Chapter forty-four: My Heart Lives

I thirst for the arts

Like a man parched dry

To look not at a ceiling

But a clear blue sky

I long for the freedom

That my words once took

Spirited, unfettered

Not all by the book

I turn to the rhythms

Like a flower to the sun

To return to the warmth

As a prodigal son

But trapped as I am

In these blank white walls

Begrudging the time

As it sedately crawls

Only my words

Here they spill and seep

As my fingers fly

And my heartbeats leap

The tang of freedom,

A tantalizing thought

A respite from tedium

No matter how short

Though long is the distance

Between now and then

Yet I rejoice,

Because my heart lives again!

Chapter Forty-three: Holding on Tight.

I felt beneath my fingertips

A solid wall of glass

The faint outline of a faraway door

Yea, the lock was fast.

I sat amidst the whispering blooms

An interloper in their midst

The warmth they held against their wombs

I.. was not part of that bliss.

The sun that walked with us part way

It fell not on my face

But cast me in such shadowy gray; 

I was far from grace.

Give me strength to battle despair

I have not fallen to thee

But I, in loneliness, I write to me

And such, my heart repair. 

Chapter Forty-two: Taking a Deep Breath

My heart is heavy with tenderness

Tipped full to its brim

With thoughts so filled with gentleness

 Soft as the sun’s first beam

The unuttered hope that seeds within

Blossoms I cherish sweetly

Gives me courage to finally begin

A babe’s steps still wobbly

Too many doors have I closed before

All in the name of fear

Tracing scars from departed sores

Chasing apparitions that appear

Thus today I cut the leading-strings

That tied me to that past

From here I’ll take what tomorrow brings

And hope my courage will last. 

Intermission XVIII: A Note to the Little Ones Residing in My Hea(rt)d.

Strange bedfellows, you little fellows are. Whimsical, petulant things who constantly float about in my head, who swell into gigantic proportions and clog my heart, whenever prodded. And I cannot place you in a box nor seal it tight, for fear of feeding you a compression that causes you to grow, and grow, and grow. And then burst open like a fanfare of colours-in-a-box, splattering and staining everything inside and/or around me.

Just like the frame that captures the colours on each canvas, you swathe my world, whispering in my ears. Naughty things that tint my world rose, twine my heart with green, stain my emptiness blue and make me see red. I both envy and pity those who do not find themselves needing to deal with these little devils. Envy, because they've have cost me many a pretty pound in scrubbing the bruises they leave, both outside my shell, and inside my heart. Yet, if ever I would reach into my heart and my head and not find you there, I would find myself unbearably.. lonely. And my world would fade into monochrome dullness, losing the edge that your colours give.

Why I felt the need to write about these particular little devils, especially after waking up from a period of hibernation (from updating the blog)..  I know not. A manifestation of self-reflection after the abundant discussions about MBTI types, perchance? I have often considered you a nuisance, having associated with you various memories of losing hold of your leash and watching you lunge forward with a vengeance, suffocating the person(s) nearest to me. And often the dearest.

Good God, I’m sorry. To those who've had to scrub the splatters of emotional excess after the explosions. I’m only too glad that I found my paint rag to help cleanse some of the messes before the stains soaked in too deeply to be removed. Mum has ever told me I don’t control you enough for my own good; yet, realizing that I am an ISFJ is like being shown the reversed side of the story.

Together, how much pain have we dealt out, how much remorse have we suffered? But I have not been fair to you, you poor little devils. I have not tried to understand you, always letting you run wild, only to lock you in that prison of a box when I didn’t like how you were ringing the alarm in my head. But listen to me: I have finally accepted that I cannot shut you away in the hopes that you'll shush and not try to break free.  I promise you, although I will still stuff you in there from time to time, I will heed you when you knock on the lid and ask to be let out. And I will guide you out myself, in harmony, you and I hand in hand, walking together, finding the answers we need.

Because if you and I end up hurting the precious ones again... I couldn’t forgive either you or myself, and might wish for you to disappear. And know that if I reach inside and find that you're no longer there... I simply wouldn’t know how to live anymore. 

Chapter Forty-one: Sitting on a Milestone

I walked with a circle
A company of light
Who glowed in their mischief
And lit my boredom bright

Lightly shadows slip past
Enter and exeunt my head
To paint and daub the canvas
With colours they still shed

Whence my feet hath trodden
The hallway looms ahead
To walk straight up and take a left
Or take a right instead?

Tomorrow I leave to gain reprieve
From the odd world I understand
And till my return, may it yet burn
For a chapter of my loving hand.

Chapter Forty: Oddities of a Ramshackle Mind.

One word of caution
A note to myself
Let thoughts not quicken
But creep by in stealth

For in my head they did race
And whirl me in a dream
Twisted me in an obscure embrace
Beyond my conscious stream

I step far from yon mirror;
It shows the demons within
Yet i needs must see them clearer;
Thus cycles re-begin

Perhaps i need to follow
The breadcrumbs along the way
Your strength perhaps i'll borrow
For sure, i'll wander astray

So i clutch your sleeve and hold on tight
Letting my eyelids close
And entreat you to adopt my fight
Perhaps you'll triumph, who knows?

Chapter Thirty-nine: The World inside One Fragment.

i gazed into a painting, but then it cracked on me
it shattered into fragments, more than i could see
i looked then at the pieces that lay prone at my feet
and wondered why it seemed as though their edges wouldnt meet

picking one of them up, i was shocked to find
that each piece was a picture, a story of its kind
i put them back together, they wouldnt fit at all
for every single one of them was a different world made small

so i took the broken pigments and ran them through my eyes
travesty for honesty, i took the truth for lies
these to melt and splatter, on the canvas inside my head
till they seeped forth from the fabric, colours that slowly bled

i try to scrub them off the walls, scour with turpentine
to have instead a clean white slate, untainted by chimeric state
yet thoughts entice, cling like a vice, by nature serpentine
so how can i my art deny, my power to fabricate? 

Intermission XVII: A (Rather) Strange Kind of Fascination. My Obsession for Paradoxes?

i'm being haunted by a pair of slanting eyes.

till now, i have never truly understood the meaning of imperfect beauty. never in my experience of reading poetry and literature have i ever been able to understand how being imperfect can almost be necessary in order to be beautiful. (not even in those strange sculptures..? they're beautiful, but it simply is beauty in imperfection. the imperfection does not make the beauty.. hmmm...) after all, the greeks believed that beauty was found in perfection. and havent i been raised in a culture that appears to agree with that?

i could not understand what drew me to such a face. neither could i understand why i kept wanting to see what fascinated me so, why i could not get it out of my mind. why i kept wanting to look at those eyes.

slanted, of the asian variety. not slitted, but not wide-open. eyes that were intense, and striking.

i look a little closer, and i notice that the eyes are not proportionate: one is slightly narrower than the other. there. imperfection.

strangely, it does nothing to detach from the beauty of the face. that very imperfection fits into place perfectly, like jagged pieces of a puzzle that fit together to make a hauntingly striking picture. and i dont know what it is about those eyes that draw me. the drooping eyelid of one that hints at secrets forever hidden, and the cold composure of the other, no matter the expression on the face they belong to. the heavy-lidded gaze that studies the world around them, but never reveals what goes on behind them.

the masculinity that peeps out from behind features too feminine to be male. the aura of fragility that belies the toughness of a warrior.

a tantalizing illusion of delicacy...

what is it about androgynous characters that fascinate me so?

Chapter Thirty-eight: I.

I ‘m floating on the horizon

A dot upon the sea

I don’t know where I’m going

Or who’ll be going with me

I’m as like a lost sheep

Baaing her way around

(So) I’m still a-meandering

Hoping I can be found

I hope in time I’ll discover

I’ll still like me, whatever that be

After searching the why;

But as it is, the one I resist

Is no one less than I. 

Intermission XVI: Death, Doubt, and Divinity.

Have finally finished off all seven volumes of happy rotter, and I must say, I enjoyed them more than i initially thought I would (here I sense the jester doing a peevesiesque whoop of glee).

So many deaths occur in there, with enough anguish and sense of loss written into the pages for it to hit me how fragile life is, both in and out of fiction. And then it struck me hard, all these thoughts of the brushes that my family's had with death and survived.

My earliest memory of such an incident was as a child of four, five, when I contracted a severe case of dengue. Those who know about it will remember that there isn't any surefire treatment for it. I remember my gran and my mum desperately making herbal (eeeuch) concoctions, forcing it down my throat daily. But that didn't help, if the doctor's gloomy warning to my dad was any indication. 

I have been told, and I believe, that I survived solely by the grace of God's mercy. And I have often wondered, what made Him grant my father, then a non-believer's plea? Perhaps how my father put his faith in Him, despite not truly knowing Him? Acknowledging His might and will, in saying 'I beg you, give her back to me, but if it's Your will to take her, take her?'. In any case, after prayers were said over me, I passed the night of reckoning unscathed, the virus having disappeared from my blood completely by the next morning.

And so my survival became the pivotal point of change in my parents' attitude towards Christianity. 

Thinking about all the times my mum's had brushes with death, it makes me shudder. Just recently, she's had a brush with another snake, only this time the idiot creature was hiding in the house. It doesn't come as any relief that it wasn't poisonous this time round; the last one she encountered was mildly venomous. And the time a top heavy branch crashed down onto the road right after her car passed, barely missing her boot? 

Sometimes, thinking about my dad going on trips overseas, my mum being on her own at home with only Doong as companion... it shakes me up, thinking of what could possibly go wrong. And then I mutter a quick prayer to God to watch over them, remembering that He's kept us all safe all this while. I betcha my parents do the same thing, except perhaps my mum's prayers will be much longer. 

But then the next time I hear news about a trip, the worry creeps back again, and I say another prayer, which calms my fears down for the meantime. Does that make me a person of little faith? Feeling fear and worry despite having known His protection and care all these years? Should I not worry, since I know He'll protect us anyway (that smacks of taking things for granted though)? Or is it only human frailness that makes us worry and doubt, despite everything He's done?

But I guess that's the very reason we run to Him. And hence, the very essence of our faith: leaning on Him because we are, essentially, very frail beings, and knowing His strength can and will support us all.