oF angrY childreN

Angry children push,
angry children hide,
angry children lie.

That's cause we are not mature enough to criticise wisely,
to use clever ways.

We are merely angry youngsters,
naive and frustrated,
not knowing our stand,
not knowing our purpose,
just existing with no use
save to point fingers
before we have earned the rights to.

Until Eternity

Here I sit, awaiting dawn. Crochet at my fingers.
Here I sit, awaiting sleep. My roommate fidgets.
Here I sit, awaiting peace. My mind swims.
Here I sit, awaiting a yawn. It has come, time to sleep.

The World eh?

The Earth after all, doesn't creak and groan its way around the sun just so human beings can have a good time and a bit of a laugh.

Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart.

Collossal Weight of Silent Harakiri

I wouldn't actually call my cowardice harakiri.

I am just creating an excuse. Several excuses.

I am slowly killing myself with venom my spiteful mind has spewed.

I am rotting away inside.

No Longer In Me

It makes me sad that

flowers no longer hold my gaze

and let them linger

My heart is not growing any softer

The more I see, the less I understand

The more I feel, the less I can sense.

Catching falling stars

is no longer essential

in my dreams.

To be heard

is no longer the purpose

of my screams.

And it makes me sad that

I don't know where I'm going,

which sun I'll be seeing

in the morning.

Because We're Alive

It feels alive
for I know
that I will cry
when I see
precious tears
escaping your pretty eyes.

It's alright
for we're alive
in our hearts,
our daily lives,

smiling warmth into the cold
and laughing shaved ice into scaldings of old.

Thank you
for keeping me alive,
in us.

Your precious tears,
drop like ink on my forgetful life,
painting the indescribable purpose
we silently vow to hold upright.

In the despair,
I saw the glint in your eyes,
set firmly, confident in your attentive faces.
A shine of hope,
I felt it,

in that ray of hope piercing through the thick despair
threatening to drown me in shivers and fear,
I realised why people say love is about hope,
friends who give hope, who are hope,
are friends I realised I loved,
in a very unusual way.

We pulled through it all...
And our precious tears bear witness
that we are alive.

That Person

That person stared at me. He stared after failing to recognize me at a careless first glimpse. Just for that shortest of a moment, his time was spent on me. Maybe he noticed my red eyes; maybe my miniature features hid my emotions again, like always, forever undeserving of his gaze or attention.

And thus, I continued up my path, focusing on the class ahead, habitually casting aside a wish that called in the distance of my conscience to pursue his presence.

Three days later, I saw him again. I could have sworn he noticed my existence as well. Yet, I did not linger around to confirm those frivolous fantasies of mine.

The third evening had me running from one place to another, rushing to meet deadlines and attempting to be punctual for group discussions for once. As I bravely took on two steps every stride down the notoriously narrow stairway to the computer lab, a shooting star winked at me from the opposite window.

Precisely at that fated moment, I instinctively yet irrationally decided to divert my attention to my long-tailed friend instead of my feet which dangerously exceeded safe speed limits.

My feet failed to find the ground; clumsily I tried to grab the railings. Somehow, I managed to slip despite the mental note I had made earlier to be cautious.

I anticipated an agonising crash.

My thumping heart fell into a deeper, unexpected frenzy.

My anticipation was met with a pair of hasty but firm arms. I had held my eyelids close to quench the freefalling sensation. Before I dared reopen them, intuition led my hands to grasp for support. They found smooth cloth not unlike one I saw earlier that day which left a deep impression.

I can never tell how I expected myself to react to the face I met that day. Those two seconds of safety jeweled with the look in his eyes lasted forever in my memory of that person. I did feel safe, I did feel warm and more than feeling alarmed, I felt immensely grateful it had been him.

Even after he returned me to my normal standing position, my cheeks flushed and my fingers reluctantly let his tie slip away. In contrast to my heart’s superficial ideas, I immediately turned to run away. Halfway down the next flight of stairs, I remembered something very very important.

“Thank you,” I breathed out. When I realised I was barely audible, I blushed even more and tried to make an emergency exit. It was rather, or very embarrassing.

“Wait!” Came a voice from behind.

At the foot of the stairs, I paused. Was that him? He actually told me to wait. With a racing mind, I turned to look at him.

“Err… you… Are you alright?” he enquired.

“Oh, yes, I am. I’m fine, it was my fault… I was careless… Maths deadline…” I blurted quite ridiculously, further adding crimson to my cheeks.

This time around, my body refused to oblige my escapade. I just stood there for he was staring again, with a different expression. This expression of his, I had never received before. Those pupils focused with interest, very much evident in them and just an inkling of worry showed. He wasn’t the type to display concern very easily, at least not to insignificant strangers like myself.

“Not now, I meant the other time. You weren’t so fine the other day. Why did you cry?” he said, a little bit too directly.

“Oh.. the other day? You saw? Sorry, I didn’t notice… I mean, I knew it was you but I couldn’t greet cause I thought you were looking elsewhere. Sorry bout that,” I rejected his question altogether.

“Okay, is your work done for today? Or do you still need to take a few more laps around the technology department?” he reacted most naturally.

“Haha…” I answered awkwardly. “I’m done, just need to pass this to the office.” How did my silly long-cuts… I knew that I must have made at least a dozen wrong turns around the building but it couldn’t have been so obvious… And he knew?

“Alright, let’s go settle that and go eat.”

I stared blankly with raised eyebrows.

“Come on, let’s go. Don’t worry; we’ll go in my car so you don’t have to do a marathon again. I know you haven’t eaten since morning, I heard you complain to your invisible friend.” He really wasn’t joking.

Okay… This is WEIRD. How on Earth??? Am I that big a dork that he notices all the nonsense I do??

“Am I really that huge a dork that all the stupid things I do are so easily noticed?” I showcased my genuine curiosity for the very first time.

“Mm?” Slightly taken aback, he continued, “oh no.. I just noticed. I see you walking around quite a lot actually. So, sometimes I just decide to watch.” And he gave a little smirk at my bewildered expression which tilted my patience and pretence.

“You do realise that what you said honestly embarrasses me?” I challenged his honesty a little bit more.

And he obliged, with stunning honesty.

“Sorry, I didn’t look at things that way. I just felt like watching you, the way you walk and the way you talk to yourself. That’s rather amusing. People don’t usually do that, you know. They think talking to themselves makes them crazy and that thought drives them crazy cause they can’t think aloud and end up making a lot of stupid mistakes. Like say, if you were to get into trouble for not greeting Mrs. Bentley, I can be a witness for you. You said you didn’t mean it, you openly admitted to nobody in sight that you thought she'd think you were rude if you suddenly spoke to her like that.”

Now it was my turn to take dominance. I stared, indignantly.

“Err… I didn’t exactly say the most diplomatic of things, did I?”

I shook my head with deliberate slowness to emphasize his insensitivity.

“Let’s just go eat.” I said after his forlorn look melted my newfound solid heart.

We walked to the office; he kindly held the door open for me when I came out. In a way, I led the two of us in the direction of the café.

A Heavy Helmet without a Head in it

I am in a slump.
At rare moments I resurface as my older self and at moments I sink into depression.

Bad thing is it's not a clear cut depression. I can't feel sad. It's not the pure kind of sadness that fogs over my heart now, it's strange. A grey cloud of matter, shadowy matter that's inhibiting my balance of personality.

I miss the days when I could grieve in peace. If I was in depression, I'd know why and I'd allow myself the space to sink in. But now it's so strange, I'm floating, depressed, aimless.

It is very bad. I need to finish reading this novel. Perhaps after that I'd rise from this sick miasma of misery. Conspicuous. I am not being inconspicuous about things. In a way, I'm running away from facing this issue myself, that explains my inconspicuous behavior.

It's sad. Sadly, not a pure clear form of sadness.

It's Up to You really..

I don't mind if you're not the type of person I do not like. I don't mind if I can't be friends with you. I have my own band of favourite people to blend in with.

I might want to help you a little bit here and there but I'm not forcing anyone. Just be yourself. Not anything else. It's perfectly up to you.

Post Talk Silence

It is amazingly hard to resist using the word strange to begin this post. I find myself surprisingly attracted to words of the same connotation. Even for the second sentence I had to delete oddly and replace it with a synonym for startling.

Entirely my fault. I knew I would feel nostalgic if I saw the place that person got married at. I'd feel the tears. That person is gone. And... life is precious, we're not going to lose anything by doing whatever we can to help make life easier. Especially the lives of others. What if I die before being able to do anything?

Everyone, especially myself aspires to do things for the society when they have enough money, when they are mature enough, when they are qualified enough. We will never be enough, and when we meet the expectations of the past, new expectations for freedom and free time would arise. Let's face it, if we wanna help the world, we gotta start now. If not, we'll be stuck clueless on how to start our engines in future. First we won't have the time, second we won't have the motivation because we'd be engaged in getting a life for ourselves and settling down in marriage or relationships. Thirdly because we have no base, we did not equip ourselves with a solid foundation on social work to begin anything.

Let's begin now. Why doubt our abilities when our desires burn? That child novelist (Sorry.. your name slipped my fatigued mind at nearly 4am) on TED said that children need to be given the chance, the trust, that push to take risks and learn. Why not us? we may still be children in the things that we want to do, we should give ourselves a chance. Who knows, we might end up the equivalent of a child novelist in the world of social service. Some children's book publishers told that child that they don't work with children, what a contradiction. Same thing.. I doubt NGOs would reject volunteers, they do volunteer work themselves. Even if they do reject some of us, we gotta fix ourselves and try harder cause we wanna serve the people.

Mahatma Gandhi said "Be the change you want to see in people.".

He also believed that peace and enlightenment cannot be attained through inaction but through the course of action. The right action, the one of civilised behaviour, peace. Though some hard blows gotta be taken sometimes.

We can start off by being good in what we are, we gotta be happy and well respected in order to be accepted by people to help them. Then.. we may think, if I'm lovely and perfect to my family, what about those in the streets?? The true test is not when we are faced with challenges to protect and support our own, that is our responsibility that we should honour. However, the true test is when we are required to go out of our way to help others. That's a good Samaritan. It is in how we treat others that shows what we really are. If we cannot have a heart big enough to extend love to others, then how poor a love can we offer our family? our culture? God? How pitifully little.

Hence, help others. Love life. Love lives. Love life living lives. :) Meow...

Refugee

It pains. But there is no time for agony.

Hunger rules. But there is no space for appetite.

Death gives birth to a faraway hope,

for a paradise none has seen.

She who is raped,

is unchaste.

He who shuns,

is surviving wretchedly.

The children cling

on to a hopeless rope,

promising more storms that slash

their very soul,

discriminating their ill-fate

strings of anguish forever screaming

their lives have been ripped away.

The Salmon Tested

Empty rivers of anxiety
flowing with
not fish
but corpses of victory.

The salmon swished
before this,
today it drinks
inevitable doom.

Having risen above the torrents,
having wrecked mental havoc,
haivng slept through the last night,
having the roe in place,

The salmon finally sleeps for this cycle.

This test of courage
cannot be delayed.
Yet procrastination
could not be swayed.

Splashes of ink
swished by regret
for losing to procrastination
and having stranded one's self.

Having seen classes, types, agreement,
having forgotten which fit where,
having resorted to cheap guesses,
having seen the invigilator glare,

This term I shall sleep, like a salmon, a fish out of its lair.