The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party when the masks are dropped.
-Arthur Schopenhauer

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Gray.

This one's dedicated to my grandfather.

He lies in bed, eyes opened but he doesn't seem to be aware of the fleeting moments rushing by. Smiling faces come to him, asking how he is, wishing him good health. He nods and sometimes bestows upon them a hesitant smile, but his mind is struggling to remember who they are. These faces, he thinks, were once familiar to me. I used to know them, I might've even cared or loved them but I can't even recognize them anymore. He shakes his head quietly, angry at himself, upset with God, why has he been denied the ability to remember? Why doesn't memory work for him?

Sometimes alone in the room, he smokes a cigarette, gently tapping the edge of the crumbling ash onto the tray, exhaling the warm smoke from his tired lungs. He looks out from the window, his space so limited, so confined; he doesn't even know what is outside. He doesn't care anymore. And even if he did, he never showed it.

I watch his eyes, his gray eyes so filled with emotion. His wrinkled skin is leathery and shiny, holding together a face that has gone through nearly a century of caresses, kisses, maybe even some punches. Sometimes I want to hold him, want to hug him close, never let him go, my innermost fear threatening to break through me. But I know he wouldn't let me hug him, he wouldn't want me to. He loves me but he doesn't want to see me weak.

When I was young, I used to sleep by his side. Once, I even crawled over him, made it to the bathroom, played with water in the bucket, and crawled back to bed after that. I was dripping wet, rolling around in dirty water on the bed, his shirt soaked at the stomach since I crawled over him.

I don't remember that. But I wish I could.

I see him several times a week, words don't come easy to us, but there are precious moments in between when he would crack a joke, or when I would make him smile, and I grip onto these fragile pieces of memories inside my heart, in case they would slip away into nothingness.

These days are too painful to bear, for my thoughts are constantly plagued by my incessant fears and worries. If I were not to see him again, I don't know if I could bear the pain. I share the same humour he once had and still does have sometimes, I am built like him, his blood runs through mine. I am an imperfect reflection of history, the broken glass shards of a whole, the granddaughter who resembles certain traits of her grandfather.

If he leaves, a part of me dies as well.

But I hope, he remembers me till the very last moment; the flawed grandchild who once woke him up at night, sitting on his stomach with cold hands and feet, with a mischievous smile on her face.

I hope he remembers.
posted by sixtieshairdo on 9:52 AM

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

something i wrote on 12th dec 2003.

a short story.

whiteness enveloped the soft footsteps of the wind. wisps of invisible smoke rose and coiled itself gracefully around me. i shuddered lightly, thinking of the lingering kiss i shared with him. that never happened. only because i don't ever want it to.

i want to to sit in the middle of the empty road, as the breeze of the velvet night teases my disheveled curls. just waiting for the arrival of danger. lurking doom never smelt so good, never felt so enticing. the bright lights from an approaching vehicle looms ever so lovingly. my eyes grew large with ambivalence, fear and exhilarating euphoria invading my blood. adrenalin rushes speed through my brain in disoriented flashes. the urge to scream with laughter- to throw my head back in glee, like a child on a rollercoaster ride- tempts me. the seconds slipped by like silky strands of hair through my fingers. every fraction of a moment matters.

then, just before the hard metal rams into my skull and slice through my fractured soul, i sprinted away as the driver receives a shock from seeing a girl appear from nowhere. i smelt stale beer rush past. smiling widely, i know i lived for moments like these.

what a load of bullcrap.
posted by sixtieshairdo on 6:46 AM

we're all painters with unfinished canvasses. some of us choose oil paints, with broad brushstrokes, wild and vigorous, often bright, cheery and some times hovering amongst the darker hues of romantic purple. others choose to use water colours, runny and pale yet flowing beautifully against the textured space, some times invading a sense of poignancy that only the painter can decipher. and there are those who prefer pencils, to sketch and draw with intricate yet unassuming details about the complexities of yesterdays todays and tomorrows.

we're all painters with unfinished canvasses. some of us die without finishing our pieces. some of us don't want to finish our art, preferring to leave it to others to finish it for us. and some of us choose to do more than one painting.

a tangled web of spiders inside my throat, scraping against the wet tissues as they try to escape. i swallowed hard, my saliva pushing them down. persistent and determined, they stabbed my wind pipe with their satanic claws and i choked on my blood. i felt them winning, surviving. their prickly legs poking my numbed tongue. they sprayed bitter acid onto the roof of my mouth and i relented. they escaped and killed me.

today was a good day with 5 lonerZ. embraces, smiles, laughs and sarcastic glances. and senseless impromptu stories and lives we create to bask unto as we filled up the long bus rides, yati's room and the irrelevant passageways to faraway shopping malls. so many more days lie ahead. i'm feeling optimistic. sort of.

i have to get back to my painting.

07/12/2003
posted by sixtieshairdo on 6:45 AM

there was a maniac in my room last night. i hid in my closet, the one with many skeletons, and prayed the maniac never sensed me. the maniac sat on my chair, typing rapidly at the computer keyboard. never once ceasing to glance down at the keys, the maniac stared in a furious manner, unblinking, at the glaring computer screen. there was change. a dramatic tension lulled about the atmosphere. i prayed quietly, asking Allah to forgive me of my many sins. the maniac started crying, a hideous continuous wailing. it was too loud. i clasped my ears closed with my sweaty palms. the wailing turned into uncontrollable screaming. the maniac was dancing the dance of evil.

i peeked out of the tiny gap. the maniac was gone. the eerie silence prickled into a pool of unanswered questions. suddenly, i heard a faint giggle behind me. i realized the rancid breathing was not my guilt, but the maniac's pulse.

"show me!"

the maniac screamed in my ear. i broke free from it's clawed fingers and jumped out of the closet. the maniac was hanging onto my back. i couldn't look at it. i couldn't see it. "show me!", the maniac demanded. "never!", i yelled back, trying to get it off me. i felt heat, fire. the maniac invaded my soul and refused to leave. it was inside of me. "show me!" it said through my voice. it was too much. i was weak. have always been. it started singing. i lost consciousness.

when i awoke, i was in my parents' room, knife in hand, eyes staring down at the blanketed figure which was my sister. "show me" it whispered. when i didn't respond, i felt my arm rise, knife clutched painfully. with all my might, i grabbed the knife with both hands and stabbed myself over and over again. i heard screaming, but it wasn't me.

i fell from grace, from sanity, from being. when i opened my eyes, i saw my grandma's feathery white hair, eyes smiling at me. she stroked my sweaty brow and i heard her whispering prayers. i died in peace.

190304
posted by sixtieshairdo on 3:32 AM

hello, goodbye
so you came back. without warning or hint, you stepped back into what you left three years ago. three years? it felt like yesterday. but i've lived through too many yesterdays. i'm immune to the pain the past can inflict upon me. for i, i have no desire to stop the hurt. hence, when the need is not present, so will the screams. the thunderstorms and poignant empty romances all failed to enlighten this hollow vessel you call your brain. i call it my heart. it's been stabbed too many times, punctured over and over again, till all the blood has run dry. how can i blame the one who never knew? but you knew didn't you? you could feel the burning flames of longing. but you never said a single word, uttered a single syllable, whispered a single breath. and yet, neither did i. you tried, though. somehow, i kept pushing you away, even when my desperate desire was to keep you. thankfully, i never knew who you were. it was the best part of this. we never knew each other, yet we belonged. we fitted perfectly into this jigsaw puzzle of lost hope. so different. yet, so much alike. i guess we'll never see the day we start conversing like proper persons. because you, my dear, you are not proper at all. you are too perfect, too elite to be proper. such beauty. i don't deserve such wondrous blessings. why won't you leave me alone? i knew you came back. when i left, you let me go. now you've come back. you have to leave before i disable you, before i impregnate your purity with my horrendous filth. love has no name. it has no face, no meaning, no richness, no poverty. it just exists without a purpose. when we ask, "what is love?" it's because noone knows. they just layer it with ambiguous perspectives and we are fooled into believing their exquisite foreign tongue. strangers invade this hell hole. you are not a stranger are you? so why are you here? i can't leave with you. i want to, but i can't. i won't. because you cannot be tampered with dirt, you must leave. leave and forget. then maybe we'll both be happy again. tomorrow shouldn't be a reflection of the past. love. my love. my darling. you should know the rest.

280304.
posted by sixtieshairdo on 3:32 AM

she's the epitome of unorthodox beauty. subconsciously uncertain about my emotional development for her, i fell deep. very deep. i don't want to climb out the hole if i had my way. she's so beautiful. can i ever be good enough for this angel? she can make me boil with rage one moment and freeze with fright the next second. our love has no boundaries. yet i am afraid. afraid of the external elements that i envision reaching out at her purity, clawing at her loveliness and tearing her away from me. my impulse acted upon my insecurities. we planned our future, but how dangerously exciting it is to flirt with security.

we planned our end.

the wind swept her curls across her face and she laughed, almost gleefully, at me. i kissed her, this joy of mine, this vintage yet refreshingly euphoric moment left upon my memory, never to be known to anyone else. i blindfolded her and brought her to the edge. the wind was colder, heartbeats racing like fireflies around a flickering lightbulb. she spread her arms wide, a human flightless bird, free and beautiful. i put my arms around her and her hair tickled my nose. i kissed her neck as she whispered to me, "i love you".

we fell from the cliff edge, into Nature's glory, into part of God's creations, and we belonged to the sea, the trees, the flowers, the cold night, the warm sunshine.

our lives have only begun.

021004, 1001hrs
posted by sixtieshairdo on 3:31 AM

i am many people but more importantly i am one. one of the million souls possibly drifting back and forth, floating subconsciously amidst dreams, memories and fantasies. i have got faces. not mine, well not all mine. faces embedded upon other faces, layers and layers of velvety, waxy and forgotten faces upon other velvety, waxy, forgotten faces.

i am veronika who wanted to see the light at the end of life's dreaded tunnel. i failed but i succeeded elsewhere. i realized i didn't need death to give my life meaning. there's meaning in life's imperfections itself. i found eduard, my one way ticket out of this routined days and nights. my silent schizophrenic, the one i connected without words. just faces in his head and faces i've always seen but never understood.

i am oscar wilde, wildly admired and passionately despised. i have nothing but my art to save me. in this life i realised there's noone i should've loved more than myself. i suffered in the hands of the one i gave my all to. but i never regretted my painfully exquisite life. i am beautiful even after death, though my death was a sorrowful end to my devoured existence. it was the wine stain on your silk scarf; genuinely hypnotic but despised. i am but perfect.

i am frida kahlo. misunderstood. but i have nothing and noone to please but my own. i have love and been loved but my one true essence only lies within one person. that man who left me so many times but only came back my arms in the end. i was eaten up by diseases. incurable pain. my hands are gifts from heaven. my only escape from this fucked up reality. you see my most vulnerable aches through those slashes of anger, those whispers of lullaby, those colours. i am resurrected in my art.

i am ramon sampedro. my life is a right, not an obligation. i wanted to die with that one who promised me a new start. but i died instead, alone in the heat of potassium cyanide. i burned inside but i was finally released. free into the sea, into the depths of the waves and onto the sea floor. i died there once and now i have taken my life back. freedom is the key to sanity and happiness. this is my freedom. i am alive today cos of death.

but more and most importantly, i am me. i have flaws, strengths, anger, felicity. and those faces? they are what that makes me who i am. that one you hate. that one you love. and that one you can't give a fuck about.

and that's exactly how i want me to be.

i am free.

28/01/2005
posted by sixtieshairdo on 3:31 AM

maystar design