hello/goodbye

you walked into my life when you first walked into my apartment. uninvited and completely unannounced.

well hello there, stranger.

later that night you put on your black leather jacket and said goodbye. perhaps you slipped in a 'see you some time'.. but it didn't matter. looking back, it makes me so afraid to recall how i had so quickly dismissed the slightest notion of there being anything worth building upon. it was only a matter of hours. yet you held out your arms for a hug, which took me by surprise.

did it surprise you when less than a year later, i held mine out for you?

i was serenely independent
and content before we met
surely i could always be that way again
and yet
i've grown accustomed to his looks
accustomed to his voice
accustomed to his face

indelibly

that evening we left the korean restaurant in the same surreptitious way we entered it. i dodged puddles in my slouchy suede boots, you said i looked like a little girl in them. i remember feeling the slightest tinge of annoyance that our little rendezvous was turning out to be of such clandestine nature. you couldn't tell, could you?

im not your cousin, silly. we'd wanted to keep it our little secret forever, didnt we?

how it happened i may never know. wasn't it just to be a night like any other night? did we inch closer - as the minute hand drew closer to 12 - because we feared the magic would fade with the closing of the night? was it written in the stars in that overcast london sky? did you see it coming at all? was it with a stubborn recklessness that i let my guard down?

perhaps the decision to share a tiramisu was so much more profound, premonitory than we could possibly have known then. a layer of light, chocolatey sweetness belying a heavier, richer substance underneath, now trailing off to a lingering aftertaste. possibly lingering on long after the moment is over. i may be a hopeless romantic, but tell me if this is not the bittersweet stuff our story is made of.

no matter what - your face, your touch, your voice, will ever remain indelibly impressed upon this heart.

im so glad you came over for tiramisu.

I Got Lost In His Arms

don't ask me just how it happened
i wish i knew
i can't believe that it's happened
and still it's true

i got lost in his arms, and i had to stay
it was dark in his arms, and i lost my way
from the dark came a voice, and it seemed to say:
"there you go, there you go"

how i felt, as i fell, i just can't recall
but his arms held me fast and it broke the fall
and i said to my heart
as it foolishly kept jumping all around:

"i got lost,
but look what i found"

for no reasonable reason

as one sits here lonelily, yet not alone - murmurs of a dozen or more nameless voices surround you - biting lips and blinking eyes, one does the natural thing to do:

hey?

silence follows. and blankness

you there?

you're not there. but you're not here either. and i am a million and one pent-up emotions questions fears just waiting to brim over with the blink of an eye, and plop down in fat drops into my lap.

everything is not broken - john mayer

that autumn leaves fall dry and sweet
tells me everything is not broken
no everything is not broken
if everything's not fine
if everything's not fine

that nature rains on flames we made
should tell you everything is not broken
no everything is not broken
if everything's not fine
if everything's not fine

that you could be, oh here with me
tells me everything is not broken
no everything is not broken
if everything's not fine
if everything's not fine

more weddings then funerals in time, in time
if everything's not fine
'cause everything is not broken
no everything is not broken
everything will be fine
everything will be fine

Between the devil & the deep blue sea

isn't a very nice place to be in.

mirage

foot's on the pedal
but who's in the driver's seat?

no I'm not color blind / i know the world is black and white / try to keep an opened mind I just can't sleep on this tonight / stop this train I want to get out and go home again / i can't take the speed it's moving in

stop this train
- john mayer

cornered.

and the only way out is up.

Comforthings

My duvet.
Mommy's homemade cornflake cookies.
Alan crooning Donny Hathaway in the shower.
White roses.
The heartwarming sight of a child nestled in a beanbag, sucking her thumb contentedly whilst listening to a story on a pair of headphones.
Raindrops softly falling.
Friends who care enough to not be afraid of being naggy. (=
Hugs.

some things make sense more than others
things of the heart seldom do

Where I like best to be kissed

On the forehead.

Just like how my favourite five year old Nour kissed me today when I was zipping up his jacket for him. (=

gushing and blushing
-may-

Good morning, Monday

Lipstick on my teeth
Perfume in my eyes

My hair out of place
My socks mismatched

Yesterday reverberates
Still in my head

Fuzzy wuzzy dizzy ditzy
Nippy in my skinny tee

I'm running late
Hot chocolate burns my tongue

But oh, it's Monday morning
So tell me, now - what's new?

Never really know

Is it in mere facial features - a flawlessly shaped nose, two almond-eyes, a chiselled jaw and cheekbones? In the way you knit your eyebrows as in deep contemplation, and the creases in your forehead as you frown at a careless thoughtless remark? The way you throw your head back and laugh to yourself; at yourself? Or that stray wisp of jet black hair that stubbornly escaped the path of my fingers running through your hair.

In a room filled with fifty people of all shapes sizes colour and creed, what is it that sets you apart from the rest?

Perhaps it is in the way those brown eyes light up when you smile. And the delightful crinkles at the corners of your eyes that so endear you to me.

Disclaimer: Purely fictional. (=

Nightshift

11pm, Zhon's room. Oriental-themed. Japanese paper-lantern lights, bamboo-themed wall decor. A strikingly out-of-place Van Gogh. Taboo.

2:20am, Jin Rong's room. Zen. Minimalist interior. Dim, smokey ambience, and a fruitiness wafting in the air. A shimmering, fluid sun. Chill-out music.

4:15am, my room. Complete darkness except for my laptop screen. Nina Simone.

Nothingness. Nobodyness.

Pensive. And unusually wide awake.

Torn

Between two decisions, two paths, two opinions, two desires.

I've learnt, and am only beginning to accept, that it's not about reconciling the two. Just like a piece of fabric that is torn, you either come away with the piece that is being torn off, or you stay with the main body - the fundamental piece. I suppose, it really is like stripping away that which is unwholesome, unwanted etc, and keeping "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable.. anything [that] is excellent or praiseworthy" (Philippians 4:8). One cannot endeavour to satify both the Spirit-man and the Flesh-man. With every decision you make at that point of being "torn between two", you weaken one and strengthen the other.

There really shouldn't be a halfway, should there? - If I'm going to be torn, let it be all the way.

"How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him."

1 Kings 18:21

torn all the way,

-may-

ghost

if i dug a hole in the ground and buried my head in it so i wouldnt see you
would you then pretend i wasnt there too?

Spring can really hang you up the most

Heard this song by Jane Monheit on Pandora today. And it occurred to me how in some ways this song would have been so appropriate to my own little love affair last year which lasted but til the end of Spring, heh. d=

Once I was a sentimental thing
threw my heart away each spring
Now a spring romance
hasn't got a chance
Promised my first dance to winter
All I've got to show is a splinter
for my little fling.

Spring this year has got me feeling
like a horse that never left the post
I lie in my room
staring up at the ceiling
Spring can really hang you up the most.

Morning's kiss wakes trees and flowers
and to them I'd like to drink a toast
But I walk in the park
just to kill the lonely hours
Spring can really hang you up the most.

All afternoon the birds twitter-twitt
I know the tune. This is love, this is it
Heard it before
and I don't know the score
And I've decided that spring is a bore.

Love seems sure around the new year
Now it's April - love is just a ghost
Spring arrived on time
only what became of you, dear?
Spring can really hang you up the most.
Spring can really hang you up the most.

Love came my way, I thought it would last
We had our day, now it's all in the past
Spring came along, a season of song
Full of sweet promise
but something went wrong.

Doctors once prescribed a tonic
Sulfur and molasses was the dose
Didn't help one bit
My condition must be chronic
Spring can really hang you up the most.

All alone, the party is over
Old man winter was a gracious host
But when you keep praying
for snow to hide the clover
Spring can really hang you up the most.

They just don't write lyrics like this anymore these days. I've always wondered how people write such REAL lyrics and still be able to make them RHYME. For me, it's always either one or the other. Or neither. Lol.

P/S= Not to be taken too seriously, this post. (=

Hold my breath

You know the feeling of desperately trying to hold your breath for as long as you can, as if to freeze a moment in time?

Breathe in, breathe out. The seconds hand ticks away atrociously and it doesn't wait. In a perfectly quiet room the ticking of the clock torments you; it becomes louder and louder until it transmogrifies from a mere sound into an invisible yet tangible hand that grabs you by the collar and shakes you furiously, never ever letting go. Breathe in, breathe out. The earth continues its stubborn revolution, it doesn't wait for you either. Every step you take, takes you further away from where you were.

With every contraction of your lungs to expel air, the strokes that write in the sand on the seashore of the story of your life are being formed. Can you possibly afford the time to take a few steps back? To stand back and look upon the big but unfinished picture laid out in the sand? You have to keep writing; everyone keeps writing. For who knows when the tide will come and wash it all away..

And so you hold your breath. If anything, the stillness shall shut out the sounds. Your eyes are yours to close. And for a moment - just for one short moment - time will stand still.

Age to age He stands
And time is in His hands
Beginning and the End
Beginning and the End.

My times are in Your hands.

Retrospect

Looking back, I don't know what all that emotional brouhaha was for. A little uncalled for, don't you think? Yet I know everything happens for a reason, and nothing is in itself a 'waste'. But for now and most likely for a long time to come, I just want to focus on the real deal: Me and my Maker. And I am more than content. (=

It's not about self-discovery. It's about God-discovery.