cannot sleep + medicine = fantasy story writing

"Whatever you do, don't fall for me."

I tell this into his eyes mad with longing fulfilled and again. He has beautiful eyes, ones I can see myself in, eyes that are true and childlike. You barely notice them until you talk to him close up and find his big eyes responding to you. When he speaks, I watch his mouth; he has perfectly odd shaped lips that are poised for a kiss that is made of romance and all things young and sweet, a kiss that tastes of virginity and a foreign heartache. He drives me mad in my race to fall asleep. He is a dream. And while I am real, we get lost in each other, intertwined, arms flailing till we collapse together in psychedelia.

This is madness; it is my loneliness mixed with his purity, my brazenness with his subtlety, our mutual longing for loving friendship in the night.

It is complicated, because I have a young daughter borne from a recent love. She either needs a man of the house to stay in our lives, or just me - permanency. But my friend with the beautiful eyes is a travelling young writer with a promising journalistic career ahead of him. He is smart and brilliant, loving words as much as I do, loving Asia as much as I do, and more. But he is naive, and only the age I was when I gave birth to beloved Esther, who is now eight.

I speak to him everyday and find a lost love in him, one that I should have had, but never did, for all the men I fell in love with before, were already men when I met them, full of hardness and cynicism. They all tell me to trust them, while they proceed to break my heart again, and leave with the need to preserve themselves over love and their lover. But Sam is different, because he tells me instead that he trusts me, that I am already the strong woman I should be. It makes me feel unique, to be trusted in blind faith, to be loved unconditionally, at least for the moment. I feel like I am the only person he wants to be with, instead of having to share him with all the other things in life that fills a man's mind. However regressive this may sound, but it is nice to feel like the only one that is special to someone you care about deeply.

Call him irresponsible, for I know he is going to fall in love with me anyway, and think about the consequences only after. It is hard to not give in to those beautiful eyes. For now, I tell him, "Let's see how we feel, when we wake up in the morning together."

invisible propositions

"I would like to, but by doing so we would ruin the lives of many who are close to us." He never did ask, but I know that the prospect crossed both our minds many times before tonight. I let him return home alone, and myself to mine, but voiced that reply in my mind to my imagination. Within the rifts of my mind, reels of reality and foregone conclusions set the tone amidst the surreal. It is a strange attraction, inexplicable, and completely temporal - he would say the same.

For now, sleep evades me. I think about the common things we share: memories of lonely moments, of agreed romantic melancholy.

Isn't life like a trap sometimes? But we want to do the right thing, and I'll let wonder linger till it becomes no more. Like dream petals summoned for a spell, and disappeared into the ground after. Charm is transient bullshit, good for a moment, good for nothing.

It doesn't feel anything more than charm and shared shreds of affiliation in life. I am too mellow to feel anything more about anything, anyone, not even the loves of my life. Ecstasy has become lukewarmth, fuzzy feelings have turned into mere quiet smiles, the sex of my life has become a boat ride. Yet the invisible propositions surface in my mind, surfacing just on charm and affiliation.

drive

I lift my hands off the wheel, and let it go steering wildly, free-rolling me wildly. I ignore all road signs, traffic lights, radio and mobile audio trespasses, pedestrians, and other motorists.



Suddenly I realise, I cannot just do that. A car cannot drive its driver. Not wanting to drive, is not a legitimate excuse for shabby driving.



This is what I do: I stop the car, without a heed to the rest of the motor-world, get out, and walk on the pavement, or side of the dirt road when the pavement ends. And I don't look back.

[untitled]

"Would you believe me if I said I miss you?


I look and hope to find traces of your coming by, but my wait is insatiable longing, and is unfruitful at that.


I should not be missing you, for you are not mine to miss. If I missed you, I missed a technicolor image of you, and not really you. For I have no reckoning of you save for my fantasies. And that, I forced myself to fantasise, to be attracted, to break the trust, to indulge with you. You are not that attractive a man. I made up an image of you, so that I would have a rescuer of a man, that I actually hope I will never have to call upon.


I write this, and I no longer miss you, no longer look out for your traces, your sights and sounds, your name. Instead, I abide afloat as is, because I hope I will not actually go there, to where you are, for you, or rather the image of you, is false and of my weakness, and that I will take to my bed and bury there with the other many men."

my secret friend

"


I was rather nervous really. It has been a rather long while, since I have built a friendship up from scratch. But more so, because I knew I subconsciously admired her, perhaps bearing almost on platonic infatuation.


I felt the way I felt when I first met H again, and realised he loved art, thus making a new best friendship. But H is a boy. It would never be the same, watching an arts house film with him again. Doing that would also affect four people all at the same time. And then I lost a best friend at the same time.


While I waited for her to arrive, the fact that she was a girl, this time, comforted and frightened me all at the same time. But I will go through with this. I am not going to be afraid for long. After all, I really need someone who loved the same books and movies and the like, someone who will be able to go enjoy them with me too, and talk about it thereafter without making anyone feel emotionally endangered. I need someone like that to befriend me again.


"


Sometimes I wish H was a girl. I crave a friendship like the one described by D H Lawrence in Women in Love, where the two men had an intimate moment of friendship almost comparative to that intimacy they had with women, and yet not being gay in the slightest.


There are people who are like that. You will feel attracted to them, yet not physically. You could never fantasise about them in that way and feel good about it - disgusted, more like. But with every shared interest, that sameness grows.


I made a new acquaintance recently. I also wish he was a girl. Then we could go book shopping together and coo over those we already had and exchanged with each other. But because he is male, I probably cannot make this friendship that way.


Maybe I just miss some people, like Shuyi for instance, because I haven't seen her in so long. Shuyi is someone who asks my permission even before she complains about things. You see, women like to whine and gripe about things. It helps us deal. Some whine to the point of irritation, causing them to have few friends, or when in the presence of any, causing them to think to themselves, "Just smile and bear it, and say, 'never mind lah.,'" just so they can get it on and move the next person, next topic. Shuyi is not that sort. Anyway, I need to re-commence my face-to-face communication with her soon, otherwise something is missing.


I love my other best fem-mate Enid too, because she is mad and she loves art, and we can talk on the phone a long time too. We can even end up wearing the same thing on the same day to the same place. She can be quite cute and silly when high, and she will suan you if you are from SJI - sorry Cal. The unfortunate things in life also happen though - she studies in bloody NIE and it has fucked up her education experience in so many ways, I wish she would graduate tomorrow. I also hope she will find nice friends, and regain her positive outlook and comments, and for the benefit of my other friends, be less tao-seeming, else how I introduce her new, meaningful friends? But Enid - and she will agree - does not enjoy poetry, Murakami, cheem novels and the like, the way I do. Plus, apart from chick-flicks, our tastes in movies differ.


Maybe it is me. I am not a good friend to have, because I don't celebrate my friends' birthdays, I don't share things very much, I have all these bourgeoisie characteristics and seem to see planks in others' eyes rather than my own, and I prioritise my things all differently. Perhaps I slight others with my lack of commitment, or my seeming aloofness, or the fact that I love my job too much, to the point of drop-all relocation. Maybe I attract all the male company unconsciously, so that I can't have all the girly companionship that resonates with what I desire.


As for my secret friend, maybe that new acquaintance would do, or else others yet to be, but then again, I have to stop myself from being subconsciously female and thus do the subconscious flirty actions I cannot help, much to my own despair, because it is my survival instinct in the presence of male company. Or I could seek out new female friends, though it is hard - ever tried to make friends with a woman? Ha.


I need to find another Enid-cum-Shuyi to add to my friendster list, with a dash of Huanjie - female version - into the mix. Where to find her? And even if I did find my secret friend, will the friendship last at all?


I shall just continue to write. At least the words that come out here through me, alive that they are, will be there for a long time, till I die and beyond, hopefully.

I fell in love with a one-night stand.


She was charming, but I only realised that to be brutally true, in that dark street-lit room after. All the while, I was hardly thinking, just passionately driven to fulfil a need. Years have graduated my hunger from being merely sexual, to becoming a search for a blissful antidote, for my loneliness and lack.


Every night I spent alone, I spent in wasted hunger.


I can't describe this. Nothing beats this kind of intimacy with a woman. But tonight's woman was different. She was so special, hardly sweet, to many men, she would be crass. But to me, I found her to be as sweet as spring water, as from the mountains, the ones I saw once in France when I was a young boy travelling with his family. No woman could beat that. The rest I've had, always left a sour taste on my lips, like the way milk does on your palate, a creamy sour.


When she invited me home, I knew nothing. But a point scored - now I know, I am but an empty man.



...


Dark, street-lit room. There is this thing about the first time with someone new, the room always has to be dark enough. Every one of them the same.


I saw her smile, when we were lying side by side, she on her front, and I on my back, while we both looked at each other. Looked at each other in that piercing informal way. I couldn't help myself, I was charmed into the aura of her.


I cannot let her know this.


As we lay there, it was to me, a moment frozen in our human warmth. Cleaving in our souls for that one living moment, breath crystallising in another time and place. Suddenly I realise, I was acting like a man who had fallen in love.


You must know the feeling. Like it were a lost cause to gain control over that magnetism to that person, the object of your foolish gaze.


It cannot be - she is a fling. I sound like a cad when I say that, but my being here was meant to be a one-time affair. This is our armour. Engage-detach-repeat with another stranger.


But suddenly, I cannot detach properly. I lost myself.


I have to talk to her, but I am so awestruck by her gaze of her presence still, from that moment in that night. I have to see her again, as it were, re-visit a lover. I can't not think about her anymore, she came and took a place in my consciousness. But if I see her again, she will know this craziness in me, and I will have taken the plunge of risk in letting her know how I feel.


This aching longing in me, I cannot rid myself of. Every fantasy now, is of her, of the things we will do to each other, in that same street-lit room. Same old, same old, never felt any better with anyone in this way.


...






To be continued.
(as always)

Taking the bus to KL

Taking a bus away from this home country, it was all I needed.

I boarded the bus, with all my necessaries, and I took on this journey alone. This sensation, it is the me I am not used to, because I am hardly ever alone this way. It feels like I am always being prevented from being this way. I am who I am with another. I am who I am when I talk. I am who I am when I frown in a listening stance with you. Who can be really alone in these circumstances, it never happens, save for with him. My best friend, closer than a brother.

If I think about the real me, I feel I barely know her. Do I really want to be this person on this bus, on this journey alone.

But I took it on anyway, despite the fact that I abandoned my lover for the days ahead, just to get to know her better.

I waited and thought on my way to that new familiar place. I remember the times I was there with my other half, wondrous, wondrous, I loved him and he loved me, life should have remained that way. Being together in the same room, getting ready to go out together, folding our dirty laundry back into our travelling bags together, I wish, I could still do that with him.

I wish I wasn't alone now then, thinking of that.

Yet I knew, if I stayed home, I would never figure this out: When you are alone, who do you truly want to be with. I would never realise my own answer.

Not only so, I really am this girl alone on this bus. I am the one who loves to be away, and I would rather be away alone than with anyone other than my best friend. I am this person who writes and contemplates, who would very much rather indulge, read and fantasise, who wants to go to the deserts and mountains in between Russia and India and China. You cannot hinder me.

I'm almost there, time to get ready to alight.

How about sharing that platter of cheese with me, crackers and all.
I'd love the wine too, preferably chilled to 16 degrees or similar.

I'd really also love to borrow your handbag, that real cool vintage one. I know you love it, but I would love to share it with you, I'll be really nice to you before and after that.

My precious precious things. Will I ever share them?

I will, even the dirty things that hurt me to share with you. I will have to share them with you, because I love you. You must be a beautiful person, that I am hideously compelled to share it with you. I believe you are better than me, so I will share my best friend with you.

I love you, beautiful person, share it with me too.

-

This whole deal about sharing, do we all have to do this with our favourite things? 1-3-5, 2-4-6, or weekdays-weekends, or once in a couple of months etc. I will make sure I keep it clean okay, you can have it afterwards.

All those exchanges.

I lie in bed thinking about all those other people and I am sure you do too.

What the heck.

I will share my one thing that I sought to possess, that I might brand as love of the blasphemous ecstasy, that I still wish to possess and regain, that I will share it with you.

Sharing. How wondrous the virtue of this activity.

I don't want to share it with you. It's MINE. You have no say, and no claim on this. What right have you? I have tasted it first, you can try to get what lies ahead but I don't want to let you have it. Are you more qualified than I am to have this more than I do? Ha. You will never succeed. Trust me. What's mine will always be mine.

I am not being selfish, beautiful girl, I am telling you, it's MINE.

Go somewhere else to play, find someone else to play with, and stay away from my playground. It's not healthy for you to remain here, you will injure yourself.

Meanwhile,

My best friend shares me with someone else, I share him with someone else, I share another best friend with herself, and I share this one with the beautiful person.

Sharing, meaningful indeed. No way else to get around this complex world of links and exchanges, all between us.

Learn to share, life will get better! Cheers!

Overtaken





I.





Nice house. -



People always say my house is nice. I am sure some of my friends have nice houses, or posh rooms. All the essential luxuries are there - my folks always say, "I wanna go back to my bed!" Because it really is a comfort that we essentially cannot live without, the bed. Imagine life without it. We have to enjoy our houses, it is a given right.



So, I live in a nice house. I'm blessed. Moth and rust will destroy it one day, but now it is a dwelling place for me.



But really, it is just a house. A clay vessel, a jar of sorts - the kind lab scientists use, or somewhat like a sheath.





II.





I need to reveal that I found out recently this astonishing chunk of knowledge: There is a giant living in my house.



It's a ghostly giant, one that has no form but for the house.



In fact, I also found out - there are giants in my next-door neighbours' houses, and at the office too. Goodness. They have been there, haunting all these houses for quite a while now, mine and my neighbours' - about twenty-five years or so till date.



I suddenly saw them everywhere critical around me. Giant ghosts. Recently, mine spoke to me. When I realised its presence, I saw the rest of them appear from their invisible latent-gaseous state. I now know I am really not alone.



All those voices.





III.





Supernatural giants. I think they all came to these houses in a group, on a mission. Incredible powers, intelligence and wealth, and our houses, they possess. And for a solitary divine purpose, to conquer the world. Sometimes I see them communicating to us with amazing genius-content, who could devise it? Only if, a true spiritual giant in form and incredible function.



My giant is quite the solitary guy, I haven't really got in touch with him. We get along easily, despite being in the same house all the time.



But C's giant, I KNOW he's there. He's just asleep most of the time. Dormant, and quite uncommunicative because what he has to say, it needs time to be articulate in human-speak. As to what are his intentions in his house, I have little idea, but I KNOW it will blow up earth into bits in some way or another.



H's giant, is amazing, though I no longer am easily shocked or perturbed by just amazing. No, wait. Amazing is incomplete in its description. Amazing means sweet, but H's house giant is not sweet. It is mind-blowing, far-out outrageous and therefore, amazing. H's house is often brewing, thanks to his giant. Brewing - breaking down, building, forming substances, causing irreversible chemical reactions.



The office giant, it's the youngest one among the lot. I suspect it is still speaking in babe tongues. Soon, we will hear her talk to us.

[Avoided Showdown:+]





I asked her,

" When you are alone, who do you truly want to be with?"



I know it won't be me -



I didn't wait around to hear the answer screaming inside her lungs, hesitating to be heard, lest more lives were lost, or more love died.



I discerned from her aura, among whom were the ones the answer would be chosen.



She didn't want to realise her own answer.



But we couldn't blame anybody for that. If anyone were to blame, me. I came too soon, too quickly, and twenty-five years much too late.



It was as if I was a lone-traveller, and had arrived at that ancient civilisation after they had taken off or been captured by aliens or whatever.



The only person I could blame was me!



Why are we bound to give away ourselves so much to another? Sometimes we get us back, but in her case, reckon she never really did.



All there, yet not at all really.



How do I get her back?



How would she get him back?-



There are more important things than this. But I know, that with her, I will get on with those things with much more strength at hand, and I know she will inspire me beyond myself.



I refuse to know if, she will get on with those more important things better with him or with me. I will try my best, and I will become good enough. We will fit together rather well.



But I will never be the original one. Just a replacement.



-Restart-



Don't answer my question, girl. I love you.

Privates - Part I



She felt like bringing wine, or ice-cream, over to see him.



If she was given the chance again, she'd want to love him.



In the meantime, she was still mourning for the loss - Lazarus.



Perhaps not tonight. It's raining, and someone's waiting lovingly for her.







Part II



It was for all the wrong reasons. A visit would be most wrongfully unbecoming. How could it be done in a guilt-free manner?



Tears started to form in her aged heart. Aged not by time, but by the ins and outs with her men.



She imagined the scene when, in yet another time, loneliness would occur - because he was leaving. Rucksack on his back, he turned and went.

the phantom

Part 2





"

If anything, her phantom became real. In a different form, and much better inside too! Because there was the possible happening of love.



Love - in any case, something special indeed. What till it appears. And now -



It wasn't all about the physical coupling, nor the loneliness void that was being filled, no longer about that.



She was close to being set free.

"

story of those 2 : her and the phantom



"

It felt so good to be held. Sturdy shoulders of a man, shirt ruffled from the day and smelling of him. Mildly warm and beautiful to touch. Orange warm living room lighting too. And the space was too small to contain us both, but he tried strongly, and it proved valiant and took my breath away.



What would it feel like to be a man touching me the same way he did. In reality, would it have been smooth and creamy to the touch, smelling of a girl, warm too? Dressed in a skirt and beautiful blouse, would it have been pleasant for me if I were him. It must have been somewhat, enough to propel the hoist that followed after.



Hoist indeed. Can it be, that I am so light. I thought not, but he said, and proved, otherwise. I never was ever carried effortlessly like so, it was so amazing, I think I met a man with bodily strength of worth. By then, the space was really too small and we had to adjourn somewhere else. He lifted me so, legs around him and on his torso and hoisted me to a larger space in my room.



I thought it would never happen.



Count it credit to him, he removed the clothing barrier with amazing level of skill, it took my breath away to be handled with such efficacy. I wish I wasn't stressed, with so much hanging on my mind, because everything was beautiful, crafted by heavenly magic, and no one can ever replace this moment in succinct timing and grace; I know it.



He had the smoothest male skin I had ever felt bare this way, and he smelt wonderful even though spent by a day. I felt a spectator at the same time more, I felt him to be so good.



I'd love to do it again with my phantom, it could have been better. I want to envelope him again more than I could tonight, because he deserves more than this, more of me taking over him; he was so much more than my hands, my mouth, my legs could overwhelm. I wish I could.



But I'd better go. It ain't right for me to be here.

"

Tuesday, March 12, 2002 7:27:24 PM



Painting a sad picture

I was once married. It was a lovely affair. The stars burst into being that night. I was dropped into a field of buttercups, too madly in love. And so was he. But it was in the past, and very much a delicious memory than a present reality.



Today, I am no longer with him, as one. No longer, because he, and therefore I, had a problem that we never could solve. It required a hope more than he and I could conjure up. And so I am no longer married.



We were made for each other. But not meant to be.