Deepest and Darkest

Better to be cradled in sea shells
And float through the millennium of nights;
Alone and forgotten, but infinitely
free - free as I had never been,
from the alien hurt
and from you.

I've loved you too long
and now my soul is bloated -
swollen for feasting on you:
you and your perennial
cynicism. My dark prince,
you hold too much darkness and I
inhaled too much of you.

Of black I know too well.
Viscous and tenacious it clings
so possessively to me, to my
body and my bones. And
there is nowhere to hide
from the swooping sadness
that creeps up on me.

Better to be cradled by the whisperings
and sleep through a thousand years;
uncomprehending and dispassionate, but
miraculously living and breathing
as I had never been. 

Tomorrow

Soo... I've been studying today and I sort of panicked when I realised that I've not studied for English at all. So I went online to search for past year essay questions and voila! Year 2007, Question 5, Title: Tomorrow. Tell me what you think about it. =)
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As she lay amidst the rubbles with the dusty air coating the insides of her throat, all she could think about is a song by ‘A Chorus Line’. It starts with “kiss the day goodbye, the sweetness and the sorrows…"

Because that is why it is so dark in here, isn’t it? It is the end of a day and tomorrow… tomorrow she’ll be free. Someone will have found her by then.

The feel of the cool wood beneath her bare feet, the smell of a freshly painted stage, the mild sting of the harsh stage light on her eyes as she struggles to adjust her vision… Her head swims in the ocean of audiences before her, soaking in the light of admiration, the sweet luscious words of endless compliments. Her fingertips brushes the soft fabric of her immaculate satin gown – she is the Wicked Witch of the West today, and tomorrow she will be Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the day after tomorrow she will be Wendla in Spring Awakening.

The piano starts and the flurry of crystalline notes fall like snowflakes on the pavement. Out of the silence there leapt these perfectly formed and discrete notes, these multitude of cascading sounds that clash together magically, miraculously in harmony. She could close her eyes and soak the music into her soul; she wants to eat up the glissandos, she wants to lick clean the gorgeous throbbing arpeggios. But handsome, blue-eyed Alex is singing to her - in the guise of Fiyero he is declaring his love.  Her mouth parts on its own accord and out pours forth a current of lyrical melody, so sweet, so smooth and so infinitely enthralling that she herself is caught by surprise.

The duet ends and as Alex kisses her forehead the lights dimmed until she is lying in the darkness again. The excruciating pain that shoots up her left leg is over and numbness has taken its place. She is still there under the debris, buried deep in crumbling concrete.  Tomorrow, she promises herself, tomorrow everything will be well again. She will be saved, and the dream of singing in Broadway will never again appear as a figment of her imagination.

Tomorrow she will be Wendla, and Alex, her Melchior. And together, they will sing and dance in their secret meadow. She could feel his large, warm hand on the small of her back and on her neck as their souls are joined in the union of voices. Wendla will not die in Spring Awakening tomorrow, and Melchior will not suffer the loss of his heart. They will be together forever and ever and ever, for endless tomorrows.

With that thought her mind went black and she never had another thought again. It is the dawn of the morrow and she is dead, taking with her the death of her dreams. The world will never see her again, as Elphaba or Ophelia or Imogen or her personal favourite, Wendla. Alex will suffer the same fate as Melchior, but eventually someone else will take her place as Wendla. Someone else will take her place in Alex’s heart and the world will be right again. The pain of the family grieving for their loved ones who died in the bombing will ease with time. Their memories would fade. The world still rotates on its axis and the tomorrows will still come.

“Kiss the day goodbye, and point me towards tomorrow…”

Dear Armand,

Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from the perfumes of spring. I have forgotten your face, I no longer remember your hands; how did your lips feel on mine? Because of you I love the white statues that have neither voice nor sight. I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice; I have forgotten your eyes. Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to my vague memory of you. I live with pain that is like a wound; if you touch me you will do me irreparable harm. Your caresses enfold me, like climbing vines on melancholy walls. I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to glimpse you in every window. Because of you the heady perfumes of summer pain me; because of you I seek out the signs that precipitate desires: shooting stars, falling objects.

Love forever and always,
Sheryl.
(courtesy of P. N.)

Her Love Story

Lying at the bottom of a lake, where the sunlight is too weak to penetrate, where she is shrouded in complete darkness, she longs to be remembered. 

She feels safe in the heart of the lake. The gentle current nudges her but she is tangled in seaweeds, her hair is caught in the rocks and she remains where she had sunk. In the blessed darkness, in the water-clogged silence, she can finally sleep for a millennium of nights. Everything seems so slow and far away where she is. The water swirls in a drugged sluggishness, cradling her the way her mother never did. 

She wonders about him up above - it seems so distant and so otherworldly. She wonders if he would remember her years from now. The girl who drowned. It sounds so romantic, so tragically beautiful that she almost want to drown again. The feel of water rushing into her lungs, filling her up, squeezing the emptiness out of her soul... 

She longs to be remembered through stories told; how she had been forced to swallow her fears, her voice and finally her love. The stories are bubbling inside of her, threatening to spill. If she opens her mouth it would all come tumbling out: black and viscous, putrid and repugnant. It would pour from her; from her mouth and her eyes and her ears until she is flaccid and depleted. 

Lying at the bottom of the lake she muses about the greatest love stories ever written: of Romeo and Juliet and Cleopatra and Mark Antony. He loved her and she loved him. And now that she's dead, her's will be a love story amongst star-crossed lovers. 

Son of Sam

By serial killer, David Berkowitz, aka Son of Sam

I've always had an unhealthy obsession with serial killers, psychologically wise. It's magic how their minds work. More than half of the serial killers have disconcertingly high IQs. It's fascinating how twisted their minds are. One of my favourite serial killers, (sounds weird, doesn't it?) is David Berkowitz, who wrote beautiful letters to taunt the police. The above is also a letter of his. My favourite is this poem:


Because Craig is Craig,
So must the streets be filled with Craig (death)
And huge drops of lead
Poured down upon her head
Until she was dead -
Yet the cats still come out at night to mate
And the sparrows still sing in the morning.

Please Love Me

It seems that I've gotten used to loving you without having you around. Those bitter days spent longing for you: for your chin resting on top of my head, for your fingers interlaced with mine, for your arm draped around my shoulder; those days are stacked in the darkest corner of my subconscious mind.

Once a while on a rainy day I leaf through the yearnings, the pangs of desire that arched my body and stole my soul - because that's what you do to me. Science proved that when a star dies it forms a black hole that sucks everything, even light into its abysmal void. And that's what your absence is like - a black hole, sucking my innards and my soul, even the light of my life into an event horizon. It sucks and pulls and pulls and sucks until I lie as empty as a shell.

Even if I tried to forget you, even if I have you incarcerated in the dustiest room of my mind, you would've seeped between cracks under doors and through keyholes. And as though in revenge you would've haunted me night and day, with your face imprinted on the back of my lids, so that even in sleep I dreamt of you.

And I would've hated myself for being willing to continue loving you in misery, just for the smallest chance that you would love me too.

The Longest Night

In the darkness there is but
White flashes of flesh:
My arms and yours;
the half light.

The reverberating hollowness that
Captures my heart holds
Dominion over me. Every
Heartbeat hurts and

I couldn't breathe.
It doesn't matter that
We're breathing breathlessness
Into each other.

And it doesn't matter that
We both know we
Won't last the night.

Air

They say that she would never wake again. She lies perfectly still on the bed, arms demurely set on both of her sides, eyes gently closed. She drifts in and out of consciousness, and she listens.

The men and women, they whisper - yet they couldn't have spoken much louder. The hiss of breath that escapes from the gaps of their teeth as they whisper, the brush of fabric on naked skin as they unconsciously shift their position; all these are aberrantly loud to her. As though she is the air that occupies the room. The constant beeping of the monitor pulsates through her, she could dance a jig to the rhythm, yet she couldn't feel it. She wanted to touch it - her heart - but she couldn't find it. 

Air. She could be the air. She tests the notion in her head. She would be everywhere then. She could diffuse through the tiniest pore, she could inhabit him. She could occupy his mouth, fill his mouth with her and only her. She could slip through his shirt, lie on his chest as he sleeps. She could breathe on him, she could lick him, she could squeeze him with all her might and he would not have noticed. 

Her dreams then, would have come true: she had always wanted to be just like Ariel, the little mermaid. Only instead of becoming a mermaid, she becomes air.

Hieronymus Bosch

This is one of my favourite classical painters: Hieronymus Bosch, who is Dutch. Among all his fantabulous paintings, my favourite would undoubtedly be The Garden of Earthly Delights. I mean, come on, even the name is totally my style.

Umm, it's really blur here because it's a really, really big painting. It's divine, I tell you. It's... enlightening. The first time I looked at it, I felt as if someone just tipped all the knowledge in the world into my head and my head's just swelling to the point of bursting. (You know, like in Indiana Jones?) I felt a spiritual awakening when I looked at this painting. It's not Christian, Catholic, Buddhism, Islamic or any religion known to the world. It's just... celestial. Here's the link to a bigger painting.

Ming says that this painting is creepy. I don't really see why, apart from it being too godly to be produced by human hands. God, I love this phrase: not by human hands. People used to describe what Armand drew as "not by human hands" too. Anyway, back to Hieronymus Bosch. I know that it's different from the usual paintings by classical artists I love, you know, Raphael, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci... But for some unfathomable reason, I find myself obsessed with this painting.

He has other works too but I love this the most. =)

The Temptation of St. Anthony

The Last Judgement

Visions of the Hereafter

Well, alright, I love Visions of the Hereafter too. 

Happy 17th Birthday, Love

It was my birthday yesterday and I'm officially seventeen now. Imagine, seventeen! I've dreamt about this before, way back when I was maybe eight? I thought that I'd be so grown up, so sophisticated. I thought that I would be one of those super cool graduates, you know, fun yet hardworking and stuff.

Never have I thought that I would be like I am today. Sinking deeper and deeper into the proverbial merde. Here I am, lazing away while my future looms ahead, portent and foggy. That's the word - foggy. I haven't the foggiest idea what's going to happen. I still feel as small I as felt ten, fifteen, seventeen years ago. 


But enough of all that emo shit. What I really want to say is thank you all. Thank you to all Facebook friends who greeted me. Thank you to all my friends who endured me for all these years. Thank you, everyone who touched my life, even for the briefest of seconds. And thank you, thank you, for the lovely pressies. I solemnly swear to cherish them for all my life. *guides' honour*


And most importantly, thank you to all those closest and dearest to me. I know that I used to (and will probably still) hurt you most. You watched me break down, you endured my occasional mood swings, you excused my crazy PMS behaviour, you know all my weaknesses and love me through it all. You guys rock my world and I hope I rocked yours too.


I know that I can't end my seventeenth birthday post without making any promises so here goes: I promise myself that I will study harder and I will love myself more. I promise my friends that I will try to be less maniacal during my PMS period. I promise my family that I will try to be more patient and well yeah, less PMS-bitch with them.   I promise that I will try to keep my promises.


So thank you, God, Yahweh, Buddha, Allah, Zeus, Jove, Brahma, forces of the universe, unknown beings... Thank you for seventeen years of (despite all my complaints) wonderful life. Please continue loving me. =)