Sunflowers Are Blue (Too)

The true meaning of suffering. No amount of melodrama in life can strip a person so bare, but only death has this power to really crush your spirit.

"Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief."
- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

There is nothing more important than expressing your love to your loved ones while you can.

Every quarrel, every argument, is trivial.

Life is precious, don't waste it.

"Excessive jealousy comes down to possessiveness. And a woman, my friend, is something to be cherished, not owned.

In the meantime, if you don't think you measure up to your male competitors, take the time to do a little self-improvement: work out, learn new things and get a new look.

A word of warning: if a woman really wants to cheat, she will. No chastity schemes will keep her from it, so you might as well live your life and let the chips fall where they may."

Empty-handed. The wind is sweeping into my ears, shifting my thoughts, packing them into a corner. Like magic, I am forgetting who I am, my place. Where am I? Like a scrabble game, I am a scrabble tile and I make a word together with the many other scrabble tiles I mix with. It's like I've been displaced, like you've taken this one tile that represents me, away, and stuffed it helplessly into the bag of spare tiles, or you've taken me away and shoved me in between letters that don't make any sense. We don't make any sense when we're together.

Do you know what it means to have your place, and not know how you ended up there in the first place? My duties, what are my duties? I know I am seated there, in this position, in this authority, in this control of how things can be and have been, and I think - It comes back over and over - I want to say "No". I want to go away. I want to hide away in a monopoly game set. One scrabble tile amongst the green and red plastic houses, the fake money we strive to have a grip on - the multicoloured sunshines manufactured in a factory. Monopoly money. My scrabble tile means nothing there. 

Did I really want to be in this place that i've come to? 

Come again?

Put me back together. Happiness is a season, a season you can never hold on to. Just like time. We try to hold and capture the sands of time as they dribble away, we capture photos, we capture the moments that on hindsight will be priceless. But every "in hindsight" is pathetic. We remember, we dream, we think about what could have and would have been. Every "in hindsight" holds a fistful of regret, clenched with the unwillingness to let go of time. Then I think again, I cannot bring back the happiness, I can only recreate poor imitations of it, again and again.

Until the seams of my meddling are gradually exposed and time reminds me that I have been my own creator, reconstructing my own fantasies, hallucinations that actually, never really happened. This is a place I have never known.

"Ruin is a gift. Ruin is a gift for transformation."
- Eat, Pray, Love

For my Grandma: Departed 6 Nov 2010

I am a dreamer, but I cannot run.

It's a Friday and we gather to see
Altogether.
She is unmoving, but faultless.
Speechless, but clearly speaks.
There is no sound but I feel the voices
ringing still and clear.
There are no words.
Are you waiting Popo?

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound"
We sing and laugh, we clap
We sing songs of our childhood, of our youth.
Your fist clenches and we know you know
who we are, and the harmonies we bring
lull you to sleep.
In reverse. Back in reverse.
Popo, will you sing with us?

What can make you stay?

Saturday.
Back to the routines, our routines of smiles
We hear what is needed, the countless calls &
public announcement.
Pause to look at ourselves -
Our faces on capture, previously smiling.
I am embarrassed.
What is this feeling that grips me inside, that
Holds me captive?
I tremble, I laugh in fear, I do not
know the knots loosening in my
still blood-red pulsating heart.
A symphony of thumping noises with an outlier
I do not know this unknown I have not seen myself
and one is slowing down, so slowly I can't detect it.

White hexagon and silver crosses
Flowers enough to fill a forest
It is a quiet day, a quiet Sunday morning.
Your bible is unwrapped, your glasses gathered
We are putting you together.

Prayer and peace comes together.
Now your face is pink and framed in white
It looks healthy.
I wish I could know you a little better.
Shame, you were on one side, I on the other,
and both too stubborn to reach out to one another.

How much would this cost? Money cannot purchase.

We do few things well.
But surely out of all things, we do this best.

One's necessary lone experience.

We may be dreamers. But we cannot run. 

I remember the afternoon, cloudy and quiet, and I remember, too, almost leaving myself, the person I was, the ordinary way I felt about things, my perception of - there’s no other word for it - the depth of life, and above all the thrill of successive lines.

-- James Salter, "Give" 

I would tell you flatly I am disappointed with Life and very accepting of how we all get dealt a different set of cards - some clearly more favourable, some downright pathetic and sad. I can't live, unvalued, and for everyone else. Perhaps in my search for a solution, for a while I believed I found it. But now my solution has exposed itself merely as an escape, and an escape only serves to waste my time and doesn't take me too far. So again, I am in limbo, and rightfully so this time.

"Love for the loveless, hope for the hopeless."
I'm waiting for something to happen.
But that something will never happen if the surgeon refuses to pull the plug.

I am only the spectator in this wonderful parade.

I am not the anchor you are looking for.

I say everything really well with music?

I could say that I'll always be here for you,
But that would be a lie and quite a pointless thing to do,
I could says that I'll always have feelings for you
but i've got a life ahead of me, I'm only 22,

Since you've gone I've lost a chip on my shoulder,
Since you've gone I feel like I've gotten older,
And now you've gone it feels as if the whole wide world is my stage
And now you've gone it's like I've been let out of my cage,

You always made it clear that you hated my friends,
You made me feel so guilty when I was running around with them,
And everything was always about being cool,
And now I've come to realise there's nothing cool about you at all,

I still don't have the reason
And you don't have the time
And it really makes me wonder
If I ever gave a fuck about you and I
And so this is goodbye

Give me something to believe in
Cause I don't believe in you anymore, anymore
I wonder if it even makes a difference,
It even makes a difference to try
And you told me how you're feeling
But I don't believe it's true anymore, anymore
I wonder if it even makes a difference to cry
So this is goodbye
So this is goodbye

There's something really sweet and innocent about two opposite-gender siblings who never seem to get along, and how when something big happens to little sister, Big Brother steps up to take care of it, and though no one says a word, Little Sister is so touched by her brother's gesture, and Big Brother is suddenly aware how much he really loves his little sister.

Say a big aww. 

Siblings are wonderful.