[im]possible

i fancy this being the last thing i say to you. but not im not very sure whether it will. i never am very sure about anything. anyhow.

i dont understand you either. there were times when you made me feel as if i was on a roller-coaster, the wind through my hair, and every second speeding past too quickly - there were times when you made me so happy, so important, so wanted. and then there are times when i feel like an afterthought, less important than grades, less important than competitions, less important than performances - there are times when you made me feel so second-class.

i admit that i always say that grades, season, and cca are the most important things in these two years. but i also like to imagine that i am worth some sacrifice, some kind of trade-off, some kind of effort. right now, more than any other thing, i feel like i am worth so little to you - i am only worth the treat you insist you owe me, i am only worth the presents i give you, i am only worth the money i give you.

maybe i just want to send you on a guilt trip. maybe i just want to be honest. i'll tell you this now, in order to let you have all the things i have given you, i have sacrificed a lot. all that i gave you are not significant in their monetary value; they are significant because of the sacrifices i made in order to give you what you said you wanted.

i feel like i am being stretched over a line. on one side of the line is what i want, and that is to love you. my sanity, my coherence, my instincts are all on this side.

on the other side of the line there is what is good for you, and that is for me to not love you, to be religious. on this side lies my desire to be a man, to give you what is actually good for you, to not care about what will happen to myself.

night after night i pull myself taut over this line, and i do not enjoy the sensation, it scrambles me up and i get a headache. you must either have the strength to pull me over to you, to be with you, so i can begin to have some sort of mental recovery, or you must have the will to cut me from whatever binds me to you, so i can begin to build myself on someone else.

do you want me? or do you have to let me go? you must choose. because you know i can never choose. chances are you will have to let me go, because you are my biggest impossibility. i can make myself get four A's, i can make myself run for hours on end, but i cannot make you love me and i know that. so please tell me fast what you choose, dont be afraid to hurt me, because i already hurt myself anyway.

and indeed there will be time... time for you and time for me,/ and time yet for a hundred indecisions,/ and for a hundred visions and revisions,/ before the taking of a toast and tea... and indeed there will be time/ to wonder, "do I dare?" and, "do I dare?"... do I dare/ disturb the universe?/ in a minute there is time/ for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

all i want, you see, is for you to remember how much i want to reverse bungee with you. for you to know that the best birthday present would have been a replacement friendship band that would only take up time, not money. for you to understand how significant that last run at canal route would have been for me, if you'd only woken up in time. for you to know how important it was for me to have 24 before i went into ns. for you to understand that i really hope you will be happy. urgh. i know we are now very close to goodbye. you will say no and i will be sec3 all over again. M was right. in all my stumbling clumsiness, i throw everything i have away.

seusia malam kumenantimu
dihembus embun aku tersipu
mungkinkah kau lupa temu janji kita
kau gembira bersama teman-temanmu

berlari-lari kumencarimu
selembut salju musim berlalu
mengapa berubah sekelip mata
hatiku gundah tiada terhingga

kau umpama merpati putih
patah sayapnya di udara
bercahaya

straight back to the right hand side

what've i been doing? how far have i strayed? i look again and find you're nowhere near where i left you, where we left off. like a squirrel that returns in anticipation of a season's labour, i thought i could pick you up again. i thought i could savour your sweet smell again. but i have gone too far, spinning circles around you, the next one further than the last. now i want to go straight back to you, but the circles, i am caught in the circles i have spun myself. where are you? are you still there? are you still mine? 24 was a dream not too long ago, but now it's nothing but yellowed memory. oh no.

the rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door/ have been silenced forever more/ the distance is quite simply much too far for me to row/ it seems farther than ever before


A Supermarket in California, by Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whit-
man, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees
with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images,
I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of
your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole fam-
ilies shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives
in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you,
Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the
watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old
grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator
and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed
the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my
Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of
cans following you, and followed in my imagination
by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in
our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every
frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors
close in an hour. Which way does your beard point
tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets?
The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses,
we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming ofthe lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent
cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-
teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit
poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank
and stood watching the boat disappear on the black
waters of Lethe?

why does

why does nirvana bother putting in a hidden track when it sounds so bad? or maybe it's meant to be hidden because it's so bad. right now im wondering about/thinking of nothing in particular but already i feel important. i must be sleepy. i miss monica and the evening breeze in the canteen.i miss knowing that just a few tables away sat a girl that could walk with me into heaven.

spun

people have lots to ask about national service and i have enough to say, but i dont think i want to write about anything that's already taking up my life against my will.

your heart is a river that flows from your chest/through every organ/your brain is the dam/and i am the fish who cant reach the cord./ivory lines lead./oh, instincts are misleading/you shouldnt think what you're feeling/they dont tell you what you know you should want

on sunday i go for my brown interview and im scared to bits because im so afraid they'll see right through me and into my mediocrity and wannabe-aspirations.

all i see are dark grey clouds/in the distance moving closer with every hour/so when you ask "was something wrong?"/that i think "you're damn right there is but we can't talk about it now./no, we can't talk about it now."/so one last touch and then you'll go/and we'll pretend that it meant something so much more/but it was vile, and it was cheap/and you are beautiful but you dont mean a thing to me/yea you are beautiful but you dont mean a thing to me

im tired and nowadays i dont know what im thinking. i want to be able to find the words and sentences i could just a few weeks back, but the mental deprivation im going through now doesnt make me draw from my reserves but rather starves me. i look down at my sketchbook and all i see are funny squiggles and shapes dont make any specific or capacious sense. so all i do is to write lyrics that i keep hearing in my head. oh dear.

i roll the window down/and then begin to breathe in/the darkest country road/and the strong scent of evergreen/from the passenger seat as you are driving me home./then looking upwards/i strain my eyes and try/to tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites/from the passenger seat as you are driving me home./"do they collide?"/i ask and you smile./with my feet on the dash/the world doesn't matter

i look forward to many things but i miss so much more. same old same old

uh-huh.

"the need remains," veena from the new paper declared to me as she interviewed me. and yes, there prolly still is a need to help people around us. halfway through charity-archery today, however, it was as if i moulted and i began thinking that hell, maybe i dont want to be doing all this nonsense things for people. perhaps i've been spending too much time and energy on the unlucky's around me. perhaps i simply am too silly to understand this fully. whatev. the past week [and more] has been burnt on minutiae that im not very sure was worth my last week of pre-ns-dom. whatever happened to righting things with that crazy boy? whatever happened to exploring things with my other crazy boy? whatever happened to deviantART? and keeping fit? and RightKindOf? sold, for $13000, piles of unnecessary clothes, expired ginseng pills, half a box of calcium lactate, two tins of milk powder, one of milo, canned tuna and a spot of free publicity [hoho! jieming is SO avowedly a publicity non-whore]. in times of strength i build myself into great heights of nobility and selflessness, only to convince myself that in times of need i am capable of collapsing into myself.

after some pre-deviantART thought [aka introspective PC], i realised that all the nausea was[/is?] me just wanting to purge and expel. not last night's chicken or the free murtabak, just good ol' self-loathing me. hah! photoshop here i come!

grand-ogl-ing/crashing orientation was very tastefully bland. people were adequately interesting. games and storyline hugely disappointing. im not too sure. rachel insists it's a case of "sally" but i swear it's true - where were the backdrops? what happened to the av? did they rehearse? what's with the non-costumes? and the non-props? and the nonsense strewn all over the stage? oteam prolly did try really hard though. oh i dont know. the most convincingly good thing that came out of k'predorus was how chong lin became such a sistah. haha like seriously. gave her a huge paper crane giving her the thumbs up and she gave me a stone. it's better than it sounds.

J spent the night at my house yesterday, and i fell into the whole subconscious 16 trap - used "we" waaaayyyy too many times. we talked ourselves into delirium under my old and worn power rangers blanket, eg saying 12 dollars instead of days and the "did you tie" gaffe. woke up and just lay in bed holding each other, me intoxicated by his scent [fa man deo, apparently. i'll get it for myself.], his smooth but thick skin, and he looking at my fine but morning hair. by the time we woke up i was late for my mount E appointment. if only this was what the kembangan club was about. sexless but fun nights, i mean.

mount E was good stuff for reasons i shall not publish. what was also fun - for me - was walking down to paragon in tshirt, shorts and slippers as though i lived just around the corner [shaf would know what i mean]. finally lay my hands on death cab for cutie's transatlanticism, though i dont know whether i should thank gramophone for bringing it in for me or to complain about why it took like 10 years. ah music can change so many things, no?

my mother [like literally] left for manila today, two days before i leave for ns. and my father is coming back from jakarta only tomorrow night. not like it matters, because i'd rather not have them around to layan during the whole inception procedure. plus they're such fucks anyway. what i hate is how it's such a classic dont-mention-anything case. urgh shant elaborate, but im filled with sulphurous contempt. why do i even bother about this kind of things? because they give me money/sustenance and i have to find a way to be filial, but only because i want to be.

im very ambivalent about ns. it'll be fun and all and i mix very well with bengs/mats. only im very afraid that i'll be too tired to do anything on weekends. and i refuse to be an nsman. forever be an nsboy. even if im paying higher fares.

i've got a hunger
twisting my stomache into knots
that my tongue was tied off

my brain's repeating
"if you've got an impulse let it out"
but they never make it past my mouth.

bah, this is the sound of settling
our youth is fleeting
old age is just around the bend
and i cant wait to go grey
and i'll sit and wonder
of every love that could've been
if i'd only thought of something charming to say.
death cab for cutie, sound of settling

the past few days have been

The Raffles donation drive in aid of tsunami victims begins on 3rd January 2005 (Monday). We are appealing for cash donations. Cheques should be addressed to "Red Cross Singapore", with "Tidal Waves Asia" written on the back. Donations in kind are also accepted, though only milk powder, antiseptics, paracetamol, water purification tablets and bottled water will be collected. Collection is carried out in the Raffles Junior College canteen at 10 Bishan Street 21 from 11.30am to 4.30 pm daily. Donations will be channelled through the Red Cross and the Indonesian Embassy. Please contribute generously towards this worthy cause.

the past few days have been a most appropriate denouement for what would have otherwise been a bland bittersweet year. new year's eve with M was unconventionally enjoyable, most of all when we found ourselves eating junk food we forbade ourselves from eating through the year outside 7-11 siglap at 2am in the morning. shared secrets, half-hearted new year's resolutions, lots of burps and spit later, i realised that we've talked more in the past week than we have since we met each other. and now for part 2 next week, only i cant decide whether i should choose "24" or funwithM. tsk.