here's me up at another one of my unearthly hours.
it's been a while since i felt the thrill of creating a story, or a poem,
something that makes me feel that for once my vocabulary and mind is enough to convey the array of emotions i feel or want people to feel.

it's been a while. sjii's been a wonderful place, bloody stimulating for the mind, and very conducive for learning. not to mention then great company (:

it's been a while since i could convey much in less.

and it's sad, because there's so many things i want to convey. how friendship can be, failings, insecurities, time, love, there's so many things but so little time. there's the homework form the 6 subjects (7 if you count tok), debate, choir, jazz band, rock climbing, jogging. couple that with time management that's lacking.

my brain's pretty darn tired. i'm not as sharp, not as witty as i was at the start of the term. i start off a poem, i start off a story, but i can't complete the chain. i cannot verbalise the train of thought.

on my guitar, i start a riff, but that's all there ever is. just that riff.

i can't wait for krabi. hopefully i'll get some time at night to write. imagine being fully immersed in a literature course(think love in the time of cholera, a passage to india, siddharta, this earth of mankind, selected poetry of blake, woodsworth and keats), and not having the time to write your own stuff.

i wrote this a while back. i'm not sure if my writing is anywhere as good now. it's certainly different now though.

A relic's sketch.
There are several forks in the road old people are forced down in this day and age. Let me tell you two paths they take.
The old woman sits up on her bed, plastic sheets acting as a panoply, clean and sanitised. Her hair is gray, and the edges of her pupils are blurred and likewise, there is an omnipresent cataract. Her stare is blank, focussing on nothing in particular outside the window. City landscapes, skyscrapers, concrete hulks, they do not mean much to her.

Life is a B-grade silent movie. Her interactions with people are minimal, mainly composed of muted affirmatives or absent nods. Her own health is no longer her own influence, lovingly taken care of by the champions of Hippocrates. But they too have grown all but numb to their patients' silent suffering.

Her meals come thrice a day, served by a hospital worker accustomed to blocking out the horrors of life's end, a regular reminder of her infirmity.

The food is mashed - she no longer has teeth to masticate.The food is bland - she has lost her once voracious appetite.She is fed - her hands are no longer hers, they are beings of their own right.

Relatives are ethereal, sons and daughters merely a memory. Her prothalamion is a distant non-event now, her husband is long dead. She still wears her wedding band, testament to the pitiable fact that she is a survivor.

She is a somnolent; she does not recall entertainment's form or ways. She only pays attention to one thing now.

Every night, when the dark of the vesper seizes all vibrancy, ceases all activity, the Reaper comes. Resplendent in morbid black, clutching his ever anti-nascent scythe, he hovers over to the old woman's bedside, whispering,

"Come now, come now.
This cruel joke life plays
can all end now.
Those persistent monsters that gnaw on your joints
can all go away now.
That pining for care,
its absence an underscore to your sad excuse of life,
can all end now.

I'm not mocking you, I'm only helping you.

Why wait?
I'll take you in your sleep, whisk you into nothingness.
No more pain,
no more drips,
no more infirmity,
no more wasting away.
You will be nothing.
Wouldn't you love that, my dear?"

With that, he concludes with a gentle, spindly caress on her gaunt cheeks.

Her eyes sockets are naught but shadows, her emaciated face screams negligence. This could all end, she thinks. She contemplates accepting Death's offer.

No.

Her children might still come, she might recover, there is hope for a better day.

Death is thwarted. He is amused. He fades, warning her,

"It's only a matter of when,you poor, foolish thing.
You already know the how."

Every night, Death makes his offer.
Every night, she refuses.
It is hope that sustains her, no longer life, or life itself.
She has no will to live, and life has all but left her body.
"What will tomorrow bring?", she asks, as slumber takes her to the land of dreams, her nightly fantastical escape.

Take me away, o' Mr Sandman.
1 comments



wow, back blogging again. been so busy.

just to clear things up, part time is matthew koh. love all you guys yeah!

well, i actually have a lot in mind i want to say.
for one, my grandma passed away on Tuesday.
was at the wake every evening after school.
funeral yesterday.

i didn't cry much. just once.
the tears just didn't come you know.
it's been the first time experiencing death, but yeah it's only now that it's setting in, that i won't hear my popo's jovial laugh any more, talk to her in that broken mandarin and dialect of mine.
you know how people say you can only be as close to a person as much as you can speak to them?
well i thought so too. but now i realise, she might not have known my secrets, the daily going-ons in my life.
but she loved us, and cared for us, and that, that's beautiful. to have that unconditional love simply because we are family. if we talk about being people for others, we don't have to look further than the people in our home. my grandma was evidence to that.

every time i think of her i'll miss her, i'll tell myself that she's somewhere safe.
and yes, at risk of sounding cliché and trite. she lives on.
if anything, my paternal side just being alive and together is a testament to that.
and there's no doubt at all she's in heaven. no rationalising, no thinking about it, just faith.

in the 6 months she was in and out of hospital, she was baptised.
even underwent teochew cathechism lessons.
this was the song as went sent of the hearse, which really just struck me at the moment.

My Jesus, my Savior, Lord, there is none like You;
All of my days I want to praise the wonders of Your mighty love.
My comfort, my shelter, tower of refuge and strength;
Let ev'ry breath, all that I am, never cease to worship You.

Chorus
Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing
Power and Majesty, praise to the King;
Mountains bow down and the seas will roar
At the sound of Your name.
I sing for joy at the work of your hands,
Forever I'll love You, forever I'll stand
Nothing compares to the promise I have in You.

now, my father's side aren't exactly regular church-going catholics, but celebrating a catholic funeral mass was something, sort of like catechism, because of the amount of non-catholics present. the father had to keep explaining the going-ons of the mass. but yeah, there was a beautiful passage just before she was commited to the flames at mandai.

Phillippians 3:20

"But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ."

i felt it was apt, and now she's someplace better

i'll miss you popo.
i know you're up there with Him.
i love you popo. (:
your turn to say nai zhon oh.

1 comments



berns asked me not to blog abt my thoughts for once.

sooooo, i won't.
listening to the light & the glass by coheed and cambria now.
nice song.

life's good.
in no way at a status quo.
still getting used to things, struggling here and there.
but im content.

school's good, it isn't all that boring.
i absolutely love my second half of the week.
literature, chemistry, and economics only.
thinking of asking to take up a fourth higher level.

i especially like break times and lunch. (:
yeah.
company's great.
teachers rock.
i've got an entirely different outlook on things.

so things are going well in short.
ash wednesday sort of reminded what sacrifice is about, since i really like to have my food.

gonna make this lent worthwhile.

and yeah, i just really love the people at sjii! really, fun, loving group of people.
you feel a sort of closeness yknow?

yeahhh, really homey, cosy sort of feeling.

well, in short, i'm content.
content with how my life is, and what i have to do.
there might be struggles yeah, just throw them my way.
but in Him, i can do all things.

night(:
P.S. berns i did try not to blog about my thoughts! but one cant blog without thinking eh?
6 comments