cold dark feeling
There is eminent death
to the promise I'm keeping

From the bottom of my heart
Comes an army of one
Marching back up the steps
Into the rays of the sun

Pale-faces and hollowed eyes
Buried under ruptured skies
Not every smile
means I'm laughing inside
Two-face and compromised
I've enraptured you with lies
Everything means nothings
and tonight everything is mine

From the bottom of my heart
Comes a cold dark feeling
I have buried so much
In the layers I'm peeling

From the bottom of my heart
A battle will come
Marching back up the steps
Into the rays of the sun

From the bottom of my heart
Comes a cold dark feeling
Wrapped around tight
With no sign of leaving

From the bottom of my heart
A ballad is sung
Through a whisper she comes
Into the rays of the sun

axe

it hangs above
and over our heads
like a cloud
or an axe
we wait
for gravity
to do what it should've done

the curse of expectations

Life is easier to get through when you give yourself a lower set of expectation. My expectation of things has become quite high lately, this resulting in life becoming more complex than it necessarily has to be. It is easier when you expect nothing out of people. Whatever they give you is an unexpected gift, you will appreciate and cherish.

Expectations go up when they are usually met. Is this the crux of the problem? I should've aimed low, and never be dissapointed. But aim low enough and there's bound to be someone who can meet you there. Then you start to raise your bar, raise your price, raise your voice. Lately this is what I have become. Someone who's close to shouting. Someone in the edge of screaming because her expectations aren't met.

I need to tell myself it is okay to be quiet.

What I need is to recalibrate. I pretend to misread and recelebrate instead.

ee pee ell

Malam ini aku mungkin akan bermain bola padang. Buat pertama kalinya.

Fifi cakap penalty box tu je dah nak sama besar dengan satu futsal pitch.

Ah bagaimanakah untuk tidak offside! Sangat tidak reti.

I must think like Steven Gerrard.

nike and me

I went for a run/jog/trot/slowcrawlingwalk earlier. Now my body is reeling from the amazement at how much pain it's in. Every move is accentuated with great drama. I haven't been running for quite a while, puasa month and all, but it is surprising how much shock it's in now from the exertion.

Running is great, but it's the walking after that I look forward to. Just me and my iPod, and a million thoughts, lined up like candies, waiting to be sorted out. This year I've been Nike's most fervent endorser. Just Do It (TM). Just do, do, and do. Don't stop and think because who knows where that might lead you. No, actually, you know where it will lead you but you don't want to go there.

Now there is time to think. No, time has always been available, but the want was not. It's the thinking that will do you in, I used to say to people. I believe this, before and now, still.

So I'm still not thinking. Because thoughts are only necessary if there is something that needs solving.

Things are solved. What is required of me now isn't thinking, but making peace with the solution.

what's right about leaving the left

I have left this place for a long time. What I left was a state of mind, a state I wanted to be foreign to. I keep saying, you are what you're used to. When I started to leave I was unused to certain things, like leaving a leash you're somewhat fond of. A leash that kept things familiar. But I left and started to get used to leaving. I started to get used to the things opposite. Everything is about this, it seems, what you're used to. What you're used to. I like repeating this. To get used to it.

After I left there were a lot of things that I have come to get used to. The things opposite. I became the citizen of the other state of mind. The roots are similar but the nuances are sparkingly different. You can only tell this when you're in transition. What is similar and what is different. Once you've gotten used to things, everything becomes similar to what you are. This is the curse of citizenship.

At this juncture the smart thing to do is choose, pick the similars and differents, the ones I want to live with. The ones I can bear to live with.

I am in transition. There will be a lot of metaphors about passports. Haha.

menunggu pagi -- peterpan

I write about things that don't matter. Throw all of this, and what belongs to the next person, and see if the world tips. What if the world is a fucking big waiter. We tip hoping she would wait for us. A little longer. But she doesn't, she's waiting for the crash, she's waiting for that acting job. Entire world's a stage, we're just waiters. What if nothing makes sense, relativity is just a short piece of yarn. Absurd and inadequate. What if everything matters, then how can you test anyone. Variables are good at varying. How could you change your mind now, when nothing is in place. Yet. Let me stay here for a while. One of these days I will figure things out. One of these days I will build a stadium, a wheel, a stage. One of these days I'll be the person you thought you knew.

the plumber

This is a short story I wrote few weeks back after sending a good friend to the bus station. It is written equal parts real imaginations, imagined realities. To be continued when I can find the time, or the inspiration, or the energy.

*****

She sends him away, like a pack of dogs, like a pack of cards. The bus waits patiently, like a patient. Its humming reverbrates against the gravel, rattling someone’s nerves.

“Take care, I will see you soon.” He says, while unloading his luggage from the backseat of her car.

“You too, and thanks for dinner.” She says, checking her rearview mirror.

It has always been like this between them. Staccato sentences, speaking in duals. There are moments that leap out of the ordinary, when she thinks she could hold his hand, and ask him to marry her there and then, given the right situation, given the right givens.

But most of the time they speak like this. Disjointed. In fragments.

He stands outside the car, waving a little wave. She wonders if he’s always wanted something more out of all this, if she’s always wanted something more.

She always wanted something more. It’s just that she’s not sure more of what exactly.

“Call me when you get there, have a safe trip.” She shifts into reverse gear.

“I will, do not worry.” He takes a step back.

She drives away, glancing at her rearview mirror. The bus hums a little more louder.

***

While driving she switches on the CD player, Bruce Springsteen on the deck. It makes her a little wistful, a little misty. Springsteen does that to her, that gravel road of a voice of his, that blue collar machismo. If I could ever marry someone it would be Bruce, she thinks to her own thoughts. He will work in construction, stacking like he don’t remember, I will act like I don’t care. She adores the way he adores a girl in each song. Like a swan, like a song, like a bridge, a river, gone horribly wrong.

At the red traffic light the mind wanders a lot. What if he is all the things she’s been looking for. What if she’s been missing out, out of misapprehension, out of miscomprehension. She always feels like she’s been misinterpreting a lot of things lately, like a bad dictionary. What if she has been reading everything out of context, what if, what if.

What would it be like, reading everything in of context, then?

What an unfamiliar concept!

***

He shifts in his seat a little, feeling a little forced into a shape, like a big, clunky, squarish L. He could’ve afforded a flight, if he wanted to, but the quickness of journey isn’t what he is after. He loves distance, and the stretchy illusion it proffers. He feels when he is someplace else he is always excused. Geography makes people more forgiving, he figures. The further you are.

There are two girls in the seats behind him, chattering somewhat whisperishly. Out of slight curiosity he closes his eyes, stretches his legs a little, and eavesdrops.

“When I grow up I want to be like her.” Says one.

“Yeah it would be so rad to have a job like that, Lonely Planet show host. Imagine all the places you get to go!” Says the other.

“But I probably would refuse to eat all the gross stuff. Euu.” Then she makes a half-choking sound.

“Fried rats! Can you imagine!”

He smiles to himself. He figures he would’ve stayed away from fried rats too. He wonders what else would he stay away from. A fried raccoon would’ve been doubly disturbing, he thinks.

She comes to mind, like an invited plumber.

The further you are.

******

to be continued.

under my skin -- rachel yamagata

You keep saying you don't know what you want. I argue like a politician: this is what you want, you just don't know it yet. But even a politician, a politician especially, sometimes doesn't know what she's fighting for. Sometimes I think I love you like a cause. Save the trees, and make trade fair. I fight like there's still tomorrow. I fight like reelection's in five years' time. I fight knowing the inevitable. Trees die and people lie. I bid my time. I pace myself. I hold babies and smile for the cameras, when necessary. But in my hesitant nights I am busy scheming plans. Save the trees and make trade fair. You are the cause I choose to fight for. Losing you, losing you, would mean the end of my short career.

di suaaasanaa haari rayaaa

Selamat Hari Raya to all.

Play nice on the road, kids.

shadowboxer -- fiona apple

hey gorgeous
just stay behind that line
don't make me come over
and make you wish you wished
oh you wish you wish you wish
you didn't know me too well

*****

i am a bleeding magnet
repelling is my gift
funny patterns on paper
party tricks and chicks
i attract metal
is it a cosmic curse
that they can't do the same
unless rubbed vigorously

*****

hold the trigger tiger

i know -- fiona apple

The moment you think this is all there is, something else waltzes along, like a swan, like a snake. Temptation runs regularly, like good plumbing. What do I do, what do I do with this one. Temptation is not to be ignored, that would be the most careless sin. I am tempted to ignore this, though. That seems like something that I've never done before. Just let this one pass, let this one pass, like a bridge.

*****

The moment you think you'll manage, something else gets rebuilt. It's another town, another city, another cab.

but here's the thing

The wizard told me to wait before I leap. There's no point in looking, you'll never see it, he said. Steal glances from the corner of your eye, that's how you catch glimpses into the real, sur. Never look at things, straight in the eye. Yours or theirs. That's how you get burned. Because for those who've seen too much, there is no way to un-know. It will follow you like a scent, knowing. The best you can do is forget, forget, foregone.

******

Once you've forgotten, what is left, you wonder. Is this what you really want?

******

Sometimes you go through life thinking no one understands. Sometimes this is true. The other times, even truer. There is bland loneliness in cliches. You go through life looking for someone who understands. Simply caring is never enough. You want a broody rockstar, you want a tortured writer, you want someone who makes it her business to join words and turn them into some other meaningless business. You want someone who will break your heart, because what good is any of it if it's unbreakable. You seek pleasure from dismantling parts, and leaving the mess for someone else to fix, someone else to blame.

In being alone you break yourself. And derive sick pleasure from it.

This is what I am. What I have turned into.

If you can convince me that this is a bad thing, you will have me forever.

mungkin nanti -- peterpan (oh ariel)

You see me sitting there
And you wonder if it's you I'm thinking about
There are few things on my mind
That you should know
Fewer that you shouldn't
It is hard to write when you're not lonely
So here am I trying to write something
For no one.

how to be dead - snow patrol

The greatest thing about being dead inside is, when dealt with the expected blow (another great thing when you’re dead inside, everything is already expected, you have the gift, the curse, of premonition), you really, at the super deep core level, feel, nothing. It is hard to feel, when the element of surprise is no longer there. How can you really, actually, honestly feel, what you’ve already felt before? Emotions, swirly things, they’re not like triplicate forms. They’re more like, used band-aids. Peel strip snatch. Feel snip stretch. Whatever you’re feeling now, you haven’t experienced it before. Everything is once off, you’re off the hook, you’re the worm inside the bait.

Wait, wait, you think, surely some experiences repeat themselves, like candy mistakes? Something sweet gone terribly misshapen, like a Dali. Malformed butterscotch lines, a hesitant peppermint strays from the assembly line. Everything is out of place. You write to straighten things out, but nothing gets said. You have a gelatinous blob of ego around your heart, masquerading as the real McCoy. The other McCoy is out for groceries, that’s what she said six months ago. Sometimes you think the only thing keeping you safe is elasticity. You wonder who needs wood. You love your ego too much, that’s the only way you know what a bruise is. You don’t know anyone else named Bruce, except a couple of actors. You grow to love to watch things turn purple. Like a blueberry swirl. Just another candy mistake.

It’s like living in reruns. You begin to wonder if you will get paid in royalties.