Poetry133: Ourglass

Time had stopped
inside the hourglass.
Everything was suspended
in photographic stillness.
Bleak.
Devoid of motion,
of emotion,
of the meaning of existence.
The peak
of silence
had been reached.
Now, as he held it,
his eyes were locked
on a single grain
that was frozen
in the middle
of its plunge.
The grain looked so different,
so disconnected,
it was like a
pendulum
suspended between
two voids.
After countless blinks,
it looked
as if it was
God’s fallen angel,
a threadless kite
longing for its string
to be pulled from above
because it wants to return
to the clouds.
And it was.
At the bottom,
he saw statues of demons
poised to hack the angel’s head.
He started to shake it,
like a snow globe with unnmoving flakes.
Then he was screaming
inside the hourglass.
The silence had been broken.
He turned into a grain of sand.
Time had resumed.

Miraculous

I just felt it last night, and I still feel it up until now… I hope until forever—I beg you, my dear fucking God. I feel it rising in flames, burning behind me like wings made up of souls that have risen from the deepest pit of hell, seeking redemption and forgiveness for each sin they committed. This is making me feverishly inspired to do something, something that I can’t control, something that is beyond me, something beyond everything that is beyond. For these wings are setting me off to a dangerous flight of no return to a destination unknown to me, these wings lead me to a fate that makes me question the power of my comprehension, for I don’t really have any idea where I’m going—where they are taking me. Then let it be! Ha-ha! I must have what Henry Miller stated in his book Tropic of Capricorn: … to have a faith greater than Jesus Christ. This is the time to let things loose, let them fuck themselves up and go astray, if need be. There is always that mysterious, invisible force puts things back into place again. I don’t what it is. I don’t know what it’s called. It’s nameless, and it’s even unknown, if you ask me. But it’s there: nameless, faceless, dead and alive, existent and nonexistent. It’s there and not there. That alone, is enough and not enough. It is and it is not. And this just fucks logic up. Logic makes you evade the miraculous. So fuck logic. I am making a miracle—me.

Everything that I once was, they are coming back to me. Even at this very second, I feel my cells fervently repairing the ruins of my wounded world, as if to make me forgive them for leaving me and letting me drown and fight for my life with my hands and feet groping for something to hold on to around the cornerless mire of my misery. I suffered a tremendous amount for over a year. So much damage had been done to my life, it was as if I were stripped off of everything I have, and I have nothing left but wounds and scars to protect me, and nothing but tears to ease the pain. And just last night, just last night, I felt some sort of a strong feeling of recovery, it was a feeling that I couldn’t figure out the source. It must have been something divine. A construction site, as I am starting to feel it, is inside of me. I can hear the sounds of the ancient, inanimate machines in my head doing everything in ripping off the bloodclot that had stopped the words from coming out. The wounds that had been closed are now being ripped open letting the blood flow, as if to have my heart pump it all out in one beat. I’m gonna expel the stagnated blood out of my fucking system and give birth to new blood cells. But first, I must bleed it all and empty myself of all this rancid blood.

Since early last year, I was always at a complete loss for words, for thoughts, for dreams. I always don’t know what to do. I always don’t know what to say. And quite frankly, I am, most of the time, disoriented, and I had admitted that I was once again near the edge of insanity. I have been there, and I was there again. My emptiness had been filled with existential frustrations and anxieties. I can’t hear the scream of my existence. I have been deaf. I tried so hard to listen to the beats of my heart, but I can’t understand a single thing. All I know it the sensation of it beating fast and and slow, weak and strong, and the rest are nothing but utter incoherence.  A lot of things that happened I couldn’t understand. It’s like I don’t know myself anymore, and that is something I am sure of. I’m sick to death of being this way. These are planetoids of shit revolving around the Sun burning from the heat and scattering the smoke of crap filling the whole solar system; all this, happening inside of me. I’m always in a chaotic shit inside the world in my head. Then like what I have said… Let it be… Let me fucking be.. I am on a rampage. I don’t care anymore… I am letting go of the wheel. I am no longer avoiding anything…. I am no longer evading the miraculous—you.

Book Review: Diary by Chuck Palahniuk

Diary by Chuck Palahniuk. This. Fucking. Book. Is. Shit. I am having a hard time finding the fitting words to say about this. To write a something like “This is Fucking Great!” or “This book is GOOD!” or even “This book is perfect!” to do so is going to be a crime. Even giving five stars wouldn’t be enough. I would even say that this is even better than Fight Club.

A dark gripping tale of an artist doomed because of her oozing lava of talents. Misty Kleinman Wilmot, you are cursed with that gift that you have for—eternity. As a girl, being raised by a hippie mother, Misty never experienced what world was like outside the trailer park in Tecumseh Lake. That dream of being an artist is what Misty was living for. She weny to art school. In there, she met Peter Wilmot. The biggest mistake of all the mistakes she ever made in her life. Poor Misty. Gifted. Cursed. Inspiring.

Peter Wilmot was on a mission to find that woman cursed with talent that will provide salvation to Waytansea Island. Yes, he was successful. The name “Misty Kleinman” was hyphenated with Wilmot. He soon tried to get Misty to Waytansea Island—the island populated with lunatics. The island trapped with traditions. In order to get Misty to the Island, he impregnated her. Tabbi Wilmot was the result and Misty staying in the island. I meant trapped. Better word—wrapped.

Being promised that her dreams of being an artist would be made into reality, she lived in that island as a waitress at a hotel the Wilmots owned. A mother. A queen of fucking slaves. For some reason, Peter attempted to kill himself. He failed. Peter had become a living dead in the hospital. A vegetable waiting to rot—was slow rotting. Then, together with Grace Wilmot, Misty raised Tabii.

Suffering. Suffering. Suffering. A daily overdose of it brings her talent back from the dead. The sleeping volcano exploded. She started to paint like a schizophrenic overdosed with talents. With her eyes closed and Tabbi as her inspiration, she painted masterpieces of art that were known to be impossible. Misty had lost everything. Now, Tabbi and that dream of being an artist were the only things left for her—what was left for her to do. And oblivious to almost everything, what awaited Misty was a conspiracy that happens every four generations that would kill hundreds of people. An event that would make the island filthy rich for generations at a price of hundreds of lives. Misty Kleinman Wilmot. A queen of fucking slaves. A hostage who was destined to save the island from running out of money for the next four generations. A tool to use. The island that trapped itself with its own cycle. Once you are born, you’re already doomed to fulfill your fate. You’re doomed at being you. How can not being you and being you be curse at the same time? … Life perhaps is… A cursed gift.

A fucked-up life is the main reason why great art ever existed. How stupid would be a painting of two unicorns kissing each other compared to a painting of a sky burning like hell with angels crying and screaming from wounds inflicted by demons, winged beings falling down from the great red sky. How stupid would that be if you call Justin Beiber’s songs “Art.” Ok. Ok. I’ll stop making fun of her.

Suffering … is the key in creating exceptional art. What hurts us the most awakes the artist inside of us. Brings out the genius out of our brains, out of our souls. Scars and wounds are the best source inspiration. You art shows your wounds your scars your life—it shows everything about you. Art and Suffering—they’re almost synonymous.

Do you know that the best artists are not the most finest and the most perfect human beings?

Chuck Palahniuk’s Angsty Nihilistic Existential Voice was never this loud. Cynical and, in some sense, optimistic. The plot build-up flares with excitement and disgust. Not to mention that this book has the best plot twists ever. Whoever the narrator was (probably it’s Misty), it still continues to be a puzzle. Which is one the things I liked best about this novel. One of the best reads I ever had. To not read this would be a crime against yourself. You don’t know what you’re missing. And just for the record, you’ve already missed enough things in your life.

***********

I love Chuck. I really do.

Poetry133: Metabiomechanical (Haiku)

The computer screams,

“This is modern alchemy:

souls turned into machines!”

 

***********

Five. Seven. Six.

Tired of Living (an unearthed draft, a short story)

I was robbed by bandits, and they’ve thrown me here so deep in the wilderness. I’ve been here for three days. I was all alone in this darkness left only with my naked existence. They should have killed me—it’s a better way to have lived. I’m aware that I’m lost, both inside and out. They didn’t kill me. They didn’t kill. They didn’t.… I hope they did. But I can …. kill me. I have nothing left but a life to end. I felt the privilege of being able to kill myself. This made me smile. I realized that only oneself has the authority to kill one’s self—and no one else. The self kills itself. Fair enough. I’m tired of living anyway.

I noticed the veins in my arms. They were never this visible. It was as if it was the first time I saw them in my entire life. Looking at my thin arms and my trembling hands, I asked me, as if myself were another person, “How would I kill you?” For the first time in my life, the question interested me—the question made sense. But there were no replies. I asked again, “How would you want me to kill you?” No replies. I said that me was starting to get annoying. I could feel my teeth biting the skin inside my mouth. Something snapped. Blood flowed out of my mouth down to my chin down to my throat. Gulp. 

“Hey, I liked it”—spitting—“Did you like it too?” whispering a question to me. “I can kill you that way if you want,” I said to me. Again, no replies. … In a nice guy’s voice, I told me “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t get angry if you say no.” After a series of questions, still no replies. Me continued on being silent. I now understood. “Silence,” I said, “means yes.”

I found myself smiling. And I was now starting to bite my arms until they bleed more and more. It made me smile more. As I was trying to find a good place to kill myself out the open maze of trees and vegetation, I met three lions. The foul smell of my flesh and blood seemed to made them salivate—their mouths staring at me. I was scared of the thought that they might kill me before I kill myself.  I won’t give up my privilege. My instincts told me to run, and I did. I ran mindlessly and hopelessly. The lions were running beautifully. I felt like my number of steps and breaths were being counted. I arrived at the edge of the cliff. I stopped. They stopped too. Perhaps mocking me or giving me a time to say my prayers. I turned my back and faced the skies, and I laughed at them. I jumped off the cliff and then hit the ground. I felt the broken bones all over my body… Minutes later… I then heard the roars of the lions.

**************************

2 years ago?

morning habit

… and so here, i find myself writing again to start this day. and yes, there’s just too much to write—so much to write that i don’t feel like i want to write anymore. just like the way when there’s so much to speak you don’t want to speak anymore. just like when there’s so much things to do that you would choose to sit and not give a fuck about everything, close your eyes to welcome and give in to the inner darkness that would soon coil you into deep sleep—and just make the world shut up… and just when you’re feeling this dark, peaceful silence, in middle of your sleep, you begin to dream…. and it must have been a nightmare because you find yourself catching your breath, and your hand is on your chest, feeling the pulsing rage of heartbeats, as if your heart is destroying your chest, it pumps the red liquid in a series of explosions you’re afraid that the flow of your blood would go astray, your vessels might leak from the intense pressure… and after recovering from this, you’d feel like you’ve survived a heart-attack. still feeling the remnants of the nightmare, you’re groping for your missing senses, with your heart slowing down as if finally remembering its normal rhythm, everything you’ve avoided from the start comes back to you at warpspeed, as if with succulent vengeance against you for betraying them and leaving them all behind; now, they can’t wait to take on their revenge that in one blink, in one breath, in one beat, in one episode of a thought, in one second, everything is all and the same once more the way they were before you fell asleep. and you are now starting to look at the darkness of the ceiling, and all of a sudden, you see her face from afar like single star in the vast, limitless stretch of the night sky. and it’s so vivid in the middle of dawn. the silence amplifies the details of her face into striking clarity. you decide break the silence with the voice of your mind, you begin to tell her words she never heard of and words you thought you wouldn’t say—and you even stutter while doing this. and you find that quite stupid, really, but it doesn’t really matter now, you would say. you are now laughing at your own stupidity, and it sends a warmth into your whole being because you found the strength to let go of control, of your wits, and not really care about anything anymore. the submission to fate, or to whatever. let everything go astray and even find it exciting. and yes, thinking too much is courage’s greatest enemy. it breeds fear and anxiety and even distorts reality. sometimes you have to do something before you lose the nerve of doing so. ….then, you look in the depths of her eyes, and your thoughts are starting to get silent as you breathe. you’re glad she’s still there. you stare and then you fall asleep once more… and then you dream…

awareness continuum

my hands are freezing as they are pressing these keys with a hope of creating friction that will warm the tendons, the cartilages, the bones, and the shred of skin that covers these hands. i know that it’s too early too be freezing here, but i am aware that this kind of “freeze” is not caused by the air-conditioner, but by some kind of apathetic coldness really far away from here. i am amazed how it makes me feel—how she makes me feel. the absence, the coldness drives me mad, sad, ill-tempered, anxious, worried, angsty and annihilatory …. i could no longer put things into words to sum everything up, perhaps they can never be summed as a whole but only as fragments to be understood like puzzle pieces of feelings you don’t know how to feel or where to put or how to show because you are such in a chaos of emotions that you can only feel overwhelmed and surprised having the capacity to feel in that kind of way. it’s a test that goes beyond your comprehension of your  own emotions… and attempting to understand such a thing only leads to a rampage of supernovas of confusion that will soon stir you into a helix of a black holes inside your own universe and you can feel the tremendous gravity sucking everything inside wherein you implode and implode to the point being so filled with everything and more that you’ll feel all of the emotions and think all of the thoughts all at once, for a moment that seemed like suspended in time, and from there and as time resumes, you are being reborn into a new star from the remnants of the ordeal of the process of life and death. and you begin your new life from the darkest, thickest clouds, gases, ashes and dust of the past…. now, i feel ambivalently spiteful, in between love and anger, affection and hate, toward everything. now i am starting to feel a series of combustive emotions streaming from within, flowing like blood in every beat of my heart. as they are pulsating into irrational thoughts that spells the word “insanity” in my head that i am starting to feel a heartbeat in the walls of my skull. my hands are no longer cold, i guess this is enough. this is what insanity does, i guess, and this is the warmth i need. the warmth of insanity to keep me sane.

before i’m going to start this day…

before i’m going to start this day, let me start it by writing this piece of literary attempt to beautify and romanticize the shit i am in. it has been a very long time since i did something like this that i can’t even recall a single piece of recollection of me writing so early in the morning. oh.. i just recalled, i wrote 6:15am (an unearthed note) three years ago. yeah. i did something like this before, i’m glad i did not forget. i must admit, 6:15am (an unearthed note) was a good piece of litshit i wrote. that transitory moment changed a lot in me. not to mention that it was only, more or less, three minutes of full consciousness. so what happened a while ago was also that satori—the aha moment, the sudden realization, the enlightenment, and of God knows what. as i was on my way to this fucking seat (i am in the office right now, and I am supposed to be working, but this can be simply excused as a warm-up before I go editing, soo..), yes, as i was on my way to this damn seat, when i walked under the sunshine, i saw things all over my body, these were strings of frustrations and anxieties that stitched me so close to my ever growing morass of neurosis. this untamed madness has been going for so long that it was causing me to be mentally and emotionally disoriented almost all the fucking time. it sucks to be me, right? this such a phase i am going through, and i had been this way for a long time. now, the neurosis had now grown to its full force, and i am now caught in an all out war inside myself in which i have to win. well, this just reminded me of a song from i killed the prom queen.. “this war with myself never ends!” and the song was titled, “sharks in your mouth.” a constant war inside of me, but it was never this catastrophic that it had caused me to bleed in front of the fucking world. i was really thankful last night, everything was born of a second, born of a chance, born of fate. after attending and unfinished a mass… (not that i was bored, no, it was the opposite—the sermon hit me like blow to a skulless head, like a stab to a ribless chest). it was something like this, it was when Jesus asked Peter three times, “do you love me?” and peter answered “yes” three times, but we all know what he was the one who denied Jesus, that was three times too, i guess. but i won’t write anything about that here, it might drag the whole narrative down. again that was the first thing about last night. after that mass, i had the idea of going to my favorite bookshop which turned out to be closed. i was about to go home when i received a message from someone, telling me that my younger brother is holding a tutorial for Gestalt Therapy. what. the. fuck. and my own brother did not even tell me something about this. he might have been attempting to show off his skills again, and that is one dangerous thing, his level of skills for that matter would only cause destruction. but that’s not something that’s going to happen last night. and so i went and saved them from any possible destruction my brother would have caused. it was quite funny when we started, i did not know how to start things up until the beer took effect. when i felt the buzz, my senses remembered everything as if everything just happened yesterday. i just looked at the trainees, and all of a sudden, i simply knew what to say and what to do without even doing the slightest effort of thinking. “lose your mind and come to your senses.” how can i forget this religion i had once worshiped? then things got too technical, since i was teaching them Gestalt Dream Interpretation or Dreamworks, i need to utter some words they never heard of. words from the Gestalt Therapy lexicon, and words of my own. also, conveying such eccentric ideas only few brains can comprehend. i had to do a lot of explanation and unexpectedly, they were smart enough to get at least some of what i was trying to convey. as i was doing this, it felt like i wasn’t really teaching them, i wasn’t really talking to them—it was like talking to myself all the time that time. that sounds like a symptom of a mental disorder, so be it. i already got face to face with the abyss of insanity and madness and death a long time ago. and that feeling of staying composed despite of the intense psychospiritual pressure, i had it all of a sudden last night. i was me again, the person who it thought i was. and i really was that, and i am that was now. for the past few months, i had doubts of who i really thought i was. i doubted myself to the depths of all possibilities. i was such a fucking neurotic that i personally thought i had to see a shrink. modesty aside, i am a better shrink myself, and that was what made things burned me into frustration and anxiety that choked my heart out of my ribs, wrung all the juices out of my brain. again, that was just a phase, and it simply ended, and it’s quite unfair because it took really no effort, it just happened—without the tension of thinking. i heard every word, every theory, every experience i shared to the trainees, and they reflected everything to me crystal clear, as if everything echoed back to me. that was when the satori happened. that was when the neurosis died a sudden death. and now, this is why i am so excited to get to the final phase, perhaps this is one of the reasons why AFs go back to the circle, because it reminds them of who they really are, reminds them of the times when they knew who they were. and looking back, i can only laugh at myself. ha-ha-ha. what the hell, man?

i looked up

i looked up
and saw the heavens
summoning a set of dark clouds
waiting to wring all of its negativity.

i never noticed the rain
until it hit me as i was walking
with my head down,
staring at the ground.

i heard the sound,
then felt pain.
it’s as if the drops that
hit me has a weight of stones
that permeated my skin,
it was as if my skin was breathing water.

i looked around, but the people
didn’t seem to bother.
they were so full of smiles
that looked bright under
the dark blur of the weather.
i envied their smiles.
i envied their light.

i clenched my fist, hid them
inside my pockets,
and decided to get drenched.
the rain my skin sucked
found their way out in my eyes.
then i stopped somewhere
in the middle of nowhere,
to feel the madness.

in the depths and in the comforts of my pockets
my hands were shaking as they crush themselves.
how could these hands feel so unable
to create friction to provide warmth to the coldness of her sorrow?
then I could feel my teeth tearing the corners of my mouth.
how could I always fail to say the words
that will shed light in the midst of her darkest hours?

……

i looked around but it was no longer raining,
but i still felt the rain over me,
it was like the rain was falling
in an inverted triangle,
converging into
one single point,
like every drop was concentrated
to fall to where i was standing.

i looked up
and realized
it was only i
who saw the rain.

…the rain
was me.
i closed my eyes,
and the Sun came.

A Place for Change(an unearthed note)

Things change. Living or non-living, any form of matter. Nothing is exempted. It’s inevitable not to change. Change can be a slow process. Sometimes, it can even be like magic—a snap of finger, then “Tada!” change. Life is changing one moment at a time. Nothing is permanent. Everything is forever changing. No matter who you are, even if you are the son of your neighbour without you knowing, the flow of change can never be stopped—the flow of time can’t be stopped.

Go with the flow…. See where it takes you…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I was sitting on a frail bench made of wood and rusty nails. The 20+ or 30+ year old bench was full of unwanted cracks. I was sure some of the cracks came from failed repairs. Some nail scars from rusty nails. It had gotten darker since the last time I sat on this bench. It also had gotten weaker. Maybe there won’t be any bench to sit on next time. I was surrounded, perhaps, caged by a very warm air, disturbed by a noisy generator that was meters away from where I was sitting, I saw some kids playing under the skin-burning rays of the extended-summer sky, I heard the chirping of the birds—their whistles sounded annoying at one point that I almost wanted to throw stones at them. Coconut, Palm trees with brown leaves, and the Bougainvillea that really caught my eyes. It was so blooming. It has more flowers than its leaves, a very wonderful thing to watch. The rays of summer that are reflecting on the pinkish complexion of the flowers made my built-in image capturing system focused on it for a few minutes. The healing beauty of nature.

As I looked up to the sky, it was extremely blue, it was so clear, clearer than the sea—it almost cleared my mind. There were no clouds visible—the heat of the sun may have melted them. And I think I was hoping to see an angel. An angel from the sky, from heaven. God, where’s my angel? I need her now. Then I placed my head back to position, lit a cigar. Suddenly, memories popped out of my head, my unconscious maybe—it was like a jab, it almost knocked me out. The things that happened, the things I did four years ago still managed to fit in my consciousness. I felt the weight of my distant tears. I cried inside my eyes. A moment of silence, a void. After that, I laughed. It was fun and painful—but it’s not synonymous with coitus. Minutes after, a group of words were constructed in my thoughts, it became a sentence, then sentences. It was from one of my favorite novels—Jonathan Kellerman’s Private Eyes:  ”It’s as if staying in motion reminds me that I’m still alive. The illusion of purpose even though I don’t know where to go.” I never thought I have an automatic-quoting software in my brain, I remembered no installations, I guess it was with me since the minute I was born. That very quote can give you a good picture of my past.

Many things happened in just 4 years: Atheism, I gave up on God, became an Agnostic, then later found myself returning to God. Anarchy, vices, dropped subjects, 5:0 grades, hopping of courses, DotA addiction, moments of intoxication, moments of fucked-upness, gross hangovers, years of bad habits. I almost got myself killed, I almost caused someone to die, falling in love, having my heart crushed—emotional wreckage, hearing words that slit my wrists, then came music, Psychology, new friends, inspiration, and then facilitating… Now, why did I stop?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Things come and go. Life is spontaneous, if it’s rigid, you must be deader than those who are in their respective coffins or urns, those who are six-feet under the earth. I feel alive. I am alive. I have changed and still changing. We never step on the same river twice, and things never the happen the same way as it was before. So I’ll make the best out of everything I have. Live every moment for each moment shall pass.

As to what to I’ve heard from some old dude, “Life per se is life enough.” Time flies. Everything in life is forever temporary. Ironic, yes. But isn’t it because of impermanence that we know how much a thing is really worth?

And for this fleeting moment, I am happy.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

My first write-up from yesterday (2010).