It was in the past, where people hardly got new clothes. Chinese New Year was coming up, and new clothes meant clothes passed down, clothes that were old, yes, but were clothes you had never worn before. And that was enough, enough for the children to be happy, since there would be getting-togethers.

But of course, the bright colours of really new clothes enticed the children. Don't get me wrong, they were always joyful that new year was coming. They were satisfied with what they had. But if one actually got 'real' new clothes, it was really special. It would be like wishing for something very expectantly and really getting it. The joy that glows on one face then, it's comparable to that of the radiant sun.

One boy did get new clothes. A week before Chinese New Year, he was able to run out and get something of his own all by himself. Ah, the joy, the freedom and choice to choose what he liked. He felt liberated, happy. But there was more to his joy than just the freedom of choice. It was the fact that he was getting new clothes. NEW clothes.

In a culture where clothes were always mended and passed down, and luxuries were frowned upon as wastage, how joyful it was to get something that would belong to him first, that was his own in the first place, that was not passed down. It was an exhilarating feeling. He smiled at everyone he met on the streets, so brimming full of bliss he was.

A shirt caught his eyes, and he went up, found out the price was in his budget. Oh joy. He had actually gotten a new shirt. How wonderful. He hugged the shirt to him, feeling its softness, breathing in the fragrance of newness. How he longed to put it on soon.

And then day arrived, the day of Chinese New Year, and at last he could put it on. After being put away in his closet for one whole week, he could finally wear it, feel the new material against his skin.

And it was only then he found out that one sleeve was shorter than the other.

*Based on a story my dad told me about my uncle.

So heavy.

Have you ever experienced it? I think you would have. A heaviness of heart, one oh so very heavy. You sigh and sigh in order to try to get the weight out, but it refuses to. It stays there, overwhelming, just too much, too much.

It's nearly suffocating. Hurts so much. Yet in each shaky breath you draw in and huff out in order to drive it away, you know it'll stay there for a while more. It's smothering, yet you know you're still living while you're aching inside.

My heart, heavy in sorrow.

And as each fragile breath passes out through your mouth, tears slide down your cheek.
-
On Friday, I saw a girl crying at the Ngee Ann Poly bus-stop. Her shoulder was heaving in great sobs and deep breaths, and her friend was patting her back.

I wondered then whether I would one day cry like that in public, when everyone else is there.
-
To those who were there when I've cried -
Thanks for the whispers of "don't cry".
Thanks for the patting on my back.
Thanks for the tissue.
Thanks for not mentioning it after that.
Thanks for looking away.

Music please.

Switch on the computer and put a positive song with a depressing beat on repeat. Listen to it till it gets grating on your nerves. Till it's too overbearing, too much too much. Then closed the window and switch the song. Switch to a negative song with a upbeat tone. Then shut it all down. And feel the silence overwhelming. It's not noticeable at first, but then, as you slowly get exasperated with homework, and stop doing it, you'll feel that silent buzz creep up on you.

Indulge in pleasure, oh, please do. Just indulge in them, and throw yourself into oblivion for a while. Note that I used the word "indulge". I wonder whether alcohol really knocks you out. Just a thought.

That peach drink, that's supposed to have the biting tone of alcohol isn't hot enough for me all of a sudden. It's not even gassy enough, so much of its flavour seem to have been lost. But yes, I admit that was when I was sipping the drink.

But gulp it down, and choke on it.

Continue gulping.

Feel the gas run up your nose. Feel that dryness in your throat. Feel too full, just too full in your stomach. It's an awful bloated sickness, one that shouldn't continue.

But continue gulping.

Yet I know the drink fills up the stomach and not the heart.

There's a bitter taste on my tongue left by the drink.

Slay with the spear-din dancer, and see the slaughter-dew flow. The breaker of trees shall howl around you, and at the moment, see in a fleeting glance, the multiple emotions that run through the brow-stars of the defeated.

And I say, put me out to the whale's road, and let heaven's candle continue to burn on. Let Aegir's daughters crash over my head violently.

Cheers and hearty wishes to the person who can understand what that mean, for I know fully well I have used it very liberally and crudely. For what reason have I suddenly composed those lines? I'm really not sure either.

I find it funny in the ironic sense that I am typing, "hahahaha" and "lol" in this current conversation I'm having with a friend, but truly in real-life I'm not laughing out loud or anything.
-

With the sound of typing and a simple click on the mouse, I find the words I seek. The words that seem to speak to me, but yet which meaning eludes me. The words that I suddenly had a longing for, that I suddenly had to see.

That searing thirst that binds me in its grasp. To want to re-read something. Why only those words? Why not anything else, but only those those those words?!

Words that are meaningless until we had attached meaning to them. Put togther, in a certain structure. And then life turns upside-down.

Why those words?

Words; I seek them to explain my thirst for those words. Searing thirst, burning lust, overwhelming desire. A fool's wish.

Why those words?

I don't know what to tell you. I have so many words to say, yet there are no words to say. Why? Because it seems like so many times, you have just waved it away. And the pauses grow longer and longer.

Why those words?

Are you trying to reach out to me too? I don't know already. Slowly, you have stopped explaining, stop telling. And I have 'learnt' to stop asking/not questions. I just let the words sink in.

Why those words?

I feel blue today. That's the only word I can think of to describe my mood. I feel blue. Blueee. I've been feigning joy for so long. That's another good word I think - feigning.

Why those words...

I am not ok.

Haha. Quizzes are funny. Check THIS out:

Who is your dream guy?
Here is the analysis:
According to your answers; if you are not kidding, you are too complicated. Sorry, we are unable to offer the analysis. Press Back button on you browser, check ONE question that you were not completely sure and try again with a different answer that you think it would be correct.

I need to be less complicated. Or stop thinking too much perhaps. Or I should march to my own beat and ignore the result. Hmph.

Your Hidden Talent
Here is the analysis:
The Mass Communicator
You have a cheerful personality and you are a naturally kind person. Your hidden talent isn't really that hidden at all: you shine among a crowd. You would make an ideal news announcer, flight attendant or model - any position that would give you an opportunity to deal with plenty of people. A tip for you is to avoid getting too deeply involved in others' personal lives - otherwise you might find yourself constantly being asked for help.

News announcer, flight attendant or model? Lol! All jobs recommended to me before. Funny.

And yeah, I admit I've been senselessly doing one quiz after the other.

I thought I caught a glimpse of you that day.

Long chestnut brown hair; falling down in its gentle waves. A smile had lighted up your face and I thought I heard peals of your sweet laugher. But alas, I knew that the sweet sound was but a conjuration of my mind, for so far away you were from me. I could only gaze at you from below as you strolled across the bridge, going further, further away from me.

I would like to think you’re different from other girls who have captured my eyes. For those who had, had done so with flaming robes, and extravagant behaviour. Yet you, my girl, you passed me like a gentle wind, quiet, only seeking to provide comfort. Indeed, you were a sight for weary eyes. My girl, my youth is spent, and in the last few moments of life, you have unknowingly breathed grace onto my life. The greyness of old age had slowly filtered out to the luminance of a pale rainbow due to a sight of you.

In this world tainted with lusts and evils, you seemed pure and untarnished.

My girl, do you know I’m waiting below the bridge, to just sight you once more? But at the same time, I fear the second-sighting, fear that this picture-perfect image might be shattered, and that I would hear the tinkling of glass breaking echo in my ear...

It's been raining for a couple of days already. But it's been nice to me. It doesn't rain in the morning, so I can walk to the bus-stop in the cool air. All it requires is a jacket round me. So far, I have not been caught in the heavy showers, only the light gentle showers.

I like the rain. I'm unsure whether I like it more than sunny days, but I do like the current weather, in this current state.

I shan't say more. Only came here due to a sudden impulse to post a picture.



It's simple. Nothing too magnificent to some other pictures I have. But I've been trying to capture the feeling I had when I first got it, and up to now, I still can't find the words.

I need to seriously reconsider why I blog...

It is that again, of searching for that phrase that had just before been exploring my mind. I have no idea how it slipped off my mind, but it did, like some lone wanderer that had chose to oblige me with his presence but left too soon, without notification in the night, leaving me to only find his absence in the morning.

I ponder long and hard, but only come up with past thoughts. Deciding not to pursure the matter, hoping that it will come just when I least expect it, that nagging absence refused to let go of me.

Rain patters outside my window. I wish I am in a vehicle. I like being in vehicles when it rains, in the passenger's position of course, safe and protected by a great metal hull. I think, when I'm older, when my parents will not question where I'm going to when I stepped out of the door, I would go to the nearest bus-stop when it rains and just take the first bus that comes. Of course, I won't choose a bus that is so crowded no more seats are left for me. That'll be rather silly.

I imagine my whole self as a car. My brain is the controls - and that'll be the steering wheel, accelerator and brakes I guess; I don't know much about cars. All the rest are just various parts of the body. Perhaps, my headlights also act as eyes, since they are in front you know. The wheels are my legs, and the cars my door. The interior is my organs, protected by metal sheets.

The steering wheel slowly comes apart, and I try to peer into the inside, seeing whether the phrase had really left me. My mind doesn't work like that though, so I see nothing really.

But then the phrase comes, taking me up in its hand and shaking me like a doll. "You never asked."

The car, it drives on alone on this very long stretch of road slowly. No other cars in sight. The rain has stopped.

Sitting at home, I drink a mug of bitter coffee. There is no reason to add more sugar into it to make it a more pleasing drink. I wish it would rain again.

Blogging is of a product of thinking, of my mind talking to myself, a kind of soliloquy, if I'm even using the word correctly in the first place.

It is an active processing of my thoughts, through stories. It is of my experience, of my feelings. It helps me to see things from another perspective, it allows me to detach myself from the matter, so that I can throw it up into the air and see it from all angles, and not be too absorbed in my own feelings about it.



I've hidden my rants.

Those who find it will find it. It's out there.

"Cher. Do you still..." she faltered off, looking down at the ground. It was rather pretty, the ashy grey of that pavement somehow, she thought.

"Yes?" She looked up, and saw a questioning look in his eyes.

They walked on ahead. She dragged her steps, unsure about what to continue. It was funny, why she would feel so tentative about asking if he remembered, finding out whether he really did put it into his mind. Her mind tried to conjure words from her limited bank of vocabulary. Nothing came. She sighed.

"So?"

She didn't dare to look at him. Eyes forward, she casually replied, though inside she was trembling, "You know, about bringing me around."

He laughed. She turned round to meet his eyes. Two words from his mouth soothed her jitters and sent her into joy again.

"I remembered"
-
He looked at her. She seemed hesitant, her mind over some issue. "Cher. Do you still..." her voice faded off and she was quiet again, eyes on ground.

Keeeping his eyes on her, he simply said, "yes?" as he continued walking beside her. He saw her looked up, and noticed how she turned back. They walked on, and he waited for her. Their pace seemed to be slowing down.

"So?" he asked, try to encourage her.

He observed how she didn't look at him. "You know, about bring me around."

Laughing, he realised what she was thinking about.

"I remembered"