The Place That Time Forgot

There is always something permanent about the air that surrounds the city, as if the very space that slips between the buildings refuses to give way to the solidity of the body. The land is still the same: a mixture of emptiness and tall buildings, rivers that meander through the cityscape, unmindful of the concrete bridges and the children playing by its shores. Everything here runs in horizontal lines, leading the eyes across the patterns of sleep.

I’m not quite sure what I’m doing here, with the knowledge that I am character in a story and that I am supposed to search for my epiphany here, where everything is rounded and lazy-daisy yellow. Tell me if I am still supposed to find a compass, an arrow wreathed in neon, telling me where I am going next. I am swimming in an unfamiliar dream here, where things never seem to change. See – my name is still engraved on my things, even after three years of absence.

Arriving at tomorrow seems to be a repetition of days. There will still be the same sunrise, the same border of ferns across the window, the same wooden slats that separate the heat from the coolness of the shadow. This a city of black and white, where everything moves five seconds slower, where even the wind prefers to slow down.

Poetry #1

Some Notes on Being Left Behind

First and foremost, remember that the flower beds
still have to be kept in anticipation of their return.
Some of them like roses, the others daisies.
Never plant them in the same box.
This will make the roots tangle, and you might
have a hard time pulling them up
when the season turns. Secondly, don't forget
to air the beds and mattresses. Especially
the quilted ones: you know the history
of every patch, every stitch sewn from memory
and tradition - this one a wedding wheel, that one
the harvest moon. Sometimes, you invent labels:
lost love, the quiet friend, coffee at three
in the morning, the last movie on TV. Remember
that the world does not center around you.
Keep the house tidy: sweep every morning
before the sunlight hits the floorboards, before you see
the dust motes swirl in the light, dancing upwards
underneath and over you, never to be caught
beneath the rug or behind the door. Everything
has to look the same. Try not to age - your complexion
must be exactly as those in the pictures taken
ten years ago. The clock will not affect the passage
of your time. For you, it is merely a suggestion, never
a fact of life. During sunset, always stand on the porch,
wearing your Sunday best, leaning against the whitewashed
wall. Comb your hair. Wait until the darkness begins.
Then go back inside the house, and prepare
a dinner for one. The nine o'clock news will begin soon.
The welcome will always vary from visitor to visitor.
You, on the other hand, are not allowed to change.

How to be Happy

It's a good question, actually,
wanting to know what can fill you
instead of drain you
of everything you've ever owned:
it begins with your smile being stripped
from your lips, and then the sheen
in your eyes when you see
your favorite flower bobbing
in the afternoon wind. And then
the sound of waves, an ocean
from your childhood memory
the times before your parents
separated. And then it slowly moves
down - your neck refuses to hold
your head up high, and your hands
forget how it feels
to clasp another hand. Your stomach
swells because of all that you refuse
to give up - that last piece of chicken,
the loss of a lover, that last apartment.
And then the feeling travels lower,
to your legs wobbling because of the weight
of permanence and transience
pushing and pulling like insistent
ropes, yanking you from side to side;
your feet weak webbing of bone and flesh,
veins thin blue rivers pretending
to lead somewhere other than here.

Fragment #1

There are only two reasons why people forget: it’s either because they’ve really forgotten everything, wiped everything from their memories, tabula rasa and all that crap, or, they don’t want to tell you what happened.

We were sitting inside the canteen, Kitty and I. Her head in her hands. Shoulders slumped like the slopes of a mountain. She kept on making small sounds, desperate sounds that ended with either a whimper or a word slowly fading into silence. She’d sit up, lean on the table, her fingers toying with the crumpled wrappers of our lunch, and then fall back against the hard plastic back of her seat. Emotions tumbled across her face like children refusing to sit still: weepy – sad – rollicking-tears-wanting-to-fall-down.

(to be continued)

tapping the microphone and clearing my throat

So this is supposed to be a blog that separates my "literary" writings from my online journal.

It began as a plan to organize my material and to ensure that there will still be a copy of my writings somewhere -- ever since our hard drive crashed a month ago, I've realized the value of keeping an online copy of my poems and fiction. If not for anything else, I can always shut this down.

I'll still be maintaining my sundial girl journal though.

So -- here's to conquering the blank page!