home is where the heart is

After the big move out, i've been thinking a lot about home; what it means, what it is and how to build it. As unconventional as my life is, there is an inherent need for a place where the being and soul is most comfortable in, without reservation and doubt. Home definitely isn't a physical location and perhaps doesn't constitute the people whom you call family, friends, partner. Home may just be a state of mind/being; a situation where you feel most at ease. I haven't been home for awhile.


－ 台北，2011

hari raya special

My view in the morning. This morning, it was particularly comforting to wake up to blue skies and greens; been pretty chilly these days, I'm not good with chilly.

warm bread at cocotte,

and the warmth of a familiar smile (albeit threatening to slice me with that knife)

hail public holidays!

Tonight,

we will talk about

us.

breakfast, lunch

sunday absent-mindedness

 

 and comfort food

i love sundays, let mondays wait.

starting out, starting over

so i bought a new camera - lumix lx5. just starting out; trying to find some form of expression again. we made a little expedition to little india; post deepavali, hoping to catch some remnants of it. 

 but i guess indian always starts with the food

 the colours

 and the spontaneity and randomness.

with my baby sister whom i haven't seen in a month.

pangs

We were living for the love we had and

Living not for reality

It was just my imagination

photo credit: http://slxblog.tumblr.com/

怀念

上海，我想你。。。

photo credit: shanghaiist.com

empty

Too many empty spaces between us,

Empty words, empty promises,

Sometimes, just mere emptiness, silence.

Void from meaning, second guesses;

Misinterpretations, miscommunications.

Because, the space between us, left abandoned.

Feelings neither too strong to draw, either too proud to quell.

I wish, I could say I knew you well.

untitled

you, to me, are an endless lie;
of paradise, perfection and love
told in the face of the strictest truth

of eternal darkness, i believe in you.
you burn the walls of my chest
to pulp and store some in a jar of ice,

for some day when you're alone, entice
you to unfold them sheets,
and wrap your naked heart within.

changed

I took a different route to work today and saw a few more exciting sights than usual. Peeled paint leaving patches on shop fronts, filthy five-foot ways, scantily dressed woman luring lone men walking by, un-lit signboards that sing of another world at night - "Her Majesty Karaoke & Pub". It is a life I guess I will never completely understand but yet, it sensitized and softened me. And I think about the people I travel with to work every morning, spacing out or deep in thought about their own rat race, it seems whether we traveled on this road or the usual one, we get to the same end. But who are we at the end? How do we allow ourselves to be changed? Have they also seen this side of the world or can one be too sensitized that we're again cold towards such?

1/10

I started this morning thinking "this is day one of 10", I still can't believe I agreed to this break. I thought my days of breaks were over, that at some point in my life, I was hoping this one, I'd be able to resolve issues with you, without going through the torment of separation, no matter how short. I reflect on how we got here; what caused the depth of our mutual understanding to be piled over with 3 weeks of bitch-fight. And the factors are many but one weighs heaviest: Our pride too colossal for us to recognise that the emotional baggage we carry cripples our movement forward. Still, we embrace the damage like our defence ammo, awaiting the trigger from a familiar attack, regardless of its relevance. In fact, the terms we use to describe what is wrong are mere facades for a deeper wound we refuse to abandon; our arguments are no longer constructive, careless towards the architecture of our relationship, but rather a world of spiteful exchange, explicit or allusive.

Yet, I cannot spend a vacant moment not thinking about you.

When I think about you, I think about my whole life. It is as if I've never led any other. I am unable to classify joy, happiness, love, pleasure, friendship, comfort, contentment, because with you, I feel them all and more. My entire being responds to you like water responds to currents; synchronised, inextricable. I consider our repeated encounter with each other the evidence of fate, and even though it was trying, and still is, I have never regretted any moment of it. At this point, I can only look towards day 10 and anticipate a revelation on how to expunge the darkness of pain and bitterness that mars this profoundly strong and passionate relationship that we share.

second guess

worlds away, you wouldn't say

so throw a promise back at me

it could be the bridge between

fib and fidelity

your heartbeat warns your reckless mouth

if it were never said, it'll never be found

such is the rhythm, such is the rhythm

in my head, when you remain silent

sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments; love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's no Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never write, nor no man ever loved.

-W.S.

stairs

no particular reason, just revisiting my fascination for stairs

and my everlasting love for Shanghai.

photo from: http://www.shanghaimage.com/