Summer

We can begin again

Shed our skin, let the sun shine in

At the edge of the ocean

We can start over again

-Edge Of The Ocean, Ivy

You're Keeping Me Down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhI4CpAH8wM

Because somethings have just got to be here.

Set me free, leave me be

I don't wanna fall another moment into your gravity

Here I am and I stand so tall

I'm just the way I'm supposed to be

But you're onto me and all over me

- Gravity, Sara Bareilles

From A Cold Steel Rail

So, so you think you can tell

Heaven from Hell

Blue skies from pain
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail
A smile from a veil

Do you think you can tell

Did they get you to trade

Your heroes for ghosts
Hot ashes for trees

Hot air for a cool breeze
Cold comfort for change
And did you exchange

A walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage

How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl

Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found

The same old fears

Wish you were here

-Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd

Saving Grace

I have these moments where I am watching me, like I am this completely other person and I see 'me' going about my life. Don't mock. No seriously, stop it.

They come at the oddest times and in the most ridiculous situations. Like at times when I'm on the escalators at the malls, or when I'm drawing the curtains at night, or when I'm smudging off the kohl at restaurant washrooms. For fuck's sake, even sometimes when I'm making out with someone. And mostly I hate those trices, I hate where I am in them, I hate what I'm doing in them and I basically hate me in them.

But today was another day. It happened when we were doing this routine to 'Unwritten' by Natasha Bedingfield. The theme was something along the lines of having a clean slate to start over with and that sort of shit. Very predictable for a Bedingfield song, of course.

But here's the unpredictable part, the part where as we rehearsed and rehearsed to the point of absolute physical exhaustion, I soon turned happy for no remotely logical reason at all. And strange happy at that. I can't quite explain the dynamics of it but I remember a sudden rush of brilliance, of life, of how I was glad to be where I was. And in that moment nothing else mattered. I was at dance class, and I was happy.The world could have been restricted to those mirrors and that room and I wouldn't know, I wouldn't care. I wanted to be in that moment, and I wanted to do what I was doing. I was watching me, and it was alright.

I had a beautiful day today, the kind of day where everything falls into place and you know you'll be okay. Well, eventually. So this is me keeping a record of it.

Stranded

There’s something about that first shower that breaks the dry summer spell. There’s no telling where you will be or what you will be in the middle of when it happens, when those blessed first drops hit the brown earth, trickle down a car window or find their way on your skin. And in that moment, everything comes to a standstill.

The rush of life in its morbid, monotonous sense stops and the truly ecstatic kind takes its place. You stop moving and you notice. You notice things around you that you otherwise wouldn't. The gray skies shadowing the city, the splattering drops on the pavement next to the red light, the trees that hover as the wind bustles through them, the water dripping on signboards you’d otherwise ignore, even the milky texture the puddles seem to imitate.

You can’t help but wonder where all that water is headed and you can’t get enough of the fresh, damp air seasoned with change. And with this comes the realization of the time that has passed, another summer over. You realize how life has been moving all along while you were busy living it, how a season passed as another one ushers in. It catches you by surprise even though you had been waiting for it all along. The sheerness of your existence and that of everything around seeps in.

And then just as suddenly, you jolt back to now. The moment is over. A smile creeps up to the corner of your lips and you make a mental note to be more aware of the world around you, that quiet changing world. You promise yourself you’ll never get too busy again to notice, strong-willed promises of never getting too occupied again, or even too apathetic.

But before you know it, the leaves are turning golden as autumn unravels, another monsoon over. It catches you by surprise even though you had been waiting for it all along. Our days got busy again, apathy took over again.

It's Good To Be In Love

I'm adoring you
It's all good
You're so beautiful
I'm black and blue all over
You're breaking my flow
How could you know what I'm saying about it

When all of my clothes feel like somebody's old throwaways
I don't like it

It's good to be in love
It really does suit you
Just like everything
I'm happy you're in love
'Cause every color goes where you do

- It's Good To Be In Love, Frou Frou

Signal Fire

Midsummer woes, and the shivering wind

Show me what's new, and where it begins

Liven me up, come read me the signs

Across the latitude, should you tell me what's mine

Save me a glimpse, a frugal escapade

Hallelujah to sweet love, and the mess we made

Now just lift me up, to spin me around

Then stay and watch, as I burn life down

In Lackluster

I'm tired and I don't know what's draining me.

You know that overbearing phrase, 'being alone in a crowd'. That phrase you hear in the most cheesy songs and movies, the one you scorn off as 'said too much' or even 'overrated'?

I felt that today.

Somewhere in between when they switched seats and made their cautionary announcements. It came without a hint. But it did when I felt myself grappling for air. I must have looked calm, very calm. I gazed up, drew in a painfully sharp breath, and held it there. Random images from everywhere; MRI scans, imposing books stacked in the library, the cheesecake neighbor who never wanted a marriage, a prolonged sickness, city lights from the sky, silver coins, the four street kids entwined in a strange city, the cold spellbinding vista, the blue house, Zozie de l'Alba, staircase classrooms, the washing machine fight, cockroach operations, her ever-so-credulous face, unkempt fairy-lit shacks, national highways, the waterfall from nowhere...

I exhaled just as suddenly, back to feeling nothing.

'Turning the sign around

We're closed to the earth 'til further notice'

- Wait It Out, Imogen Heap

Urzu Durkut

For future reference, this getting frisky business doesn't last very long. So the next time you do feel that good frisky, try not to get too carried away. More often than not, something will snap you out of your 'friskiness'.

Yes, today isn't one of my brighter days.

I push away the good things, I do. A lot of my life would be different and possibly nicer, if I didn't go out of my way, making that effort to change things (more like, screw them over repeatedly). I dislike, disapprove and disillusion a little too much. Nothing is ever good enough. Ever. No, it's not greed, just miserably high standards and as much as I hate to admit it, self imposed expectations. And then the endless search for something new and scintillating, all the time. Nothing holds my interest and goodwill long enough. So here I am again, craving that something or someone would.

Why this wallowing, you ask? It isn't.

Call it my way of ruminating the life I live, my way of coming up with convictions as to why these seemingly terrible things I do, are actually what I like about my days.

I like to push away the good things to find out what it means for them to be good. I like to go out of my way to change things, to see where that change takes me. Too much of the dislike, disapproval and disillusion? I feverishly look forward to what the sieving left behind, to the fostering it claims.

The 'not good enough' keeps me scouring my days for things I don't know of, things they don't yet speak of. And it wouldn't be an endless search if it weren't for the endless possibilities. New, scintillating, endless possibilities.

Trace The Silence

'What part of our history's reinvented and under rug swept?
What part of your memory is selective and tends to forget?
What with this distance it seems so obvious?'

- Hands Clean, Alanis Morrisette

So I've been feeling particularly frisky these days. A good kind of frisky. You know the kind that makes you feel a little new, a little scared and a little hopeful, all at once? Going back has become rediscovering and the days turned a little sprightly. I keep to myself and I do things that make me truly happy. Basking in solitude? Maybe.

Speak No Feeling

How often do you stare, how often do you flinch?

Buried in oblivion, these brass tacks you lynch

She laughs with them, very much in sync

And did she feel like water, unruffled on the brink

Wake up to yet another white-bread day

Before you know, they already scraped their way

Jagged despair and the unmistakable charade

You take a fling at her trampled promenade

So tell me now, what is it that you grieve?

She negotiated your looks, that haunting mien

You couldn't string along should they set her free

It brings you back to all those places she could now be

Long Gone

Yesterday was ten years already, and it isn't any less agonizing. I always thought he'd come back. That's what people did. They got sick, they went to a doctor, got better and came back. They were supposed to come back.

This one time, being gravely unwell, it was effort to even sit up. But he had promised me ice-cream from a stall at the end of the lane, and so we went. I don't remember what ice-cream it was, or why it was so important that day, but I do remember that it took us more than an hour to get there when it should have been just five minutes away. It hits me now how he had staggered all the way. Beyond that, our walk to the stall was slackened by every person passing. Pleasantries were shared and you could tell they meant well.

The last days he recognized no one. He had no sense of anything around him or even of himself. But there were moments. Elusive ones, but there nonetheless. And in those few moments, those trices, you could see. You could see him in sync with everything. With himself, with us, everything. Like he had always been.

At the brink of a winter, the Cimmerian shade questioned

Why no one lived, only ceased to exist?

Of Landmarks And Flesh Heaps

Stray through today, middle of the road

Places we see, people we know

A big blue marble, could it ever tell

Those who moved and those who held

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven - W.B Yeats

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Will They Blame You?

It's not that hard to understand. A child of bare 7, all you do is run around on the terrace, play a little, call names and double up laughing at everything. You make friends with just about anyone. Of course, they have to let you pick the teams.

He isn't family yet. And he comes along, blows you away! The coin just disappeared! You pester him around and ask him questions no one else would bother with answering.

'Why is the sky so high?'

'Will a fly stick to my tongue like it does to a frog's?'

'Do you think our cat might be a ghost? Last night I saw her eyes glow in the dark.'

He has an answer for everything. And he smiles, holds you by the arm, as he tells you. Tells you of the frogs, the cat, the sky. Tells you of things that leave you spellbound, and quite often chuckling insanely.

'Did you know you can't lick your own elbow?' You try, and again. He's right! You are now a fan.

One evening, you're on the terrace. You and him. You'll never forgive them for leaving you behind that day. But they didn't know.

He lays you down, there's a story to be told. 'Of pixies and fairies! The Enchanted Wood!'

You are out of your mind! But wait, what is he doing now?

He begins by caressing your face, tracing back the curls. And now he's planting kisses. Affection? They get sloppier and they're all over you. You're uncomfortable, and you squirm. But he's a big man, and he's touching you wrong. He's running his hands over you, down there. His firm grip has you pinned down.

'Let me go!'

'Aw, come on now. You want a story? I'll tell you one, a really good one. Just stay still for a while.'

You're gripped by overpowering, stark terror. This man scares you. And he won't let you go. He's doing these things to you, and you know they're wrong, and painful, but he won't let you go! You find yourself going numb and you can't feel the tears that you shed. You're drained of all spirit and you hate that man. But he won't let you go.

Just then someone calls your name, you jolt back to comprehension. He flusters, panics. You manage to wriggle out of his hold, but not before feeling his glare burn your skin. You want to scram downstairs, and to never look back. But you're legs allow only a stagger. You will remember precisely, how many times you tripped that day, and the jaggedness of the stairs you lapsed on. Will they blame you?

You bring yourself to stop crying and obscure the affliction. You don't know what happened and you don't know whom to go to.

Dinner is served.

Inveigle This Shadow

Of slamming doors that reassure,

Of steps that pretend to skitter for cover.

Of trices that blur the vision fleetingly,

Of raindrops that trace their way on stark skin.

It's a strange evening today,

An intimate affair tomorrow.

Witchcraft And Beyond

You know what I love?

That when the night materializes, the still ink-like expanse of a late October sky, the unversed breath of seasoned novelty , the mirrors reflecting the scintillating lights reveled, chords that arouse the quantum of existence in that empty, cryptic room...

I can be anyone, I can go anywhere.

One Night To Speed Up Truth

Feigning indifference is your saving grace. It's when you give that cold-shoulder that you can face anything or anyone. If you can convince the person on the other end that nothing ever meant anything to you, you can get through just about everything that comes your way. That 'Heartbeats' lapsed you to tears, is your secret and the knot in your chest which refuses to come undone, is for you to withstand.

There's a sense of comfort in knowing that the person who caused you to falter and left you unsettled, won't get to see you in that disoriented and disgraceful state. It's caitiff in the least, agreed. But if you have to go through the inescapable motions of grieving and affliction and regret, you might as well do it in the quiet of your room where no one can see that smudged kohl or hear that heart-wrenching song which reminds you of the time spent unscathed and then of everything you did wrong, of every moment in which a choice was made, of every expectation you said you won't have. You can't help but think, 'what if I hadn't gone through with it'.

God forbid anyone saw you this way. You who claimed to not care, claimed to be on a different level of sensibility, claimed to be in control, claimed to be detached, dispassionate.

And now you snivel while the song plays. A girl can only do so much.

I've Only Got A Sleeping Sun

I put those glowing stars in her room, and took her in. They gleamed in the dark and she squealed in animation. 'Lift me up', she asked feverishly, so as to touch those things that radiated magic. She beamed at me with angelic delight, gave me a gleeful, soft kiss.

Pieces of plastic can make for an exquisite moment and there are always some relationships that you can be thankful for, that one kiss which couldn't possibly make you feel foul or dirty, unlike the myriad others you've been smothered with.