In memoriam

A pause, a moment of suspended breath, where I find myself in a memory of light shafts on white ceilings, cobbled stones darkened by rainwater, alleyways full of wind halting my walk; and other warmer scenes of S. sitting on the carpeted floor against her bed, the fan pulled out of the back room finally of use in the summer heat, blowing the strands of her jet black hair about her white forehead into her brown eyes, and I, cross-legged on my bed, back to the cool wall, tapping away at the keyboard, sealing memory into eternity.

Days and days of sunlight, blue skies, brisk weather and countless cups of shared coffee with our twin lipstick stains around its edges. Days and days of songs about youth, of my witnessing S's lovegames, while I indulge in my ever permanent devotion to being singly poetic and ever single. Days and days of films projected against the pristine wall of our shared room, the whirring of the electric heater, like crickets in Autumn.

Soft, tender and vibrant; night walks in the city, aimlessly wandering the streets to listen to buskers, people watch, and finally crashing at Sofy's place. Me watching the two women going about their wicked friendship which ran hot-cold-hot, too familiar, like lovers (but not) in their intricate dance of secrecy, fondness for each other's beauty; the play of womanly egos. Morning afters where the kitchen is filled with music, as they cook and dance, while I sip my drink and enjoy their light-heartedness.

Lazy days of staying in bed, talking to S. in voices muffled by our quilts, making plans for the weekend, plans to the library, plans to buy grocery at the market; for domestic youthful pleasures. 

I have committed no other person to my memory as I have S. Her personality, physicality, hopes and dreams –all as familiar to me as my own. She is a moving image in technicolour so pervasive with happiness that I cannot part any conception of her from the feeling. While I'm at it, similarly, I have committed no other person to my soul as I have M. M. who is my prose, poetry, ever-friend.

Younger days; freedom so concentrate it leaves a taste on the tip of the tongue.

Another beat, another breath, the spell is broken. Reality rushes in, time catches up and the present is restored. Now is now. The satisfying weight of nostalgia nestles neatly upon my heart, which smiles and aches. I walk on, with dregs of bittersweet joy clinging at the corners of my mouth, dimpling my rosy cheeks.

reflections

Sometimes I hurt so much I wish I've never met you. I then would never have discovered the muses, attached to their songs and words ideations of you, would have never known, never wanted, never suffered.

All light casts shadows, and once it leaves, abandons you to darkness.

I choose here to be blind to the myriad of joys I've known and cherish (still) to instead openly wallow. Just for a moment, I'll sit with reality while we give each other hard looks over imaginary coffee.

Dear M.

14th November 2015

Saturday

     It's midday, I'm sitting on my front porch listening to Bowie's Space Oddity (I'm also wearing my $5 astronaut nat  geo shirt) as I contemplate the idea of enjoying 'moments' without thinking of what the future might bring. Simple pleasures like writing, tea, reading etc. They're only fun / pleasant when one has the luxury of being idle and carefree.

     I watched a video on YT last night, of a 17 year old boy who is dying of cancer; he was giving a speech to his peers about 'Life'. He said people should strive for short-term goals rather than long-term ones. He used the term 'micro-ambitious'. To be passionate with what is in front of us rather than squander it and waste energy and time in dreamings. It's quite a viewpoint, I think. Makes me think about my current life / work, how I probably should do more studying in order to become a better asset to the hospital. I don't know... I can't seem to put my heart in it... on this score, I believe you do understand me.

     I've been thinking about A. How does one brave a world without parents? It sounds nigh impossible. I know her Mother is still around but still.

     

     I haven't much else to say really.

     I've just spent an entire hour scooping my guppies out from the water plant flower pot and put some of them into the stone basin thing (part of the koi pond water feature). One of them died in the process. Fell onto the floor and I watched it drown. I couldn't make myself touch its wriggling body. Cowardice. I'm sorry, fish. My heart practically raced when they bump around in the round plastic container I used to scoop them out of the water. Was so worried more will fall onto the floor...

    

    That aside I then proceeded with watering the potted plants Mother bought when she went to that gardening class a couple of months ago. We have kangkung, daun sup, daun bawang, kunyit, and a couple more I can't name.

     I enjoy this very much. Water, Sun and Living Things. Maybe I should just work at a plant / flower nursery when I'm done with my two year (minimum) stint in the health ministry. Maybe with a pharmacy license I could just locum a few days a week and make just enough money to get by. I don't know. Do you think it has to do with us being millenials that we're so... reluctant to make a living via conventional ways. Perhpas I'm just used to being a bourgeoisie ... too pampered by my parents' well-to-do-ness that I fail to understand what is required to attain comforts and pleasures in life.

     A pension. Working in the government will acquire one a pension. 60 years of one's life for what? For 10 years of so called 'relaxation'? Our parents basically worked hard so that they could provide for us. Now look at me... ungrateful sloth.

     Seeking to coast by and indulge in idleness. What is to become of me. There is one thing that I do enjoy doing at work though (sorry for going off on a tangent), helping people out of my own volition, moments at the hospital when I suddenly find myself facing a stranger in need; a Mother trying lift her pushchair onto the sidewalk, a nurse whom had accidentally turn medicine cart over, a patient looking for directions, a friend who is having trouble doing her work etc. That, I enjoy. I do understand that what I do on a daily basis is basically 'service'. I know. I help people with their meds. "It is a noble job," I've been advised. I know. I just... am not interested in being overworked for an all too practical sense of 'nobility'. You know what... maybe the hospital is too far is all. Maybe I'm just tired from driving inter-state twice a day is all.

     Enough already.

     Til another time, M.

Ever yours,

      P.

p.s. I've been trying to get some roses sent to you all morning. I'm not sure if the florist is getting my message.

________________________________________________________________

Note: Letter I wrote M. which I can't hand to her because she's in Kelantan til Sunday. M., if you're reading this, it's very much in the vein of our recent phone call isn't it.

(yet another letter for M.)

Dear M.

This is sudden but I feel like writing to you. I've been observing the sky on my daily commute to work (as I am prone to. The weather affects my mood on a daily basis as if it were a premonition that needs to be obeyed. It sets my mood regardless of how my day goes. I know you share this penchant of mine so here I am); and it has been. . . when was the last time that I saw a cloudless blue sky? I can't remember. This haze has gone on for months now. It makes me miss Australia. Especially when the haze sometimes looks like that ethereal fog Melbourne is prone to in Autumn.

In particular, I observe the Sun. The haze often renders it muted, robs it of blinding radiance, leaves it a muted salmon coloured disc against a backdrop of grey-blue. It is quite charming to look at but it makes me sad. Today though, I think not of the Sun as an object (as one tend to regard trees by roadsides / highways equivalent to street lights), today I saw the Sun as it is meant to be seen, a creation. The Sun is a celestial object that this entire planet we live on orbits. It is an axis, giver of vital light and most of all, the Sun expires day by day. I gaze at the Sun and I think, it gazes back at me.

The Qur'an has made it clear that creation are not unfeeling. They are sentient, they witness us. Even the mountains shuddered at the prospect, the responsibility of carrying a soul. The Sun gazes back. This divine creation, it is but one in a universe full of other distant and far more incandescent stars. 

What I'm trying to convey is, there is more out there. Beyond this abode, there is Eternity. Colours beyond our spectrum, planes of universe to be unveiled, and most of all, there are experiences unimaginable.

It soothes my ever-thirsting soul, this epiphany. One always requires reflection to notice how deprived our inner lives had become. 

You and I, during our time in Australia, we discovered that faith in its truest sense, is intellectual. We discovered that to purport religion is not via the mehanical observance of rules. We found the treasure of meaning, knowledge; the red, beating heart of having beliefs, of what it means to strive for the sublime.

Now though, we are besieged by dispassion. It takes heart to remain a seeker of knowledge. 

Also, I was going through my letters and postcards and noticed that letter by Al-Ghazali (which you carelessly tore from that book of letters -I find this habit of yours extremely endearing but you already know this don't you) you gave me by way of a parting gift when I flew to Melbourne for the first time and here is a line from it;

"There are very few persons who have the aptitude for the acquisition of true knowledge and are endowed with piety."

And this is a quote Ghazali included at the end of the letter;

" 'To every Science its own people; And each man finds easy that for which he has been created apt.' "

I'll leave you to ponder my choice of including these two excerpts. They are in the spirit of our brief exchange via text this morning I think. 

At any rate, darling tempest, I hope your anxieties about 'the uncertainty of the future' has at least lessened somewhat. You and F. will be fine. Also, not that this needs to be reiterated but, I am nothing if not constant in my affections for you. So there.

Until next time.

Ton ami,

P.

A private kind of happiness

Dear M.

I have 5 minutes to write this. The car is cool and the afternoon sun is too bright, its white rays flooding the semi-darkness of my parked car. I avoid people at lunch time, I prefer this solitariness. People need not concern themselves about me.

I'm glad you sound alright. Alright enough at any rate. 

Also, thank you. Like you said, no words are needed. A private kind of happiness.

We'll brave the world.

Ever and ever yours,

P.

SS Revisited

I carefully pull my copy of Spring Snow from its place on my desk; wedged tightly between Kundera's Life is Elsewhere and The Decay of The Angel (The last book in Mishima's Sea of Fertility Tetratology -which I still have not yet read).

I open the book and the scents of various perfumes; faint now but present still, greets me softly. I had stuck about twenty strips of paper all saturated with different perfumes between the pages. This I did back in Melbourne, and now the book smells as enchanting as its content. Deceivingly so perhaps.

What is love anyway? An affection for another. In my case perhaps, it feels like a fixed point in time; my affection for M. Like a derelict fortress built within the confines of my heart, secluded from the currents of Time. A garden surrounds it, now barren where it used to flower. My words have mostly shrivelled where it used to bloom.

I can say though that when I usually perceive this fantastical, infinitely precious place as if it is nighttime where it is, now I perceive it in daylight. The walls are lit by an afternoon sun, its broken windows letting various slants of sunlight spilling onto its cracked marble floor. Dust motes everywhere, broken things everywhere. What was waterlogged now dry and crisp like the yellowed pages of aged books.

This fortress. It truly is invincible. It is mine. Built for another yet it is completely and utterly mine. It is quiet here, and I am uninterrupted where I set foot in it. Loss is the soft winds stirring the dusty ground. My friend the wind; sole companion, witness of me.

These words its very walls. Each visitation feels like an astringent to an open wound. Sharp, and then; just numb.

I shall write candidly, for it doesn't matter anymore. A relic of old I can now examine like faded photographs.

How keen. How vapourous. How dark.

Dear M.

On another note. I miss you. The you that I address in my writings. I should finish writing that letter & just drop it in your mailbox. That postcard you sent me from Saigon made me nostalgic.

How did I manage to fill an entire journal with nothing but thoughts of you? I can't remember what it feels like anymore.

Also, I still don't think I'll ever fall in love. I lack the propensity for it (as I've said to you, a thousand times over) and suitors (lol). 

Dear M.,

Truth be told, I had already started writing this in my mind, behind closed lids as I struggled to fall asleep, last night. I told myself to just shut up and save the sentimental word vomit for morning (which is where I am now). I kept twitching as I tried to fall asleep. People do that when they are tired. I’ve been sleeping an average of 4 hours every 24. Anyway, I’ve fixed that this morning with a much needed nap.

“Just don’t smile at me, please,” Zooey said evenly, and walked out of the vicinity. “Seymour was always doing that to me. This goddamn house is full of lousy smilers.”

Ha. I trust you enough to feel like whatever goes through your mind as you read that excerpt will reflect what I think as well. Perhaps it is arrogance to feel so, but I do. I honestly do. I’m still reading it. Relishing it in fact. I stop when I’m tired of it so as not to read carelessly.

Here comes the sentimental tripe… You smile a lot. When you first met F. I will describe it to you, my favourite smile of yours (smiles varies, people generally have a repertoire of smiles); this smile usually comes when I’m talking. When I’m saying something or the other and you’re listening with a benevolence only you could muster for my mindless garble. You would be quiet and you would meet my eyes for a second and then lower them to the ground, with this smile still intact. In that second, a knowing look glints in your eyes. Yet in saying nothing and simply smiling, therein lies your enigma. I would frown (in my mind if not actually) and wonder. It’s an endearing albeit infuriating sort of smile. I generally chalk it down to “hinting at sadness” but you could be ridiculing me for all I know. Not that I think you do.

I’m actually working myself up to write something more substantial in this ‘letter’ but alas I need to go pick my brother up from school. A sketch of your smile, in words, unbidden sentimentality and my standard brand of foolish feigned omniscience.

I’ve to go now.

Yours,
     P.

20th January '15

Dear M.,

"You told me there would be a permanent record. That they would always know I had been there," you said to me when I questioned you on why in the world would you say something like that to Maya, whom was in a similar situation you were in. We had this conversation last year, and I realized that you believed me back then.

I lied. I knew no such thing. I was scared. Beyond scared. I wanted to pose over you a threat. To discourage you from going along so rakishly with everything that went down. It seemed like it was all going the way you 'planned' it. I was 15 and worried out of my mind. So I lied. I never realized how much stock you put into my words. You never seemed to pay attention to anything I said back then. Never seemed to feel...anything at all, apart from some paralyzing melancholy, or ennui.

I latch onto this unsavory anecdote because Maya texted me today. And I am still reading Salinger's Zooey. All this reading about Franny and Seymour got me thinking of the past. Of our more impressionable years. My desire for your attention, approval, what-have-yous. Not that that aspect has dampened at all [through out the past decade], merely tempered with. Appeased.

Anyway, I can't remember when you said you would be coming back. In a few days I assume. Seeing that my life is completely vacant these days (until God knows when), I don't pay attention to the days. For some –ah, mother interrupted me just now. I've lost my train of thought. Nevermind.

Speaking of mother. She has been telling me an awful lot about the work politics menacing her lately, She's even considering quitting her job (in a manner of speaking  –6 months unpaid leave). Some manner of injustice done onto her and her colleagues by a new 'Director'. An iron-fisted, despotic [is this correct?] sort of egotistical beast. Idk. All the speak I seem to ever hear these days are bad news, or complaints. I cannot bring myself to humour any of them. In the car, I have taken to an unholy habit of listening to music on earphones like some fourteen year old. I am a disgrace. I cannot listen to all this speak about the terrible conditions of the world. It all sounds like self-absorbed chatter. And I hate myself for it.

It is hard at this age to get along with parents. Then again, this is a constant. I am a terrible person. I become extremely reticent and impatient at times that I forget to be kind. Mother snaps at me when this happens. And I apologize soon after (give and take 20 minutes of self-flagellation).

It is simply the whole trying to be an 'adult' while still living at home with your parents, I suspect. They still see me as a child needing lecturing and brisk commands. Sometimes I find myself unable to be 'good' and obedient is all.

I am writing instead of typing and obnoxiously posting this on my blog (& deleting it soon after like I usually do) because something's wrong with my laptop. So this has turned into a rambling letter. 

Many things. Many still, that I can write of. But it's maghrib now. I should go.

Pensieve & missing you,

P.

p.s. My laptop started working again. So I typed my letter out and added some feckless italics. A measly fan-nish tribute after the style of Salinger's F&Z. All commentary in [these parentheses] are added on as I typed it out too. I'll make no allusions to my current state of mind. We'll see if I get to write another one before you come home. I don't think I could write while you're home.

Dear M.

I know we haven’t talked much lately but that is not the point. It's the idea of your being near, existing somewhere alongside me, which I find comforting. Said so, I am slightly sad at your leaving. I know it isn't even a long departure, but still.

I hold you in deep regard,

L.

p.s. (after I blurted my feelings on social media, demanding you pay attention to me –I apologize. I am unstable these days.)

I have adopted a new routine today. I alternate between reading (currently, Salinger’s Franny & Zooey) and watching a tv show cleverly titled, Person of Interest (A work of Nolan’s. Not him, his brother). I read about 5-8 pages and then I watch about 10-15 minutes of an episode, repeat ad infinitum (is this a proper use of this phrase?). It is a good routine I believe. I am doing this because I refuse to fall into a stupor that one is apt to when reading a book. I refuse to be stupefied and fall into a mind-world of agonizing ideas. Books do that. I despise how it kills my footing on solid reality.

I had half a mind to write you a letter before you leave. But there is no sense in it. We are much too close nowadays. It feels absolutely ridiculous. Yes, yes, I am writing to you. Once again. My audience, my subject, my friend.

Korea. It is winter over there. I do not have anything to say on the matter. I do not know anything about Korea. But travelling, that I do know, a little. Travelling transports you from your routine. It’s wonderfully tiring and exciting and tedious at the same time. Exhilaration and exhaustion; that is what travelling is.

Back to Salinger. Re-reading Franny at this age, at this point in my life, I find it most impressive. Her preoccupations are relevant to me now. That Salinger could write something both modern and religious is a feat. One can argue if the work is at all religious or in fact irreligious. The point being, God is brought to focus. The seeking of God. The all-important, inevitable existential crisis. Franny is also perfect in the sense that the outcome is not spelled out to the readers. Maybe because there is no outcome. A perpetual state of restlessness...

"Yes. No. I don't know." - I think this line from Salinger's Franny describes you perfectly. In fact, the entirety of Fanny fits into you perfectly. No matter the uncanny resemblance you are not Franny. I want you to know that. I feel it is important. So, remember this. Please. 

That aside, L. (not me, that poet/book publisher friend of yours) have been emailing me on and off since Sunday last week. I have been diligent in replying them. Another new acquaintance of yours, which you have kindly passed on to me. You do that. This, collection of misfits you pick up and from God knows where. I do not know how you do it. Must be that bounteous enigma in you. Some invisible pull. (I shall check myself here, I’m afraid). Anyway, L. Is it odd that I find myself irritated that I have spoken/written/whatever the proper lingo is, to him more often than with you throughout this week? I do not know what it is. It is not like I have anything to say to you. Not really.

You have asked me variations of the question “Are you alright?” multiple times in the sparse mobile messages (I despise the specific mentioning of social media in letters. It takes the romance out of writing) and all I ever say is “I’m alright.” It is as if I have lost all ability to confide in anybody ergo find myself going quite crazy during my solitary afternoons. Most of the time I keep myself preoccupied, but when the effect of the activity has worn off I feel a deep void springing beneath the feet of my metaphorical self in my mind. The gap yawns ever wider and I fall into its maw for various hours, minutes or seconds.

I have no real reason to not be alright. The world is suffering. War is rampant, violence the norm, oppression a routine. I do not have the right to feel this way. I have begged myself to stop feeling so (God, I wish I could swear) …ungenerous. I am an uncharitable, moody and lonely person lately. The dawning realization of change has me feeling like a part of me has died. I am a creature of habits. Change never sits well with me on its advent. Once settled, I will be fine.

That life will forever end up being this. A passionless clockwork trudging to and fro from work, only to return, exhausted and unmotivated. I have went to work. During those placements back in university. Work kills the creative mind. It sucks the energy for inspiration. I did not like it. I do not think I ever will. Not in the field of pharmacy anyway.

But I know. God has planned things as is best for our spiritual needs. I have asked time and again that I be put in situations that will beget The Good End. Yet I find myself in these situations where I know in my bones to be the thoughts of a foolish ingrate. I am human. I understand. I am alright most times and when I am not I need only remember this: One cannot love the here and now and the Hereafter. Not at once. If the heart is detached from this world, perhaps it is God telling us to turn to Him and seek Him for comfort. I must try harder. As ever. (I use ‘Ever’ a lot nowadays. It is a word I have grown into.)

60% of the time, I am a self-righteous mess all the time. I am slightly drunk now (not in the literal sense, God, please), as I always end up being when I start writing to you. Anyway.

That is all. Have a safe trip. Remember that prayer for travelling I sent you when you went to Japan. I can’t text it to you because I still have no mobile number (it is that reluctance to accept that my life has changed, which I mentioned to you).

Ever yours,

L.

p.p.s. I wonder when you will read this. Do tell when you have. Although my nature tells me I'll probably get rid of this once my ego's deflated.

Stay part II (Happy Birthday)

Dearest M.

Tempest, beloved, this is the year I give nothing to you. I've thought about it long and hard and I could only find one thing that could possibly make you happy today of all days and it is something that I cannot give. Another holds that happiness. Thus, I present to you now, my words. As I always have through all these years. 

I have written to you, written of you, read things as if they were written of you. In my letters, my poetry, I have summoned you in monikers and fashioned you into personas as countless as the distant stars. I have sworn you into my words, sworn to you in my words. I have built you fortresses in my mind with these words. They have become one with the very walls of my heart. To unseat you is unspeakable grief. Sometimes I shelter from thoughts of you in them but mostly, I admire their walls, the long lonely hallways, the crooked stairways; I admire my impossible affection for you. You are the vessel for my words. My medium, my tedium, my delirium.

This is all I do. I write of you in long reminiscences, I write you into an eternal precipice, because that is where the beauty of life is most stark. You fit into all these notions and more (such is the nature of a muse). You are many things to me and this is precisely why I will never cease to write of you. A word, a sentence, a paragraph. They are never enough. I have tried to sever this connection. I have tried to erase these words, raze my crumbling fortresses to the ground, scorch you out of my life. It pained me beyond my understanding, and if I am not mistaken, it pained you too.

I hope you read this with fondness for me. My intention is to remind you just what you mean to me and hopefully, to make you happy. I want you to know in this life that God has blessed us with, no matter how many years go by, how much changed things can be, I will stay the same. I treasure what we have, and always will. 

Dear sweet friend, happy birthday. May Allah SWT bless you with love and happiness in this life and the next. Inshallah.

Ever yours,

L.

Stay part I

Caught in a web of smoky feelings. Missing things that are, were, even things that never were. What do you call this submerged feeling? Something akin to warm sea water. Blue and inviting, clear and endless. A beckoning mystery that promises and whispers through the breeze.

You are the ocean. I am the shoreline. My words are the wind. And I think, "I've given all I am allowed to give." And I wonder what sort of expression you would make. A grin, most likely. A friendly deflection. Ever silent. You never grace me with a direct response. I wonder. Something in between assent and dissent? Either way, it doesn't matter. What matters is that I have been allowed.  You have allowed me a fantasy. And I am pierced by your faith. Thus I am loyal.

And all would be like warm sushine by the beach. This soft glowing. Like the setting sun, something in all of this is fading. If fading could be stretched into eternity. A never ending softness. Death by love. 

Must I put a disclaimer here? As if friendship is void of love. As if romantic love is all there is. Any kind of love, is never commonplace. Love is love. Friends are lovers. Lovers are lovers. 

What a feat. What a feat of sentiment I have moved myself to construct. For you. Ever for you. Sweet friend, stay well. 

Bittersweet

Dear A.

When one is close to another, a strain develops when things are one-sided. Especially if the relationship was built on foundations of idolatry and warring egos fortified by time. 

I outgrew you. To think that I used to think you were perfect. The thing is, I cannot be happy when you are derisive towards notions & ideals I hold dear. I account your pessimism to your stringent distance (in every sense of the word) to me, to the rest of the world. You exist in the enclave of your family. I am tolerant of you. I always forgive. And then sometimes I get angry again (like this particular instance).

Do you not realize that I am the lynchpin? Despite it all, you lord over me petty things, which I know you to know, deep down are meant to put me down. I am hurt by your veiled unkindness. Was it jealousy in your part? Or is it simply your nature? (I suspect it is both). 

For once, I decided to stop being unassuming of your flighty words and curt dismissals of things I hold dear. I do not do that to you. So why then should I put up with this behaviour. You know me to swallow my pride and keep the peace no matter what, perhaps it is my mistake then, to be so temperate with you. 

Ah but to old friends, what is a sharp word or two ey? But darling, to old friends, concern for the other's well-being should be número uno. Or at least to my esteem it is. Evidently, not to you.

I ruminate your small betrayals here where I know you will never know of. Given your absolute disinterest in everything that does not pertain to you. Oh I am bitter indeed. Because I revere loyalty. I cannot stand anything less than absolute faithfulness. My love for you have always been strong, consistent and unconditional. Nonetheless, patience can and do wear thin.

Hurting,
P.

.

Dear you,

The multitudes that lies in the way I regard you, is forever lost. Seeing as it never came to light, even though I did lead you to the source, expectantly. These machinations ingrained within me, all but settled as rust into the skeleton of my mind. Desperately I tried to coax from you what I thought I was deserving of. But truly, all that I felt, some of it I still feel, was all imaginary. A beautiful & dark illusion. The produce of my own twisted mind. You are like a diamond. You reflect yet I thought you shined. Still, you are precious to me, not as you previously were perhaps but still.

Unforgiving is all that I am. I wanted from you what you could not, cannot ever, grant me. I have always known. Such attachment in my part. Always, in my part alone.

Regardless, you give to me what you can. What you give others. Equality. I think it is a strong suit in you. Impersonal.

My loyalty to you is not a thing of the past. It is battered I admit but it is rooted still in every sinew of my heart.

Never doubt that.

What this drunken confession aim to achieve is (as ever) something that eludes me.

I am Werther never in love. I am Meursault staring at the Sun, without a gun.

I confront my desires, aware of their aimlessness. Wanton and undirected.

Still this is not Love. Please never misconstrue this incognito feeling I feel for you as that lifeless imitation.

Very sincerely yours,
Me.

P.S. I'll recoil at this display by tomorrow, I'm sure. It's a vicious cycle. Longer hiatuses but unbroken.

11th June

I know exactly how many news of suicide has reached me since I arrived in Australia last year. 3. The first one was the one who jumped onto the train tracks. Delayed all the trains. We had finals then. Got to take the train to get to the venue. People complained on facebook. Said stuff like 'Why'd the schmuck had to do it today?!' The second was a Malaysian student. A friend of a friend. Jumped off a cliff at coogee beach, Sydney. Body found in the ocean after he went missing for 3 days. Some cracked jokes like, 'Oooh, I won't be swimming in Cooge anytime soon.' Was a cheerful sort of guy the friend said. Unexpected. The third, a caucasian man. Jumped off the building opposite a friend's apartment. Said friend snapped a picture of the man standing on the rooftop. Sent it via whatsapp to roomie. Roomie showed it to me. Then the message 'He jumped!'. Said the noise was unbelievable when he hit the ground. Blood all over the pavement. The man wore a light blue sweater.

I've developed a sort of gag reflex to news like these. Just, shut down. But whatever. This is not something that keeps me awake. Not anymore.

Dear M.

Maybe I should have started the letter with 'Dear', after all. I regret that a little. You see, it wasn't meant to be offensive in any way, rather it was meant to be affirmative. Maybe it was the frame of mind I was in, it being the first thing I did upon arriving in Melbourne all doe-eyed and pensive. I set my bags, didn't even change, snatched the letter from my table, read it twice, grabbed a pen, notepad and set about writing a reply. 

I was just lonely. And you're in love. And I'm not. And I suppose I'm a tad sad with my loveless-ness. Or maybe I've read too much of kero-jin correspondences and expected too much of you. But all this is normal between us isn't it? 

I misinterpret this world too often perhaps. Alas.

Ton sans amour ami,

P.

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The red ballad of a dislocated heart

echoes like a tuning fork, rings aloud

its invisible reverberation begets

a trajectory of revelations.

The scarlet throat opens

its arcane bouquet, of roses 

blooming in a flurry of petals 

swallowing all, fades away.

___________________________________________________________________________

Written for M. in a letter today, in which I poured myself away.

(29th July 2012)