his thoughts were of the sky

noon time and i walked to my car, the keys hidden deep in my pocket, both my hands in my pockets, an air of diguised nonchalance as i spy your form in the yard. you are happy.

that i just received an email from a long-lost lecturer whose life i assumed went on in the university in the same way that mine did - that it was comforting to know that most things didn't change while my life did - that he is about to transfer to NTU's humanities faculty. that i am thinking of the lull period in the university right now - that it will mostly be deserted and i think about the last time i walked through the library, the last time of walking past the shelves with aphra behn on them.
that i walked back from the train station and thought of many things while i was strolling under the wide, night sky, my hands tucked into my pockets and whistling a sad song to the tune of the song in my i-pod shuffle, the material of my fred perry bag sending off waves of refractions.
that i no longer care about most things, save thinking.

i strolled past the closed shops - closed since it was after 11pm and the odd fruit sellers were hawking their cheap durians and the odd old man would look at me with a glimmer in his eyes.
somewhere far below the curtain of the night sky, a boy sits at his worn out couch, pointing at the characters acting out real-life on the television screen. he passes a random comment and his sister, sitting on the floor beside the worn-out leg of a coffee table responds to the comment. they both laugh.
below a streetlight, a man trudges home from his lover's home, worn out by the endless drudgery of life. his hair is wet from the shower that he had just taken and tiny beads of seat sparkle on his forehead - he thinks of love but quickly sends the thought away. oh, to live for the moment!
in a tiny room, a woman breastfeeds her newborn daughter and thinks of the full month party that they will be holding on her behalf this coming sunday.
the show ends and the boy looks around his flat. it is the same, day-in, day-out. the images and situations he has just watched on tv play out endlessly in his mind - the male and the female, of love and of a chance meeting in a foreign country - he thinks that perhaps, that will happen to him one day. then he catches himself smiling, shakes himself and almost laughs at himself for being so foolish - how could such a thing ever happen in real life?
he looks at his brother quickly to see if he has caught on to the emotions he thinks he has betrayed on his face. but there is none.
the living room are still the same, the same furniture that he has looked at since he was a child. he can hear the sounds coming from the cars speeding by on the highway next to his house.
perhaps one day, things would change, one day, many days ahead, but today is the present. until his mother called his name to attend to a mundane matter, his thoughts were of the sky.

my lover's home

when next we will be lovers
crossing the path and jumping over the bridge of friendship
which sadly wasn't meant to be.

i held your hand
and traced them
over triangles.
you looked down and i could never see into your eyes.
or perhaps we would see something there
neither of us wanted to see.

like a leaf that falls to the ground
cutting through the air
i know i've already hit the ground
transcended most boundaries.

one day you will sit outside on the ground
your face awash with tears
and i will ride by
as if by chance.
i'll take your hand and lead you for a drink
and yet i know
the distance between us.
too great.

it'll be two years past
so i would offer you a smoke and watch
as you inhale your first puff
and think of all your first -times
and mine.

you'll grow and take your first-steps.
time waits for no one.
one day you'll love.
one day you'll suffer.

i think the shutters are already down,
a joss stick or two lights the lonely night.
there are holes in the shutters
but i'll not peep.
like the nobody i am,
i'll slip quietly into the night
so quietly that you'd never know i was there.
just like all the times i'd watched you.

waxing contradictions.
my lover's home.

wafting stars

i waited in the quiet carpark today and let the remnants of the day wash over me in a pool of moonlight.

holiday by green day reminds me of the time when i wore a violet mango halter and let go of my inhibitions. that was the very same day that i danced behind the window and forgot that the world existed. i have a dream to pack up and leave one day and to leave the sign at my cubicle that says "gone to look for myself". otherwise, my dreams are pretty much the same - i dream of wonderment, of seeking myself, of looking and seeing, and not just watching.

the words "what is life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare" came to mind too, as i stood in the lonely carpark, the day done, the vestiges of darkness threatening to wash past me in a tide of nothingness where loneliness lurked behind the covers and tears threatened to see the light. and then i looked up and saw the sky awash in a myraid of sparkling lights, of stars and wonderment and i wondered if far, far away, you were looking up at the skies too.

but probably not, it is not your turn yet, no matter how far from your peers you are. you still have far longer to wait.

i flipped through pages of memory today, each page giving off a different waft, a different scent.

i counted the shimmering stars tonight and they numbered ten. the glittered invitingly in the sky. next to my foot on the ground, a snail went on its own shimmery way, meandering through the crevies of the concrete ground and leaving silver dust in its wake.

just because

the weekend has been mine, mine and mine alone, along with my refusal to take home any stacks of books for marking or checking, despite the fact that i've to get my ass to school early to clear the back-log of marking.

i think i shall walk to school once again, stop by the traffic lights and once more shield my eyes from the blinding sunlight with my fingers and reminicise about how i used to walk to school the same way in college, only that the sky was lighter then and i was decked in the same way, day-in, day-out.

i saw two kittens playing by the roadside yesterday and i stopped to take a look at them - one silky coal black and the other charred in shards of grey. they put their paws in the spooks of the wheel of my bike and their eyes widened in curiosity - i presume they've never seen a bicycle before.

they didn't let me stroke them though - too frightened and having seen too little of the world and not knowing whom they should trust - their mother keeping a close watch on them from a short distance away, casting distrustful glances across my way from behind her slit eyes and lazy demeanor.

i cycled to where i'd not cycled for a long time, my heart always taking me to another place, in another direction, when yesterday, i decided it was all to naught and i'd be better off going where i really wanted to. perhaps a small scale metaphor of my life - but ooh-la-la, i'm too tired to care. comparisons can be drawn and reflections done - but to carry them out and to change - ah, that's a big thing.

it is always a pleasant surprise for me to see whatever i'd thought of seeing a split second ago and yesterday was no exception. i spied the car, parked at the same location and i thought of many yesterdays ago with me and him and essentially, me.
i think of days past and i notice that the car is dented at the front and at the back and i smile to myself as i think about how he could have hit someone's rear from behind or how he could have backed all the way into a concrete landing. i think about how time has passed and how it has made monkeys of us all, and i recall a time when we both wore our white school shoes to church and then i think about what has always taken me in another direction, and i manage to find similarities.

i've said enough of things that only i understand though.

the last week of school and i'm confounded at the fact that the heady feeling has not engulfed me - that same heady feeling that whispers promises of hazy days spent in bed, of flying off on planes and waiting at departure lounges and of walking alone into the sunset as people thronge around you.
perhaps today as i reach school, a tidy pile of result slips will be awaiting my endorsement.

i've spent the weekend pigging out on good food from lemongrass, seafood from malaysia and pizza from pizza walker at wisma atria - nothing like authentic italian pizza with an exceptionally thin crust. i have also, like a typical bimbo in distress, spent a gazzilion load of money on sales that tempt, sales that entice. this time - a selection of normal looking knit tops from m)phosis that would be good for work. oh, and a short flare skirt in black too that makes me think i'm too old for such skirts, but i still bought it, just because.

gallivanting

everyday i go to the office by 9am and i wake by 7.30am. that has been my sad routine for the past 3 days, monday being a public holiday, monday that saw me eating dim sum and snoozing on a wet evening.

while invigilating yesterday, i looked at the backs of heads, hair tied up in ponytails, boys with nicely shaven heads, cropped hair, and observed how the neck, besides joining our torsos to our heads, does a graceful imitation of a curve.

gallivanting again last night when i dressed down in jeans, a black tee, and realised that i was putting on weight - damn! it should have been those late dinners at J.B, Malaysia, the chips snacked on while crouching ahead of the goggle box and the generous colleagues at work.

i sat on the train - such a pity they don't call it a subway. across me was a girl dressed in a black tube with her chest spilling out of her chest.
the train was at orchard when a blood-curdling screech filled the air and all the commuters gaped and looked around but the source of the sound was nowhere to be found.
there is a sense of loss when you are on the last train - not many commuters and not too few either - probably since it is the last train, many pack onto it - and the train is relatively empty, so looking towards the back of the train, you can see the black of the tunnels rush past the train in a billow of nothingness, and there is a sense that the train is transporting all the tired souls to a never, neverland.

nevernever land was city hall to me, where i alighted. i'd even forgotten whether to turn left or right to get to the bar - such is the distance that work has drawn between me and the nightlife, but i'm not complaining. at 24, there is a sense that perhaps time has overtaken me time and time again - the younger ones have it all.
so i turned left and walked through the glass doors before deciding that i should turn right instead. it was the correct choice, otherwise, i would have had to walk around the shopping centre.
so once more nothing much has changed, from the last time i took a jaunt by myself, during the end of term when the heady feeling engulfed me. in december last year, the lights added festivity to the night and people were rowdier, more carefree, more inclined to spontaneity.

***

the lights have not changed and neither has the decor, and neither has the lift. the areas leading to the lifts had beautiful rugs made of beads and trinkets hung above a spotlight each, so that the lights bouced off the trinkets and beads, creating the illusion of floating shimmers.

i took the lift up and walked to the bar and already, i could sense that the crowd was a good one. i took a place near the bar, the exact same spot where i'd sat a good four months ago and gazed once more at the captivating night scene, 70 floors above the world. the lights shimmered, the lights glittered. over at millenia walk, there was this place with windows outlined in a bluish light and the different windows took their turns to light up - i'd forgotten all about it till yesterday.

i can't believe how stupid i was to mix up a martini and a margarita - i ordered a martini in the end - B dazzled. it came with a cherry and a fanciful stalk. thank god for happy hours.

the music rocked. but i can't remember much of it. i do remember hollaback girl, let's get it started, stayin' alive and smattering of others. in any case, rememberance is just simply a recollection of past events.

i asked for the menu again and wondered about what to order. and then they started playing house and i took it as my cue to leave, as i was gazing out at the beauty of the night scene once more, the waiter came over and wanted to take the menu away, i pushed the martini glass to him and he asked if i was waiting for someone. i was more amused more than anything else, and then he said that someone wanted to be friends with me and vaguely pointed in the general direction of the thinning crowd.
i smiled, waved my hands and declined.
after that i left soon after since i didn't like the feeling of being watched.

***

in the end, obviously, i returned home. and while it only lasted a good 2 hours, it's good enough to sustain me.