brown

in a minute there is time/ for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse

there really isnt any difference between feeling everything and feeling nothing; to want everything is to want nothing, really, and dont all colours mix into brown anyhow? red and blue and yellow and green and white - dont they all mix to brown? at the end of my tether, on feverish afternoons, during this headache that addles me everyday, is that not what i am? - brown, everything, nothing. functioning on painkillers, going on temporary highs, bursts of red and flashes of green and blue and yellow, is that not what i become anyway? - brown.

and now i'm sleepy, because i think - i dont know why - that the meaning of it all is to sleep

left and leaving

my city's still breathing (but barely it's true)
through buildings gone missing like teeth.
the sidewalks are watching me think about you,
sparkled with broken glass.
i'm back with scars to show,
back with the streets i know
will never take me anywhere but here.
the stain in the carpet, this drink in my hand,
the strangers whose faces i know.
we meet here for our dress-rehearsal to say "i wanted it this way".
wait for the year to drown,
spring forward, fall back down.
i'm trying not to wonder where you are.
all this time lingers, undefined.
someone choose who's left and who's leaving.
memory will rust and erode into lists of all that you gave me:
a blanket, some matches, this pain in my chest,
the best parts of Lonely, duct tape and soldered wires,
new words for old desires,
and every birthday card I threw away.
i wait in 4/4 time,
count yellow highway lines that you're relying on to lead you home.

the weakerthans

all at once

there are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.

now, it seems, i am all of these at once. i'd once say i feel nothing, but maybe i know better now; i feel everything.

elliott smith

watching again dawn and clara and francesca dancing on stage, knowing that this is prolly the last time they will ever dance together. meditating, how sad that this must end! how sad that this must end! and oh what a terrible thing to end, to fade into the back of the stage, to become relics, strangers from the past, saying goodbye, with unrelated dancers on an unrelated stage. and oh! what a terrible thing it is to watch it end, sneaky j3's with watchful eyes that recognise the recycled medfac cheerleading skirts and recycled dance moves. and then somemore, oh how terrible, it must be, to be j4, and to fade into the night - no flowers to give, no friends to cheer for and no cheap exchanges. instead, they stand together with faithful friends and watch as rituals are re-enacted, the rituals they had once been part of.

and who but us will remember our late nights? without memorials, without stories translated and retold, will not our sweat and laughter dissolve into naught? who will remember, at the end? who is ready for the end?

leaden circles

it is past april and well into may. plath's april used to hang over my head back in school, but now it's just a teenage quirk, another melon ice-cream, another party in someone's bukit timah home. within a month, i have finished mrs dalloway, i have watched st. elmo's fire [so delightfully 80's, to say the least], slept around more [in many ways], bought an ipod shuffle and airport express, put on weight, lost weight, scouted around for a place to rent, thought i was gay, thought i was straight, got rejected by brown. and today with a wonderful flourish, as if to promise something better, i met aidan. but always a voice says to me, are you sure? are you sure? have i progressed? am i past yearning? do i have an answer? no. yes. no. no. still i think i can give so much more but, oh, the distance is quite simply much too far for me to row. can you help yourself? can i help myself? will we be fine? how will we grow? cold! cold! the leaden circles dissolve - without mercy, no - into the air.

It was fascinating with people still laughing and shouting in the drawing-room, to watch that old woman, quite quietly, going to bed alone. She pulled the blind now. The clock began striking. The young man had killed himself; but she did not pity him; with the clock striking the hour, one, two, three, she did not pity him, with all this going on. There! The old lady had put out her light! the whole house was dark now with this going on, she repeated, and the words came to her, Fear no more the heat of the sun. She must go back to them. But what an extraordinary night! She felt somehow like him - the young man who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away while they went on living.

now and then