Death by Gravity

"He doesn't seem to get it, does he?"
He does now. Just a bit slow with the big picture.
Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north,
in the place where it falls, there will it lie.
The law applies in Gethsemane too.
Tragic, but lovely.

For there is nothing unique or peculiar
about the final act of life
that makes it determinative
in validating or nullifying our salvation.

The final season of faith
with all its battles and failures
is not the only season of faith
that will bear witness in the
Last Day that we were born again.

The Absurd and The Fall

It doesn't matter, if
you should believe further.
In a little while, no
sympathies are needed.
The spirit bloweth, and
is still, to rekindle
what was started, the great
absurd, and then the fall.

Heaviness

I saw the The Hour by Philip Glass on youtube,
and I like it very much.
It is a very stirring recital.
It gives me a comforting sense of self-defeat.
Comforting because the feeling is real.
Self-defeating because what I'm feeling maybe a chimera.

Familiarity

Two months ago, I felt that I was like a fish, swimming in a tank of glue. I decided to make a minor adjustment in my life and started going to school. I asked Sani for the locker keys, and transferred my books, notes, stationery to the graduate room.

I've been going to school everyday. And will be back by midnight to watch a bit of tv and then it's off to bed. A simple existence. I like it that way. The air feels less saturated when I wake up.

The canteen coffee is a tad acidic, but it's cheap. In fact, it's kind of turning into a regular comfort drink for me. I will fill up a plastic cup and bring it to the grad room every 3pm. I refuse to use the paper cup for environmental purposes.

I like familiarity.

I'm trying to catch up a bit on news now. I think news is important. I need to maintain my awareness of current affairs and not be overly drawn into the familiarity of reading philosophy and drinking acidic coffee. The recession seems bleak, but I think it should rebound by the second half of next year. I can try to pray that into being.

I'm thinking of making another minor adjustment in my life. Maybe I'll bring my camera along with me everyday. I need to capture a few memories. Maybe I'm afraid that I will lose the feeling of familiarity someday. Familiarity with friends, myself and with places. Even with items like leaves, tickets and benches. Photography serves that purpose for me now. Not visual memories, but emotional ones.

The Lake

We had a gathering at a church friend's apartment. I left late.

Missed the last train at the interchange, and tried to catch the last random bus that would bring me closest to home.

Bus 78 didn't follow the route that I was expecting. So I dropped along Penjuru. I think that's the name of the road.
Before me was quite a serene sight to behold. It was ordinary yet out of the ordinary.

The lake was placid, and there wasn't a single soul.
I could hear my thoughts, sequencing themselves - gently and melodically - with the patter of raindrops against the gravels.
I thought about my trip to Europe, the familiar and the foreign, the imaginary and the imagined, the hit and the misses, the quietness in the Metro station, haribo, the summer sundaes, and the train ride into the forest. And the lake!

I'm drifting away into an emotional ensemble of nostalgia and brokenness,
each trying to relief the other,
together a crescendo, and then - inevitably - a morendo.

Paper, poems and photos.
That's a good idea, for my final rendition.

Leaving

Over at the arts canteen yesterday.

"Don't you want to get out of Singapore?"

"Not yet..."

"Why?"

"I... got things to do here," I remarked.

It was quite a reflexive answer. I guess I meant what I said.
I can imagine myself living vicariously forever.

Togetherness

There was a photo of us, that I enjoyed looking from time to time.
I clipped it to my notebook, and was carrying it around for a while.
Frankly speaking, I've never quite recovered from that day we took that photo.
It immortalized a togetherness that I knew on foresight (or should I say hindsight?) would not last.

I remembered that day when I sat on a bench.
It was late morning, and the park was quite empty,
not just of people, but of sound and colors.
The hope that I had been searching for was turning into a myth.
I unclipped the photo, left it on the bench, and walked away.

"Self-preservation," I thought to myself - a rather naive sort of psychological self-therapy.

Indeed, the thoughtless declaration of self-preservation has been nothing more than an artifice, as I searched within myself.

You see, it's not exactly the memories that are wearing down my defenses against your personality.
What I've found in my dream-like abyss is a joy shared between us that doesn't exist.
Perhaps if time is less unforgiving, this joy might be given a chance.

I suppose it doesn't have to be that way. Joy will find us somehow, though not shared between us. And then,
I'll return to the different places that we've been, to breathe in the nostalgia of a togetherness long forgotten, and wander in the tender fragility of a story that can only be for our exclusive perusal.