I Feel So Alone

Maybe it's just the stress of coming tests, maybe it's just being away from home. Maybe it's just another bout of PMS threatening to drive me up KLCC.

But I feel so very alone.

It's not so much as being physically alone than being mentally isolated. I'm surrounded by almost a hundred people everyday, filling my ears up with chattering birds and humming bees. People come up and say hi, we exchange words, you smile, I grin back. It's what I do everyday. It's what we do everyday.

I keep talking. I keep that smile on my face. It's genuine most of the time--I guess I don't really get bad moods often; at least not in front of other strangers. But when I do... I keep those thick, sexy lips curved upwards. It's like a game, trying to see how good you are at putting up a happy face no matter what you're feeling inside. I guess most everyone goes through this at least a few days in a month.

It's not pretending, I don't think so. It's just... letting people see what they deserve to see. It's not fair to dump all your emotional faeces on others, practically strangers, when all they did was look at you.

Unless they stare too much, or have huge scary eyes, to which I'd reply with a "Shoo, cat."

*sighs* It's just so great what a simple sigh can show. I think it's the best sound in the whole world. Just like what a smile can do to a person who's really really down and feels alone.

I admit I'm pretty open about myself. I try to be honest to myself, I do. And I've found some pretty interesting things about myself. I tend to spill whatever's on my mind--thus, the blog--but there are some things you just can't find words for. You've gotta be there to really feel it, to understand.

But I try anyway, to put them into words. Because there are some things you cannot keep to yourself for fear of bursting like a bloated rabbit.

Surrounded by all these people almost everyday, it's curious why I still feel alone. I don't really dwell on it all the time, but today I seemed a little too sensitive. Or maybe it's just Taylor Swift at work.

*short interruption* Might I just say her new single Begin Again is so hauntingly beautiful? So hopeful, yet vulnerable. I love her too much. *swoons*

Anyway, amidst all these people, it's like, how many of these people I can identify with? How many of these people--they come, they go--how many of them will stay with you until you're old and gray? With whom do I truly belong? Am I really alone here, when my family is so far out of reach?

Yes, I have so many dear friends here to do weird stuff with me, but it's funny how these few days I find myself unable to breathe. It's strange how sometimes you enjoy doing crazy stuff--gossips, pranks, discussing the many shapes and sizes of digested/processed foodstuff--and laughing the hell out with your friends, and one single tick of the clock later, you find yourself needing a break from all those.

Needing a break, needing to be alone, and yet, feeling oddly down because you're alone.

This is why psychology is so interesting, because it's totally wacko.

And maybe this is why people say girls are weird. Oh well. Deal with it.

Sometimes being alone is fun. It gives me time to wade through the mess in my brain, put them into boxes and push them away into their burrows. I like those sessions, lose myself in my world, live lives I want to, filming them out in my big bird brain; cut away from reality. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why I love music so much.

But when silence is my only company, I lose sight of what's real and what's not. I'm reluctant to leave my little carefully-crafted world. Sometimes there are so many things to be done I cannot afford to lose hours drifting in my cloudland.

Not everyone understands the need for my silence, I don't think. People try to cheer you up when moments like this arrive, and then you'll get confused. Am I supposed to be cheered up, or should I continue to indulge in that small virtual unreality? Perhaps it really is just me being my usual weird self, complaining about being alone when it's loneliness I choose.

I guess loneliness doesn't really mean much when you enjoy it. But loneliness is still loneliness.

And right now, I feel so alone it's kinda scary.

Having strange urges to hug someone, tight. Wanna crush someone so hard against me to feel alive, to take that intense "alone"ness away. Wanna feel the heat and the beating pulse against me to remind me I'm not really alone.

I'm not really alone, am I?

The Hunger Games, Take #2

I admit, the first time I read The Hunger Games, it was from a small Apple Tree screen, and my first time reading from an electronic device. And I was spinning up the long and vomit-inducing roads of Cameron Highlands. 

Sufficed to say that I was impressed by the book, despite the headache and nausea the journey brought on. So impressed that I tried looking for the sequels, failing until I got to the KLCC Book Fair, where I got the trilogy in one go. By then, my interest was as fiery as the ice-tipped peak of Mount Everest. Naturally, I put off reading it until very very much later.

And to think that all this was before The Games went viral.

By the time I finally got my arse down and finished the whole HG series in one go (where, ironically, I finished in the car on a nine hour journey to the north), I was beating myself over the head. How could I possibly have ignored the series for other more insignificant stuff, like fanfiction? I'd do better stuffing my head into the sand looking for worms when a whole tank of wriggling invertebrates awaits, right above me.

The series, at first take, was wonderfully hunger-inducing. Literally, too. I flipped through the pages in a frenzy, dying to know what comes next, dying to see a little Peetniss action, to hold on to that hope that the characters can't seem to find. I remember smiling every time those two lovebirds show a little PDA, and debating with myself whether I love handsome fiery Gale more, or steady affectionate Peeta more. It was heaven and hell.

The first book was exciting, the second amazing, and the final one phenomenal. 

The way Collins weaved it all together, the girl who volunteered to protect her sister, the one that seemed so vulnerable compared to others, the impossible circumstances she's thrown into, and finally the spark that led to a fire. I especially like the string of words -- she don't know the effect she could have. I was devouring the pages so fast that my cheetah was jealous of my speed. It kept me up at night, salivating for more, wondering if there could ever be a happy ending for a plot so bleak.

But it did give me a happy ending, sort of. The first take anyway. 

The second time I read it, which is, like five minutes ago, it brought on different emotions. The first time round, it was all fire and awe, all "yes, attagirl!" and "No! Not Peeta!". 

This time, without the hunger for the characters' unknown destinies, I'm mopping up all of the details I've missed the first time round. The deaths that escaped my notice, the words to the songs she sings, the choice of words Collins used that brings on thousands of emotions. There were no excess words, no complicated twists of word choices. Simple, straight, but deep.

And this time around, there were a lot more tears. Every death, or a hint of danger, of separation was enough to trigger a bout of salty water. Every single death, be it momentous--like Cato's, or brief--like Boggs or Mags, impacted and resulted in a loss of water. I think I'm probably severely dehydrated now. Even the mention of Katniss' father can set me off. 

*checks myself* Yup. Severely dehydrated.

I couldn't help but pay attention the way Collins bring up Katniss's dad. When Peeta went bonkers from being hijacked, but somehow recognised Katniss' dad's singing. How Katniss curled up and felt so alone with only her arms to offer a semblance of safety. "I miss him so much it hurts." 

And there were so many more. How Mags--intelligible Mags with her cute mumblings--took Annie's place and accepted her own death as inevitable. Boggs, who trusted Katniss, who had a child and a weird sense of humour. Finnick, dead from the mutts right after his short-lived happiness with Annie. Cinna, the genius stylist, who was at Katniss' side right from the start, trusting her, and helping her even after his death.

The price war has to pay. The reminder that human lives are so insignificant. 

And then there was the Hunger Games, how it all started with one Game, to remind people of the rebellion, and how the new president wants to end the war with another Game, because it ain't enough that the guilty pays for their crimes with death. It's like an assassin killing a murderer because 'it's immoral to take another's life'. 

I don't know, there are so many thoughts running through me while the saltwater threatens to stain my book, so much that I'd probably bore you out. But I must mention how adorable Peeta is, struggling against the monster within himself after his hijack. How he stayed with Katniss till the end, understanding, always there. I notice his use of "always" to Katniss' "stay with me"; which of course leashed my thoughts to Snape like a shark to blood.

And the way he always seems to know what Katniss needs, in words or actions. I love the idea of the Who's Who book in the end, to create a semblance of normalcy, to recreate--however pathetically--those who are gone and all the memories associated to him or her. It's sad, in a way, but at least it gives people a bit of relief at being able to hold on to a small part of whoever's gone. Sort of. 

I've always been useless at letting go. It appeals to me, this holding on to a part that's gone. At least you'll have something, instead of cold cruel nothing.

Sighs. Peeta's just so... steady. So comforting. He's like the tree in Katniss life, always there for her to hold on to, but never really noticed until gone. Where Gale is... well, Gale's --in Katniss's words-- Gale's fire. He's hot. In both the literal and metaphorical sense.
*swoons*

Anyway, I'd better end or I'll never stop. I'll leave off with a song, The Hanging Tree, and let you ruminate on the meaning of the words. 

Because at certain places in certain times, death is a much better state to be in.

Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Where they strung up a man they say murdered three?
Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it seem

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

Are you, are you

Coming to the tree
Where the dead man called out for his love to flee?
Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it seem

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

Are you, are you

Coming to the tree
Where I told you to run, so we'd both be free?
Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it seem

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me...
Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it seem

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

Breathe

(Inspired by a word in a song)

Breathing, to inhale and exhale air, to be alive. To move and flow gently, to be manifested as an idea, a feeling.


Breathing, a simple word with such easy definitions, but dig deeper, and you'll find yourself in a completely different world.


Breathing has already become a part of life, a process you cannot live without, not unless you're some sparkly vampire who apparently breathes just for the fun of it. Breathing has become so habitual that you don't even notice it when you do it. It requires virtually nothing--no effort, no materials, no machines or anything; just the fresh air around you. You breathe when you talk, when you eat, when you sleep; anytime, anywhere. 


You just breathe.


Even the word breathe sounds breathy, like you're uttering it with a strange fragile breath, like it might break anytime. Bree-th. Bree-th.  Your lips split apart softly to expel that short gentle breath that forms the word, and air escapes through a tiny opening between your teeth, your tongue, then through your lips. Like a strange sort of delicate jewel you're cradling with your hands, that if you use too much force, it shatters into a thousand shards.


I like the way the word sounds. That fragile, precious feeling you get when you utter it. It brings together just the right mixture of sadness, gratefulness, and all the vulnerability in life. Breathe. Our lives depend on this tiny little movement, this insignificant word. It's so easy to stop a person's breathe--clap a hand over their noses and mouths, suffocate them with a plastic bag or a pillow, crush the windpipe. Once you realise how much we depend on this tiny, easily-destroyed action, the vulnerability of all of it simply makes you feel grateful. Grateful of the fresh air you're filling your lungs with, the purging feeling when the fresh air replaces the ones you've used up.


How many times have you read, or watch about people watching other people breathe? It's almost too common nowadays-- a mother watching her newborn breathe, the tiny chest rising and falling, mouth slightly O-shaped; an old white-haired man beside a bed, holding his companion's hand, watching her chest rising and falling as she sleeps; a wife watching as her husband sleeps, her head on his chest rising and falling with his breathing motions.


These seemingly simple scenes in plots of movies and books do so much in holding the characters together, so much more than you'd ever realise. There's something romantic about it; sometimes it's sad, sometimes you feel relief, sometimes it's impending doom. So many emotions invoked, simply from one insignificant action--breathing.


How many people in this ever-busy world can claim that they truly stop and breathe? Workloads, stress, the never-ending worries of money, materials, glory and fame. They all come down on you, pushing on you, leaning heavily against you that you never really realise it's getting harder to breathe. That's what appeals to the movie-watching folks, those book-reading romantics. How many of us had slowed and stopped to watch the people in their lives breathe, before it's too late?


I guess the word appeals to me because of the purging feeling you get when you finally get to breathe. Deep, soothing, fresh inhalations of pure, clean air. Sometimes it's just hard to breathe--when you're sad, when you're trying not to cry, when you're frustrated, or just pissed off at something. Sometimes it's like the world itself is against you, putting every obstacles imaginable in your path as you try to take just a meagre step forward. Times like these I try to tell myself to stop and breathe, remind myself of the wonders that are still mine, to remind me sometimes you have to let things go in order to breathe again. And usually it's those times I get motivated again, grateful again; I feel okay again.


Breathe. It's such a beautiful word, don't you think?


Breathe. 


Breathe.


Breathe.

Ask

I'm leaving because you never asked me to stay.

That's all you have to know

Don't ask me any questions

Just ask me to stay

Ask me to stay

Loving You, Fanfiction

It's almost a bloody miracle, me actually sticking to fanfiction for more than three years already. This calls for celebration, people. =D

Me being so very fickle-minded, have actually continue reading--and even writing (well, sometimes. A very rare sometimes.) fanfiction. This is the power of Harry Potter, I guess, and the flexibility of fanfiction. Especially when Harry and Severus comes together. 'Cause we all want to see the impossible of impossibilities.

There have been a few cathartic moments in my short history of mingling about in fanfiction, I guess you can say. Of course, it all started with Harry Potter and the Enemy Within, which introduced to me the absolute wonder and mouth-gaping awe of Severus-Harry mentor fics. How the characters were kept in character, and yet still melded together to form a completely, refreshingly new perspective. How the plot was twisted and turned, flipped and flopped, so convoluted that I kept asking for more.

And so came Lily's Charm and its sequels, then A Year Like None Other, Never Say Remember, and JaWorley, and Suite Sambo, and Potionsandsnitches.net, and so many many many more.

Of course, Lily's Charm, Never Say Remember, and AYLNO are among the best I've read, and god knows how many I've read.  These fics are absolutely heart-rending, heart-breaking and heart-warming. And JaWorley? Suite Sambo? Never fail to dig that hole inside me.

I guess after three years -- an amazing record-breaker-- of fanfiction reading/writing, I figured I might as well document it so that later when I'm old and grey and whatever they say, I can look back and remember the wonders of Harry Potter, and the worlds it created for so many fans out there. =)

Cheers.

P.s. The event that inspired this bout of writing/babbling was the discovery of Suite Sambo's Moment of Impact's sequels. I've only read one of hers (Remember Remember) and it was positively heart-rending. Not the bawling type, but the ones that digs so deep that you have to stop and remember to breathe through the hole. And from the scanning through of the sequels (meaning the ctrl c and v), I've already caught a few glimpses of absolutely wonderful phrases, some from poems and some from quotes, that catches the eye, with hold your breath and jerks your tears. Am having trouble swallowing, actually, so I figured writing might help.
P.p.s. It did. A little.  

I Love You Last Night

I love you last night

When desire overthrows logic

And darkness concealed what it ought to show

When you give me the kind of feeling people write novels about

I love you last night

When boundaries were crossed

And words were thrown where it ought not to

Just 'cause you gave me the kind of feeling people write novels about

I love you last night

When secrets were spilled

And nobody knew what anybody ought or ought not do

Since you gave me the kind of feeling people write novels about

And when these people write novels about

This kind of feeling felt so deeply

Did they ever thought of an antidote

To the confusion that was brought on, and the suspense so thrilling?

I love you last night

When you gave me the kind of feeling people write novels about

And now it's morning...

When Insomnia Strikes

When insomnia strikes, that's when the mind goes where it doesn't usually visit. Places hidden deep, yet resurface during odd moments in your daily life so often that you don't even register its presence. But when insomnia strikes, these moments replay one by one in your mind, and instead of trying hard to fall back into the world of the undead, the mind whirs back to life, frantically analyzing and reanalyzing every single one of those moments.

I remember once reading about realizing presence. You won't know a person's presence, an object's presence--anything's presence, until you've lost it, or near to losing it. "As contraries are best known by contraries, so is the delight of presence best known by the torments of absence." Is it the torments from loss of sleep that brings forth the delights of clarity of mind; or is the mind even clear when your body craves the rest the brain simply doesn't want to give?

Of course, one does wonder where my clarity has gone with such confusing structures of sentences. Perhaps I really do need that sleep after all.

Then again, what one needs, one does not always gets.

People always ask, why are you not sleeping together with the world? I would have love to answer "because I do not belong with the world," but I'm not sure if it's the complete truth. The world is an odd place; just as you're getting comfy, thinking "ah, this is where I belong", something falls, crashes, burn and topple, and just like that you're in stranger lands yet again. And vice versa. Sometimes I think nobody belongs completely with the world. We;re all living in our own secluded planet.

And my very own planet is half dark half light. People tell me Geminis are supposed to be just that; half of everything. Sometimes I think so too. I'm torn into two, and without these two halves it's like I'm not complete. But I don't think one can be both and still be sane, and so, the darker part was chased into concealment, locked away and stashed behind a smile, diverted with a toothy grin.

And eventually the lighter part became dominant, the mask solidify, and the pretense drops. Constant vigilance and an intense fear of judgment had done their job well, had moulded and shaped both parts--light and dark--to suit you up for what the world wants to see. The pouts and tears and frowns are suppressed, because who wants rain and thunder when rainbows and sunlight is prettier? And so the mask and you become one, soldered together so tightly until you don't know which is which anymore.

Who am I, and which is the mask?

And why am I so afraid of judgmental eyes, when my life is for me to live and mine alone? Who do I have to fear and please besides myself?

But I do care, and I do fear, and I do still want to please. And every time one of those people who have not a care for others walk and talk with minimal fear of offense, I can only admire from afar. For politeness is firmly ingrained, courtesy driven deep, and a strong sturdy chain of longing and wants grounds me, my wings clipped. As Vida Winter said, "Politeness. Now there's a poor man's virtue if ever there was one. What's so admirable about inoffensiveness, I should like to know. After all, it's easily achieved. One needs no particular talent to be polite. On the contrary, being nice is what's left when you've failed at everything else. People with ambition don't give a damn what other people think about them."

Am I without ambition? Maybe I just need something to push me from me safety zone and I'll be flying. A shot of something not completely pleasant, yet unflinchingly powerful.

But for now, I keep my own secrets for fear of judgments, I keep my own wants for fear of criticisms, and I keep my silence (which I never seem to be able to keep nowadays).

Perhaps it's time to go back to bed, and let the mind goes where it wants to.

Familiar Strangers

(Written for Goodreads Newsletter contest;

 inspired by a conversation in the middle of the night )


Fingers flying, clacking keys
Silent conversations, a thousand miles apart
Engaging battles armed with words
Duels of a strange sort
The new era is born


I know you, stranger, yet I don't know you
Never a look in your eyes
Yet,
Lines and lines of filtered pages, words from a heart
Friend, acquaintance, or just another stranger?


If by chance, we crossed paths amidst the crowds
Would you recognize me, bid a friendly hello?
Or would we waltz past, and go home
And resume a conversation in virtual lands
Where I am who I want to be


The new era is born,
So is human's new generation
A species where everyone knows and not knows
The man on the train, the lady in fishnets...


The many faces and forms

Of Familiar strangers.

Like The Books We Studied, and Before Long, Forgotten

 

"Like the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past"

~ P.B. Shelley

It's been a while I've sat my arse down and finally do something productive *coughs ashamedly*. This ecstasy high I'm riding now is rather conducive to another bout of excessive blathering and meaningless chatter.Why am I soaring happily, joyfully, exultation shining in my eyes, you ask.

Why, dear, I've just finished the last paper of this semester's finals!

This semester had been surprisingly short, and yet infinitely long. I've grown much, and regressed even more. I've broke rules I'd never dared before, broke traditions that used to define the very essence of me, invited changes like rain on dry lands, and most of all, looking back and wondering how, and when, did I ever get to where I am now. Everything in this semester was the perfect balance of opposites; a tenuous balance.

I' don't think I really have the state of mind to blather on about goodbyes and whatnots like I used to last year. I blame the physick's high. I guess I'll get that feeling someday this week, of time past and goodbyes unsaid, but not today.

Today's a day for celebration!

And, if there's a rational part of me left, reflection.

What to celebrate, some may ask. Why, the most obvious one is the papers finished and the semester gone! God knows how many hours we pored over the books, battling vainly against the temptations of evil *coughs tetris cough* and merciless time. Tests followed tests, like starved dogs after juicy tenderloins, and what else could we do but clinging on to the eleventh hour asking it not to leave us? The semester might be short and scattered with holidays, but when it comes to the time period between tests... Let's just say I'd rather have a longer semester.

Then the finals. The comforts of home far out of reach, it's hot and stuffy and ice-cold showers (if you call that trickle a 'shower') that accompanied me through the study-week-from-hell. But at least I managed to do a little of studying, and well. I can't say it paid off, 'cause I don't think it did, what with my tenuous thread of resistance against temptations. I did read one hell of a fanfiction during that time though. *Cackles*

So when the final paper ends, it's rather easy to understand why I, like the mainstream college society, would like to get a little wild, rebel against the bars that'd caged me in for so long, and do a little celebrating of my own.

But there are other reasons to celebrate, if you look closer.

Friends that got even closer, new acquaintances that I've come to know, family members that got even more precious; new places to explore, old places to reminisce; times of laughter and frustration and all those small little moments I'll soon forget. Moments where a single comment set off a chain reaction of laughter and embarrassment, a sudden change in topic tests' schedule that gave us a first-hand experience of CVD, lectures that gurgled with lameness.

All those things to celebrate, I doubt I can finish celebrating in one semester break. *grins*

I'll admit I've grown a little more... *aherm* for lack of a better word, wild. I blame both Hannah Chen and those fanfictions with their "innocent" innuendos. But if youth doesn't get you crazy, what does? And if you don't get crazy and wild when you're young, when else? I don't want to be dancing in a pub with creaky bones and arthritis wearing my polka dot granny miniskirt. Not that I won't be as wild as I am now when I hit sixty. *Winks*

I've also got a little bit bolder, I hope. I used to admire those who did what they want however they want it. Within reason, of course. Those that speak their minds and show their hearts, fearing no judgement from others. I've tried to emulate them, but I can't say it's been a success. I'm incredibly vain, and I know that. *Sheepish grin* But I guess I'm still learning. Rome wasn't built in one day, though that's probably because there's weren't any ultra-cool machines back then. However, I'm still hanging on to that small hope that I'm progressing. However small that progress is. Maybe if you use a microscope.

And of course, my introductory phrase of a poem. "Like the ghost of a dear friend dead, is Time, long past." It's been a year. A year since everything was overturned, and my daily routine of school-tuition-comfy-bed-hot-showers collapsed. A new routine had to be constructed again, and like a bricklayer, I had to lay it down one brick at a time, waiting for it to harden, to stabilize, to familiarize. Still, I've only settled down and the end is near. One more year, and everything will be over all over again, a cycle with no end. *sighs* Ah, we'll deal with that when that comes knocking me flat.

*glance at watch* Oh shyte. I need to hurry up. Bus awaits my arrival, Malacca awaits my homecoming. *swoons*

I guess my high's coming down pretty fast after all that mushy spew. I hope your lunch didn't make a reappearance. Though if it did, I'm flattered. Be sure to tell me though. It's past time I stop and bid adieu, though with utmost regret, I must say I will be back with another story to tell, another time. Let's cross our fingers that the next story will hold a little more twists and interesting events, shall we?

Enjoy your holidays, for those who are enjoying it now, and all the best waiting for the holidays, for those still awaiting. *Smiles*

And here's to Time long past, a walk to be remembered, a journey to be recorded, a dream to never be forgotten.

"Like the ghost of a dear friend dead

Is Time long past.

A tone which is now forever fled,

A hope which is now forever past,

A love so sweet it could not last,

Was Time long past.

There were sweet dreams in the night

Of Time long past:

And, was it sadness or delight,

Each day a shadow onward cast

Which made us wish it yet might last-

That Time long past.

There is regret, almost remorse,

For Time long past.

'Tis like a child's beloved corse

A father watches, till at last

Beauty is like remembrance, cast

From Time long past."

by Percy Bysshe Shelley