All the flowers that you planted...

Holding onto that thing on the train that everybody holds on to with both hands in front of me, I rest my head on myself, listening to my mp3 player, to the song you had on repeat in your car when you had just broke up. The song that you would drive to, and keep quiet to, and not listen to the things I was rattling on about to. Were you healing your broken heart?

Was this how she made you feel?

Yesterday night, over the phone, you asked me not to break your heart. I'm not the best person you could trust your heart with.

Does the wind in the tunnel rushes by the train, or does the train pushes itself against the wind? I can barely hear the whining of the song if I pay attention to the howling tunnel. Will it ever tire? I take a deep breath. I feel out of breath. I feel like that pretty often nowadays. I sigh.

Shillings in my pocket. I have a box at home that I will put shillings from my pocket into. I know exactly where it is. I can imagine the sound of the coins as they are put inside in the way I will put them inside. And the way the light will flicker when I turn it on the way I will turn it on. I can imagine exactly how the way the light will twitch as the beep of my computer will sound exactly a moment after when I switch my computer on with my toe. I can imagine the smell of my room. It smells like wet laundry on the line on rainy evenings like these. The dusky sky has a corner of pink.

Most of what's left of the day looks grey. Pale, milky, bluish grey. I remember you asking me what's the difference between bluish grey and greyish blue. I explained it to you in terms of adjectives and nouns. Now that I think about it, I don't know if I'm correct about what I thought any more. I'll be sure to feel even more estranged from it if I give it any more thought.

There are others queuing in the line for the bus. I wonder if they were doing their Christmas shopping. She smiles with delight. Her teeth are very straight. That helps make her smile quite perfect. She could be in an advertisement. The girls on my right are restless, they keep looking in the direction of the bus's way. They are young.

I look at my feet. I cannot separate my index and middle toes. On both feet. It frustrates me that I cannot will my toes, but it does not surprise me. If you were here I would amuse you by making up another story on my toes.

The evening breeze makes the ends of the branches of the tree in front of me move a little. It is comforting to watch it. It is hypnotic, probably. I cannot see the green of the tree against the blurry sky. It is made of shadows now, for all I care.

I shall sit by the aisle. A seat that is near the alighting door. I don't want to squeeze pass too many people to get out. Sometimes it is okay. But not today. I take out my book to write. I tried to write about the tree being made of shadows. But it doesn't flow. I can only remember the image of the leaves swaying. Little 3 cm pinnate leaves. Made of shadows. I lose my train of thoughts. Is that my hand-phone vibrating in my bag? Should I check? Can I ignore it? I really don't feel like picking up a phone call from my mother now. Why do I feel like I have a hang over? I didn't drink anything last night...right?

You had called to ask me if I wanted to meet up for dinner. What would life be like if we didn't have cell phones? What would we be like?

I put the heartbreak song on again. I don't know why I want to listen to it. It makes me feel uneasy. There is a 10 seconds pause before the fella starts singing on the track.

Is it raining again? Doesn't look like it. But why are the wipers on? I shouldn't have worn this today. I wouldn't have, I suppose, if I had known it was going to rain.

The fluorescent lights at the bus stop comes on. The advertisement board is such an ugly lantern. But I feel welcomed. I have always liked to step off the bus. Maybe it's the way it's a big step and a little stretch. Maybe it's a little like the way I like to step off a boat that just docked. A delivery lorry speeds by. There are no cars coming my way. I cross the road despite the red man. I realise that I didn't notice the bus leaving. I don't want to go home. I don't know why I am still walking.

Did you know that I wish to die before I turn sixty-five? I don't think my teeth would last me that long.

(sneak)

Sus

(After much deliberation, I told her the truth. It will not be easier on me now. I do not feel lightened of the burden, now. I feel sheltered by the shade of what is impending.)

I was walking around in the plaza today, and I looked at all the young faces wearing the cliched expressions on the young heads of people older by age than me. They walked around, either holding on, sometimes unleashed, to the pinkish pets they farrowed; or, caressing their not-so-newly-pregnant uterus beneath their bellies, beneath their taut lycra tee-shirts, spilling from their ugly creased cotton cream-vomit-coloured beach pants; or, grunting after their wives they treat as siblings in crimes of stolid abberation.

I wondered, scornfully, "why do they look happy?" Or rather, "why do they look so stupidly happy?" Maybe we tend to over-complicate little things too much.

(Maybe, I don't need to know that you belong to me. I just need to belong to you. I always say that the truth is over-rated but who doesn't want to live happily ever after?)

The little girl with her pony tail, in white barbie tee-shirt and pink barbie pants, talking loudly on her proud mother's mobile phone to her father who may be out fucking some other woman at the hour before this, will grow up to be like who? Her mother soon squeals at her to finish up the food.

(Who did I grow up to be like? It's been a long time since I heard anyone mumble "get a life". It is an impossible dream.)

Take your baby dolls and hang them by the umbilical cords you fed them with. It should be easier than trying to smother them with your half-hearted dedication. It should be easier than having to buy them two dozens of spectacles before they turn 21.

You won't look like barbies anymore, child brides. Buy a strip of pork lard but at least deep fry it just before you lap it up, pigs.

Untitled

Yesterday night, when I was sleeping, Ali Baba came to whisper in my ear. He had a very sexy voice, and he told me that there's no need to doubt any further. He had met Mona Lisa himself, and Mona Lisa is a boy. He also said that in his next life, he was going to be an evil samurai who would have plundered many villages and violated many women, if not for his master who had fucked his backside so hard, and so many times that he could not shit properly, and he died of constipation or rectum infection of sorts, in the tragic end.

I said, okay. Him or you? Mona Lisa or you, Ali Baba?

He looked confused. Or rather, he must have looked confused, if I wasn't sleeping, and had my eyes opened, I would have been able to see his confused expression, but I was sleeping with my eyes closed and I couldn't see, so I can only presume that he looked confused, and presume that I am right, because he didn't answer me, now that leaves me with another mystery unsolved.

This teaches me that life is full of ironies. This is like how I like my clothes to be well ironed, but I don't quite know how to iron anything other than a hankercheif. I don't even know how to spell "hankerchief" properly. I can only spell it out and consider if it doesn't look quite right when I put the 'e' in from of the 'i'. Only after I switch it around a little bit then I decide that it looks better with the 'i' in front. So egocentric, isn't it, to put 'i' first? The hankerchief is used out of politeness and consideration for others, sorta, when one sneezes and whatever, no?

Oh well, anyway, after that Ali Baba didn't say anything already, either that, or I fell deeper asleep and didn't hear what he had to say.

Sorry, Ali Baba!

If you talk to me again, when I am sleeping, I can't promise you that I won't fall asleep when you are talking, because when I am sleeping I'm out of conscious control. So if you are listening to my story now, or reading this, from the internet, why don't you come and talk to me next time, when I'm not sleeping, or sleepy at all, for that matter. Then, I can promise you, that if you talk to me when I'm not sleeping or sleepy, that I will try my best to listen to you. I don't anyhow make that promise to anyone, you know. I only promise to try when I really mean it. That's one good thing about me, I suppose.

I'll even comment appropriately and not ask awkward questions about samurai afterlives.

I'll do that for you. So, what say you, eh?

(sneak)

Softly

He was strumming my pain with his fingers...
Like it was his favourite guitar...
What a bloody sadistic fucker.
I can't believe I loved him.

xo angst.

Hello. Here is a confession.

I slept for too many hours today and I have a slight headache now.
I watched Sideways, this morning before lunch, and related with the depressing material too much more than I'd have liked to.

They should ban shows like that. It makes me feel like shit. The only kind of depressing shows they should make should be like those war shows, and the faces of the characters got blown into different kinds of proportions, and the audience goes,

"Woah, it sure sucks to be you."

It gets worse when I sleep for too many hours.
I fell asleep playing a game on my nokia phone. I was managing a "disco" and my aim was to get 300 people to be at my dance club at one time within 30 days.

I don't have a scooter.
And my adventures are not better than yours.

I'm sick of feeling cold. and warm. and the tightness in my neck and shoulders.
But I cannot think of anything to do about anything.

Stardust

She had always been careless about her oral hygiene, and found brushing her teeth a chore. In a bus, on her way to the dentist, she used her tongue to feel the cavity in her last upper tooth on the right, almost as if to make sure it was in place. Going to the dentist was like her adventure of the month. Going to the dentist alone was like a childish proclaimation that she was independent and she did not need anybody else to function. Going to the dentist was fun because she would spit out blood. She never flossed.

She thought if the dentist was to take her tooth out, she would have the tooth made into a pendant to wear around her neck. How sick would that be? She nearly giggled to herself. It would be like how the fallen star in Neil Gaiman's "Stardust" would climb to the tallest tower to be close to her sisters in the sky.

She thought of how she could put the broken tooth pendant into her mouth, like how she would do that with her pendants sometimes...The broken tooth would then be reunited with her other teeth. Although most of the time the broken tooth would be bored and lonely...

And then she suddenly realises that she didn't quite want to have her tooth removed at all. Quite frankly, she'd much rather have it in her gums til she dies. Surprised by her revelation, and how it had never occured to her before, she tongued her broken tooth more tenderly.

"Perhaps," she thought, "perhaps, I should brush my teeth more diligently from now on." She even considered flossing, briefly.

The Dead Seaweed

The dead seaweed which drifted along the coast had a story that is tragic and is known only to little.

It told the story to some drifting sea foam which carried it to the shore to a seashell which told a playful little boy who picked it up. The story goes about how dead seaweed wasn't always dead, it was in love with a scampi, who did not love it back. Then, the seaweed died of love sickness.

The story is true! The little boy had told me about it himself, and like the shell, the sea foam, and the seaweed, he had no reason to lie. Afterall, like them, he was going to die, if not already dead.

"Trois"

His favourite word is "trois". It is French, and means "three", which in turn, they would sometimes say, "is a crowd".

His eyelids are relaxed in the warm breeze that is against the side of his face as he counts the steps of the stairs he is climbing until he forgets or loses count, so that he can start again from one and smile to himself when he repeats "three", remembering that he likes it in French and at how he is repeating his stupid amusement.

He recalls that she had once asked him about what was his favourite word, and if he tells her of how he's silly enough to count the steps of the stairs, she will surely smile the smile he likes of her to smile so much.

Come escape with us this summer!

Do you want to go with me to the cafe? It's designer, and it serves iced coffee in a plastic cup. You can order an extravagant ice blended juice drink, like that of raspberry, or mango. It's exotic...kind of... You will like the taste of crush ice melting, underneath your tongue. I will get myself an iced cafe latte, like I always do on sunny days like these, when I don't know what else to drink. We will sit by the roadside alfresco, and watch the condensation drip and trinkle down from the side of our cups, and the ceaseless traffic scurrying by.

......

You know, I used to come to this cafe with him, and we'd sit at the opposite ends of a table, like this. I would smoke and write and rest my feet on the space on the chair between his thighs. Sometimes, I would read him what I wrote before and he would listen to me half-heartedly as he looked at me and wondered if it's appropriate to reach to me and touch my face and kiss me on my cheek, or to carelessly flip the pages of a thick english foreign affairs magazine that rested on his lap. I would look at him, and wonder if he was bored with my reading, but continue nevertheless...

We didn't use to drink cold drinks, you know. It turned out that he did not like to watch the condensation from on the cups to form rings of lukewarm water on the table. He claimed it would wet his magazines, or render the table useless, and I would not be able to write on it, like how I would sometimes like to...

He would drink expresso. It was quite funny, you know, as he was a rather tall and big man...and the way he would hold on to a tiny cup of expresso... I would nearly always have a grande latte... He would recommend cuppuccino...

......

After we parted ways, I had often asked myself, if I would ever find the summer reward you promised me? You used to say that you like to think of love like summer. It is never clear to me why you drew that comparison, but you would say,

" I promise you, once summer is over, your summer reward..."

Summer came and left and now it is summer again. Where are you right now? I am still right here. Now that we are no longer in love, are the things you said no longer true?

I have never tasted an expresso coffee. I never tasted cuppucino too. Would you recall that I had never ordered myself a cuppucino?

......

"Tell me, what is it? My summer reward..."
"It is a surprise."
"Is it big? Or is it small?"
"I won't tell you."
"Okay... but will you wrap it with a silver ribbon? I would like that. My summer reward with a silver ribbon."

......

Now, I sometimes drink ice latte, again.

11 Jasmine flower buds

On a night, in a field, in a place forgotten by the moonlight, there was a jasmine shrub from which eleven jasmine flower buds have fallen off from their stems.

Indeed, the sky was growing older, and had her heart broken apart when her butterfly was caught. The night sky resembled the wings of the butterfly number 3, which were of dark blue colour and bore bright little white spots that were made to look like the stars that never failed to shine brightly from behind the clouds. It was for reasons not beyond a fairy-tale that the sky thought the butterfly very endearing, and eventually fell in love with the butterfly without realising. Then, when the butterfly was caught to be pinned down as a dead specimen beneath an anonymous plastic glass chest to be humiliatingly spread, the sky had finally realised that she had given away her heart without relentlessness. Now, she cannot do anything else but cry. Laden with sorrow, the rains that fell helplessly were too much for the eleven jasmine flower buds to bear, and they too, fell to the ground, disheveled, and slightly bruised.

They had wanted to whisper to the winds, to take away their hearts, and give them to the sad sky; but they could not muster enough words, for after all, they were only little flower buds. Out of despair and lack of anything else to do, the smallest of these fallen younglings wept and no one was around to smell the sad sweet scent of her tears.

"I am slightly bloomed, I was going to bloom even more tomorrow. If only I was bloomed, surely the wind will listen when I ask for my heart to be taken to the sky," thought one of the older buds to say to the others. However, as she was thinking this thought, the wind blew past, and made the jasmine bush shiver. This startled the slightly bloomed bud, and made her forget what was left unsaid.

One of the buds, who heard the thoughts of the slightly bloomed bud, felt sorry that she herself would never even be slightly bloomed. She had wanted to weep, but the wind blew a fallen leaf over her, and she took comfort from being hidden.

Two other fallen buds had fallen away from the rest of the others, and they felt alone and scared, and sorry for themselves that their lives will end sooner than they expected. One of them thought of the sisters she had never got to know, and cried for them. The other one of them thought of the mistakes that she had never confessed, and was filled with remorse but no room to repent.

One of them wanted to curse the reckless sky, for how could she have given away her heart to the fragile butterfly? However, the bud remembered that she had only just wanted to offer her own heart to the sky, for she was moved by the sorrowful rain, and then she altogether forgot that she wanted to curse the sky for being reckless.

One of the other buds cried hopefully to two others,

"Let us flee to the running waters, the rain has made a stream, and that will carry our songs to the wind and the sky for sure." The three of them agreed together, for they were ignorant of each other's follies, and took too much comfort in each other's company. Above all, the three of them had believed tacitly that the rain never meant to hurt them. Yet they were to find that the water was to bruise them even further, and they too, would become undone.

The tenth bud, which was the one who fell before the last to have fallen, was too careless to understand her new situation. She rested upon the ground, and enjoyed not carrying her weight herself.

Seeing the madness of her sisters, the eleventh bud to have fallen, wept silently to herself.

Perhaps it was because of the strong scent of sweet sadness that caught the wind's attention, or perhaps it was not, but suddenly, the wind whispered to them softly,

"Little jasmine flower buds, weeping on the ground, what word is it that you have for me? If you tell, I will listen."

"Wind, wind, wind, wind," cried the flower buds, "please, take our hearts to give it to the sky, so that it will stop crying."

"The sky is crying for she is sad, her heart was broken, and will not be mended by your hearts given to her. It is not the way things are meant to work. You can understand, for though you have never bloomed, most of your hearts are already broken."

"My heart is not yet broken," cried the tenth flower bud with glee while the other flower buds wept a little harder.

"Indeed it is not," replied the wind, "Will you give me your heart?"

"If I give you my heart, will you promise to break it?" Asked the tenth, and it was with this that the wind understood this flower bud desired other answers.

"If you give me your heart, I will promise to protect it, and keep it safe."

"I can protect it quite well, so you don't have to hold it to protect it," the tenth replied defiantly.

"You can break it too, my dear, I don't have to hold it to break it," the bemused wind replied.

The tenth thought about it for a while, and was completely confused. What was there to lose? What was there to gain? There was nothing to refute. Before she could decide for herself, the wind stole her heart, and carried it away.

"Come back!" She wanted to cry to her heart, but she knew it would be in vain, and so, she fell silent.

The other flower buds, that had enough left in them to feel sorry for their silly little sister, felt sorry.

Under the sky, the eleven jasmine flower buds would be forgotten with the things they left unsaid, having found forlorn. The wind, although she failed to promise, carried the scent of their sorrows and the stolen hearts to comfort the sky's sorrows. The rain would soon stop falling and the sun would rise to bring the morning shortly thereafter. The new day would bring new dreams, and new songs to sing, but broken hearts were never meant to ever fully mend.