thankful

i had the most splendid two days in a long while


friday: faremel with the cell

the holidays make me inclined to recoil into my comfortable, introspective shell: where all i have to do is crawl back into my own skin. the product of propriety means exercising facial muscles against their will, which can get extremely tiring especially when those very voices are the perpetrator for spinning walls & dull, throbbing headaches. hence, in all honesty, my opinion of "faremel" was relatively far from sanguine- the prospect of having to interact with a big group of people was exhausting in itself, but i am so so glad i went, because i need to remember that this is how love feels like.

spent the afternoon + night with a very spechul bunch of god's people. only limtay would lengthen a bunch of helium balloons till they shot beyond a high ceiling (& seemed to go on for infinity). only limtay would let go that seemingly infinite string of balloons with a straight face while singing frozen's let it go. only limtay would treat a bunch of balloons like they were flying a kite. only limtay would pretend they were shooting a vogue photoshoot in the middle of a muddy field with a slight drizzle. only limtay would do whatever they felt like doing at that moment, even if they marred the public's first impression of them. so many things that only limtay would venture to do, so many queer things that make this cell an unorthodox one (in other words, extremely attractive because unconventionality is attractive)

this is why my cell is so spechul: (all photo credits to zann the amazing resident photographer who captured every single light-hearted moment because it's the little things that speak the loudest)

(disclaimer: it's a jacket underneath bcuz santa has a belly)

hpbd hunz

(zxnn.weebly.com)

interacting was tiring, but what pulled at my heartstrings was that almost everyone was as tired as i was at the end of the day - that even though we are seemingly unique in so many different ways, (most of us) felt the same things & could empathise with one another on something so subjective as personality types. it is always a warm feeling to be able to understand without trying.

ohana: so thankful

today:

chinese combined christmas service today has reminded me how meaningful chinese worship songs are - when english words have been overused until they are spent, trying to describe god's love in another language becomes rather novel

brought sh for service today & it is one of the things i am thankful for,
for more reasons than one

today also reminded me of fop'11- 6.8.11 which was the watershed moment of my life

在那黑暗中与祢同行

让我纪念祢的恩典

impressions

light dances on those translucent, white curtains-

there is something so magical about these curtains.

they are unmitigated & astoundingly pure;

i marvel

at the way they are pervious to the wind 

and let her mould them into corporeal forms.

because they look so happy, 

my heart sings along with every ephemeral change

i know their ultimate purpose is to conceal,

but with every strand of consciousness,

i still choose to believe in what i see-

the contrary will be too wrenching.

with doggedness, i pursue the view before me

i have only enough strength to continue forth.

i know one day i'll have to stop,

draw these curtains back

and face the ugliness of a world stripped bare of ideals.

but i am intransigent; 

or rather, i am too weak, & this is my mechanism of displaying strength.

//

a list of things/impressions of my week thus far:

1. monday was wonderful: finally caught up with j after a long, long time. went back to the place we spent the "zenith" of our nov-dec holidays at, and it felt like time-travelling because everything seemed virtually unmitigated by time- the christmas decorations were similar & even the layout of the temporary stalls in the center of the mall were uncanny. was predicatably hit by a wave of nostalgia, because everything seemed so imperfectly perfect then when in retrospect. beef pie & hot chocolate in buck's classy christmas paper cup, mandatory m&s & times visit-- these are the little things that i will remember.ended off the evening with a tour of the school & taking extremely professional pair-fies (instead of selfies), especially the ones with the legendary sir. s. raf who was of course, in marble.

2. snd workday on tuesday was extremely blessed. we were all so spent by the end of it but learning all four dances (technically three because one belonged to our group) in the darkening amphi & panicking half-way through almost every dance with the music because of a forgotten step or two made the experience really enjoyable :-) learning & singing the batch'14 song as a "sample size for the j1s next year" reminded me so much of orientation & why i am so blessed to be part of this (new) journey. ended the day with comm dinner at j8's rooftop, which ended with a bang because of charades where (mainly) the girls went mad while the guys sat and laughed at us. some instinct tells me that these are the things that will comprise "nostalgia" in time to come. 

3.vacillation between reading, sleeping & studying for sats on wednesday before math, & a deepening impression that vociferous boys cook up a racket in a supposedly placid place so that you will notice them, but it often backfires because 1. noise is a mega turn-off, and associating oneself with a turn-off inevitably makes one one too 2. personally, i'll be more likely to notice quiet people 3. swearing right in front of me thinking it makes one look like a badass...i'll reserve my comments. 

4.finally finished murakami's norwegian wood today & i came to a self-drawn conclusion that i shall be avoiding murakami books for awhile. in the novels that i've read by him thus far, i've often been struck by the fluidity of his words & how he uses them (not even bombastic words but somewhat simplistic ones) with dexterity to create impressions that i've always lacked words to express myself, but through his books i've found myself falling prey to something. the way he normalises issues that are perhaps acceptable in japan are sort of a taboo not only in this society, but in the Word that i've been called to (try) to live by. everytime i am reading a murakami novel, i begin to find myself accepting these standards that are inherently warped (to me at least), and it's only when i contextualise them that i realise that they are anomalous in the form of a vice. i need to stop before the lines between the kingdom of the god and the world blur into one.

5. i also think that i need to stop drifting between "neither here nor there" and start living. 

reticence

   .

what made me feel incandescently happy & invincible throughout the night 

1.the fault in our stars (troye sivan) 

2. soldier on (the temper trap)

3. box of stones (benjamin francis leftwich)

4. calender girl (stars)

5. this place is a shelter (olafur arnalds) 

6. falling in love at a coffee shop (landon pigg)

7. 3 rounds & a sound (blind pilot) 

8. holly home rd (brolly)

9. vultures (folly & the hunter) 

10. rabbit heart (florence & the machine)

11. there is a light that never goes out (the smiths)

12. stop this train (john mayer) 

13. belong (cary brothers) 

14. the suite (downton abbey)

15. what it is (kodaline)

16. a pound of flesh (radical face)

17. medicine (daughter) 

18. dead hearts (stars) 

19. what the water gave me (florence & the machine) 

20. hold still (sleeping at last) 

beginning of an end

i don't know how to put this into words because even though words are beautiful, reticence can supersede in the absence of words

for once this really feels highly personal & i am not going to dwelve into the specifics because i don't think i've felt this way before in a long time: when everything is so apt and the heart feels so much conviction of the Savior's love, but at the same time, the soul feels so stoic and the magnitude of the revelation is not being translated into the orthodox intangible, ineffable wave of emotions 

to sum it up, i got prayed for by a leader i'd never seen before after answering the call (which even though i was afraid, i felt so compelled to answer), & he prayed over three aspects of my life that i'd been struggling with for the past few weeks 

& even though my soul still feels stagnated, i know that something has been stirred, and this is just the start to the end of struggling,

because "it is finished". 

late night decision

i will not, not because i can't, but because "anomalousness" is priced far above anything else, & i have decided that i will not compromise my stature as "denise" to gratify my ideals- i will not risk cheapening myself, i will not reduce my worth to be merely a name on a list. i do not want to become merely "another" person, as if i am a repetition of someone else.

i am neither needy nor desperate, and something in me feels compelled to shout that to the world, to ears merely closed off to what they wish to hear. i am merely a victim of ideas. even now, part of me screams that i am over-thinking and over-reacting, that it is nice to be vulnerable in such a way, that to be vulnerable is to be beautiful. but no, not in this way, not when you strip the only protective layer of "fun" to discover that what's left is merely to be classified, like a common specimen that cannot stand alone but must belong to a bigger group. 

no, i want people to remember me as the girl who is always different. i want people to be able to say, "oh, that denise? well she's not like the rest". i want the boy from the future who is going to form my future to be able to love these parts of me without trying, and i am determined not to settle for anything less. 

the heart and brain being two different organs are difficult to reconcile, but i hope they will do so soon. 

thankfulness

the past two days have been incredibly blessed

didn't get glorious grades that made me happy or proud to talk about them (& was extremely disappointed with my favourite subject) 

 

but in return i've learnt thankfulness (which doesn't translate into complacent contentedness with where i am), i've experienced the warmth of friendship, His faithfulness which accompanies deliverance & the nerve-wrecking wait in faith, anchored in the knowledge that His plans are & will be good 

finally found out i made the cut, and this means so much to me

couldn't have made it if You didn't will me to, all glory to You 

"pick me up"

"vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. it is the voice of emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves" (pg 58) 

vertigo: "an insuperable longing to fall" 

vs

"You are my lamp, o lord; the lord turns my darkness into light" 

2 samuel 22:29 

sermon made me extremely sad today when it struck me that contrary to what i have been feeding myself, maybe i have not even experienced my first love with jesus

it made my soul retract into the bottomless cavern in my heart when i contemplated a plausible response to martyr death (the question that had been occupying a compartment of my brain entitled "i choose not to answer" ever since i read "everything is illuminated" by j.s.f, and resurfaced again today): i still chose not to answer, because i was afraid to admit (if faced with such extremes), that i would choose to live at the expense of my soul 

it made my heart sink because all this while, "soul" has been an esteemed leader, but i realised i would rather betray "soul" for body, spiritual death for the shell of life

throughout the service the word "cowardice" kept sneering at me, and it was only today i realised how afraid i am of putting myself in a truly vulnerable position; like an exposed snail without a shell. it disappointed me, me who was genuinely captivated by the beauty of vulnerability

all these conceptions are mere ideas

bring me to a place of first Love lord:

what i want is not answers to all these questions that only serve to test my faith 

what i truly want is an encounter that will bring me to a place of illumination, a place of unmitigated,divine Love 

i don't want to live in a world of ideas anymore: they are nothing but shams  

(mountains high or valley low, i'll sing out & remind my soul: "i am Yours, i am forever Yours") 

what is ugliness?

today i saw ugliness:

it wasn't blatant like a crude stub remaining of an amputated toe on display
it wasn't a melancholic kind of ugliness that was so vulnerable, it became beautiful

it was an ugliness bearing the semblance of (something like) conditional tokenism:
today i realised "nice-ness" (if there is even such a word) & "genuineness" are not interchangeable terms,
hardly anyone was crawling into anyone's skin,
people seemed to understand but all they did was to justify with that system of "conditional tokenism", attempting to think from a person's point of view not because it was just but because it could alleviate one's disintegrating state of morality, because they could say that they had indeed made a fair assessment of the situation and emerged victorious with their view

it was a carnival named "the vanity of words"
words were thrown around loosely like the discs meant to topple a pyramid of cans
what was the prize?

today i also learnt that defending has absolutely nothing to do with arbitrary preferences: it is borne out an instigated desire to stand in the camp for the weak, when the weak has been stripped of a mouthpiece and cannot speak, a response to the strong's negation of the weak


learning these things didn't make me agitated nor angry
it just made me sad because we are all like slaves to our inherent vices.
what's worse?
choosing to comment and to put myself  as an onlooker on a pedestal, as if i myself am a saint, makes me part of the ugliness too

but i will do so anyway
just to get this out of my system
 

beyond the "thingness" of things

a list of things that make today, today:

burden no. 2 i.e. project work consultation (from four reduced to one, but still it went surprisingly well), lunch with y & a few classmates which was quite lovely (despite-), sourcing for a new placid reading spot in school, & finding it with rapture, relished reading at the new quiet reading spot & watching occasional people pass by while believing that they could not see me because i didn't want to be seen (not because i was abashed but because i was content to efface into the same walls that i was leaning on), listened to the smiths & sang along to/with myself, took breaks from my book by glancing at the unobstructed sky (& soaking in its blissfulness), more reading & feeling (fiction built on the holocaust is terrifyingly enthralling, yet really terrifying- faced with the same circumstances, would you question the existence of god? would you accuse your friend to save your family's skins? would you choose to give yourself up into diabolical hands as an act of sacrificial love to your friend in need, if you lived only for yourself & had no family? would you snatch the gun out of the general's hands, only to plant it to your own head because you wanted to be in control of your own fate, even when you were already hovering at death's doorstep? // "i am a good person who has lived in a bad time" //), cca meeting with batchies to consolidate & make the best out of the remnants of the cca's fate, danced for a while & felt innately beautiful again despite occasional forgetfulness, penned a letter to an anonymous stranger who is a deserving recipient of love despite what the world will ever tell him/her, read some more & finished the book with tears that were a product of a harrowing ending that was imperfectly perfect

(sometimes i find myself being so pretentious to myself- is my creation of self the product of an idea of an ideal self???)

"so she had to satisfy herself with the idea of love- loving the loving of things whose existence she didn't care at all about. love itself became the object of her love. she loved herself in love, she loved loving love, as love loves loving, and was able, in that way, to reconcile herself with a world that fell so short of what she would have hoped for. it was not the world that was the great and saving lie, but her willingness to make it beautiful and fair" 

"they reciprocated the great and saving lie- that our love for things is greater than our love for our love of things- wilfully playing the parts they wrote for themselves, wilfully creating and believing fictions necessary for life" (pg 80, 83, everything is illuminated, j.s.f)

trust

so spent until all that i can think of is this chronic lethargy & this relentless chase that seemingly won't end even though i know that this too, shall pass 

i really don't know how everything is going to work out in the end

but when my heart is overwhelmed, 

lead me to the Rock that is higher than i am 

immovable

not to be moved by man, but to be stoic to everyone except You,  

& to be unshaken by everything except Your works

 lead me with strong hands

one day this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy & what i've been led to believe about myself will cement into a cold, brick wall- apathy & malaise sealed into its heart

before that happens, break down the foundations of this wall at its core

let Your love arrest me instead:
redeem me from thoughts that only threaten to drown me in this sea of inexorable sadness

drawing parallels & seeking

i think i am getting increasingly enthralled by my lit book even though it may come off as dry & unpalatable

crude epiphanies that are askew but real- relentless cold buckets of iced water slapping one's face awake

scales ripped from one's eyes when one realises that what had been deemed as obsolete- a closed-minded society regulated by societal conventions, a society where judgement was so prevalent and executed mercilessly when one failed to conform to what was "normal"- is still existent, right before one's eyes

what had "come to pass" has obstinately chose to stay, faded into the background & taken on the role of an invisible hand- buried under the choice to believe every single trace has been eradicated - that we are liberated

one particular dialogue in the novel struck a chord in me: 

"does no one want to hear the truth here, mr archer? the real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!" (ellen olenska, AOI)

it is so easy to scorn the animated antics of the characters in the book until you realise you are actually no better than them- carnal, fallible, governed by worldly thoughts 

i used to dismiss archer as overly romanticised- too romanticised for his own good, old new york as extremely hypocritical & sickening: before i drew parallels between archer & myself & the anatomy of the society then and society now 

(i really need to stop drowning in my own romanticised ideals- there is something so alluring with dwelling in things that will never come to fruition, because of the warped kind of safety unreality brings) 

i also realised that as humans, we inevitably become a hypocrite in one way or another, even if it's for just a fleeting moment- there is no running away, even if those thoughts have never escaped one's lips

(who are we then, to condemn those who are more blatantly...hypocritical than us?)

this makes me realise how lacking i am, and how much i need Your purity in my life. let me not stray from Your Rock, and let me seek You first in everything that i do. i do not want to be like a pharisee, doing works to gain man's recognition and praise. please, never let me use You as a means to any end, but be an end in Yourself

i need to be a better human- more of You and less of me, because the best of me can never compare to the least of You 

sovereign

if this place of imminent struggle is where You ordain me to be, grant me the grace to struggle freely, to struggle with the knowledge that Your hands are over & underneath- reigning sovereign & ready to cushion any fall

if You should lead me to a place of internal chaos & malaise, arrest me with the heart knowledge that Your love is more than able to fix any brokenness that is to come

shepherd

"for He is our god, & we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand" -psalm 95:7

(imprint this in the deepest crevice of your heart)

do not waver

i think i'm past the stage of "safety" & this scares me

i need to stop putting myself in such a vulnerable position

because if this keeps up one day i'll wake up & realise that my heart has exploded like confetti

help, is there any way to lock this pulsating muscle away in a casket- it has a mind of its own

jesus please be the only one who has lordship over my heart- You and no one else

surrender

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above all help me to say in my heart that Your will be done 

who do i say You are? 

i say You are my Saviour, my Strength, my Provider, my Guide & my Peace- 

& that is enough to drown a sea of doubt, fear & butterflies in my stomach 

where You take me i will follow 

i surrender 

// today was a relatively good day // 

a list of things

a list of things on my mind right now:

1) you relent to impulses too easy (it's 12:17 & no prizes for guessing who has given in to penning down her thoughts instead of catching up on sleep- so hard to decide which is the better friend)

2) note to self: stop falling in love with ideas before you get crushed- warped like the mangled, carnal carcass of a twisted owl

3) again: please stop falling in love with ideas and things that are not yours & will never be

4) i know this is wrong & i should not even be thinking about this but let's be friends?

5) i must be going mad this is so unlike me

6) lord please guard my heart, please

7) Your will above all

8) lord i don't want You to be another idea that i will fall in love with- i want to fall in love with You- Your core, Your soul, Your grace, everything that is so real, it is like flesh

9) short library exploring with chloe made my day- so many books i want to read, but so many constraints: they have waited to be discovered until their pages are jaundiced & brittle with isolation

10) finally meeting with one in a mil tomorrow

11) it is so hard to do something right because we are all so vested & blinded by our self-interests-i don't blame anyone for it, but i still want to make a difference (it is so hard to be reckless) (sigh)

12) perhaps the reason why we dislike a certain group of people is because they remind us of a carnal portion of ourselves that not only repulses us, but forces us to obliterate every trace of it in the name of self-defense

13) i never carry out any grand schemes that i cook up in my head because they always lose their novelty & i am too lazy to remember them


14) denise, how are you going to wake up tomorrow?

15) i cannot decide if this is a passively i.e "you" or actively addressed & acknowledged i.e "i" list to myself so i am going to leave it as it is, goodnight

black hole

times like these i wish we could live in a society devoid of "society"- not a classless, marxist society, but a society made up of just people, people who are all ignorant of the concept of pride, people who are nourished with the herb of kindness & goodness

& i cannot fathom how certain people are bold enough to bully the benign- i do not understand how they can live without any semblance of a moral compass (emphasis is on "semblance" because i understand that i am far from perfect too)

this is exhausting to keep up

i wish I could efface into the walls & stay invisible for a while

i wish I could be faceless (metaphorically)- that people will just stop associating one's face with one's place in society, with one's competency & all the rigid, suffocating structures that the word "society" encompasses

this makes me sad
collectively, everything makes me so sad

"the things we love gives us our names"

(disclaimer: my memory is nebulous but hopefully i captured the gist of the conversation this afternoon-the quotation marks serve only to mark the start & end of the dialogue exchange) 

"who is your favourite author?"

a.p: "this is a hard question, i do not have any favourite authors but i have a few...*lists his favourite ones (but i was too tired & could only capture "murakami"). honestly, my favourite author is me, because i am the voice that is lacking in the world, i mean why would you write about something that is already existent..it's only because my thoughts are not found in any of my favourite authors' that i have to pen them down, but like i mentioned earlier you have to have a balanced diet"

"so, who is your rice?" 

a.p: "honestly, well it's still me. it's true, because you have to be your own rice" 

//

i survived a crazy day today 

even though i was drowsy from lethargy & flailing against sleep's hold during the workshop today, i think the time was so well spent. i think i felt adrenaline course through my veins whenever he talked with so much animation & passion about the causes which he espouses--passion emanating with an incandescent glow from one's inner being is extremely enchanting in my opinion 

'the last time i'd seen Passion, he had fine features , deep-set eyes, and a certain rough charm which drew some people to him, but put others off. he loved strong colours-- night black, angel white, bleeding red, thunderstorm blue. if you come across him, please ask him to drop by. let him know we miss him--his smile, his playful seriousness , the way he would take you by the hand and show you what you've always wanted to see' -pg 21 "what gives us our names" a.p 

i'm glad that i didn't let feelings of inadequacy anchor me down. being in a class surrounded by brilliant minds, people who knew the right questions to ask & the right words to use to defend their arguments, people who were just so well-versed in every single aspect. i am not smart, but not being proficient at something should not negate me of the right to be interested & enthralled by that thing. i am poor at it, but who is anyone to deny me of the opportunity for growth (however minimal) through condescension?

i shall not be afraid, i shall not be ashamed

maybe i am my own giant, i am too afraid of what brilliant people will think of my token of effort 

"i once asked Courage what he was afraid of. he joked that he lived every day in fear that it would be his last. and then as i turned to go, he whispered to me what he truly feared above all else: that things would remain only as they are" -pg 38

(thank you joy for the lovely book: i would have otherwise merely drifted through the two hours if i didn't know the sheer brilliance of a.p & his ability to string words into meaning that hits close to home) 

(cdance teacher commented that i looked really happy during dance today, perhaps i should really smile more: i think my heart's finally in the right place)  

soul-sealed

this aching sadness, so ineffable
why can't anyone understand
i will not be anyone,
and i will not be who i am not
is this a lantern-show and we
the dolls on display?
dolls with souls hidden away in pyxes,
dolls caked with makeup so thick it suffocates.
this disparagement-it becomes a drollery.
i will not accept it

warped

chanced upon this poem yesterday while leafing through an old poetry book from lit class:

"the oldman in the cripple chair
died in transit through the air
and slopped into the road

the driver of the lethallorry
trembled out and cried: 'i'm sorry,
but it was his own fault.'

humans snuggled round the mess
in masochistic tenderness
as raindrops danced in his womb.

****

but something else obsessed my brain,
the canvas, twistedsteel and cane,
his chair, spreadeagled in the rain,
like a fallen birdman"

-roger mcgough

i don't know why i am posting this, but when i read this i felt something was tugged from my heart:
we are all like (as plath will call it) "the peanut-crunching crowd"
morbid things evoke this conflation of fear & fascination that compels us to "snuggle(d)" round--
we are able to get comfortable with the mess only because the skins of our teeth are unblemished & unharmed

monotony's suffocating stranglehold

i wish i could drop by in town with a few good friends, gratify our deprived taste buds with good food & strut down the streets akin to the walk down the runway by fashion stars

i wish i could revisit m.s again with joy & belle to relive post-pp days with cheap ice cream, m& s & maybe some book hunting

i wish i could spend the remnants of my holiday being a hermit at some rusty corner of a placid cafe, reading my favourite book while sipping some hot chocolate, with a cashmere cardigan daintily draped over my shoulders so that i will be perfectly warm and incandescently happy (& enthralled by the perfection of this gratification)

i wish i could run away: let the physical act of running transcend the metaphorical, figurative meaning of running, that the act of a literal dash could unravel the burden of exams, the burden of things that are getting to heavy to carry, too heavy for my sheer passion of  merely understanding & dissecting in my head - not digesting, not to burn the pages with knowledge scribbled all over carelessly & borne out of exasperation

so tired of this consecutive monotonous existence - which seems like eternity

'eternity bores me, i never wanted it' (plath)  

trust

i haven't got an inkling on how i am going to finish all my revision in time for cts & in this race against time, sickness, taking the corporeal form of an ugly, yellow irritant, chooses my body as a host-

i am exasperated
but revival is timeless
Your days are timeless

this is a season of trust, of surrender:
lord i don't want to fall in love with the idea of trusting You

i want to fall in love with You
i want to fall in love with You because i trust You

i feel extremely lukewarm because i missed out on kingdom call, but i believe You are starting a personalized work in me, through circumstances that seem apathetic

in this bleakness i lift everything up into Your hands, i will throw my arms out to the wind, i will allow Your seed of trust to manifest in me

what are cts in the presence of my almighty savior?

perfect love casts out all fear
lead me to the rock that is higher than i am

ideas

malaise: missed out on kingdom call which was a really good opportunity to draw nearer to god, but i am glad that the perpetrator for my absence in camp made up for it to a certain, tangible extent

grew closer to the dance batchies especially in these past few days leading up to gales today, my heart is starting to grow for this bunch of people & i am really glad i went for batch outing today, even though i am reaping the aftermath of a hoarse throat from emptying my lungs out, through a medium we are all admittedly not the best at

there is this warm feeling in my heart that gradually froths & thickens with discovering an acquaintance/acquaintances who are able to understand things that will be frowned upon by others: the best part being in the unlikeliest of places

falling in love with the idea of falling in love

people wish to meet their future soulmates in all sorts of fancy places

me? i wish to meet my future boyfriend in between bookshelves, scouring opposite ends of those metal enclosures, drinking in the smell & essence of new worlds tucked away, only to realise that we are both drinking in the light-headedness of each other. at this, our eyes will meet for a fleeting second before we will bury our heads in the enthralling lure of favourite books again, yet the attractive pull will be irresistible in a non-sensual way, like the moon's. we will sneak peeks at each other & try not to get caught - at the end of it all we will meet at the end of the long shelf. we will muster the courage to exchange book titles, only to discover the books we are armed with are by the same author and/or have the same themes, and this sudden gulp of liberation will ensue. our heads will dance with homely ecstasies & from that moment onwards, we will be an effective pair of explorers, with our hearts as the sole functioning compass 

i really hope i get to experience this in the full-fledged glory of its idealistic form one day, soon enough  

i am too romanticised for my own good

thirteen days to consolidate half a year's worth of learning, let me fall in love with the idea of being a nerd (like a nerdfighter) please

murder of the will

"its snaky acids hiss
it petrifies the will. these are the isolate, slow faults
that kill, that kill, that kill"

(elm, sylvia plath)


tonight is the epitome of a night where i let my giants eat me without flailing nor battling an eyelid

i am too tired to struggle against this stranglehold & i promise it's just for tonight

but

one day this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, one day my fate will be of abysmal darkness- where i will be in the cavern of my giants' stomach pit, digested & ready only to be excreted

where the corporeal form i adopt is something of garbage that society has no need & use of

beauty in vulnerability

there is really so much beauty in vulnerability

there is so much beauty in Surrender

like a flower child standing in the midst of swaying daffodils, 

yielding to the wind, dancing to a song that only her soul is capable of deciphering 

she is not only unafraid of where the wind will carry her, 

nor how this unrelenting draught of moving air will shape the movements of her limbs.

she is acquiescent & the joy arresting her heart cannot be assuaged 

she is a l i v e,

beating fervently, crimson blood in a ceaseless cycle beneath her veins 

// 

service & worship were really blessed in all ways possible 

found out how much i missed basking in His presence,

how i missed feeling the insatiable paling in the glory of the Satisfiable  

thankful that the holidays are here when school was getting unbearable,

& i am not only determined to use the holidays to catch up on work, 

but to pursue happy things that i've been deprived of 

18th may

thank you everyone who made me feel so loved today

listening to the birthday soundtrack bunny j burned as part of my bday present & feeling really blessed in retrospect

got to spend time with different pockets of people who live in special compartments in my heart, who celebrated for & along with me (along with my best friend food of course)

i.e beloved og on thur morning, half of one in a million on fri afternoon, dance batchmates, cellmates & family today

read through all the heartfelt cards & am still feeling really touched: my existence is more tangible than i thought-- maybe i am more than a tourist in the waking world

wrapped up the evening with really good worship & soaked in the love of god in all its glory- a gift in itself

thank you everyone so much

i think i finally feel alive again, even if it's just for today

soul-preservation

exhaustion

it was so acute yesterday evening, then  i really wished i could have obliterated everyone around me with a twitch of an eyelid such that all would be placid and kind again

all those mindless chatter, deliberate yet seemingly fortuitous drifters

a smile to the lips but inside, could anyone tell i was dying,
reeling,
from the sudden epiphany that the arteries of my heart will never be fused with the arteries of any acquaintances in school to create a concoction similar to a magic potion, a potion that is truly alive on its own & stirs with an inexorable rhythm

an acquaintance who will not only fully comprehend but genuinely revel in things people denounce & dismiss

felt so sickened that i felt so lonely standing at the brink of an unfolding new world, being unable to enter because no one knew it existed, because my physical being was compelled to follow the sources of racket instead

thought about how i am not afraid to be alone, but afraid to be lonely

thought about how few people actually know this side of me exists, that the rest are all but a hoax,
a hoax conceived for self-protection that integrated & became a part of me (on the outside at least)

i miss having time alone to myself, quality time not spent fretting on anything but time just spent doing things i like, things that make me feel like i am alive again, things that allow me to fall in love with the idea of doing other things

sought the bunny j out in the midst of all the hullabaloo, glad i did because our nights were made
(reassurance of like-mindedness, reassurance of the need to stay anomalous for the sake of soul-preservation)

one thing i constantly forget:  c a r p e  d i e m

i need to make the most out of what i have

keeping up

the world spins on while i stand in the middle of the hullabaloo

adopting a passive role of watching, of detaching 

& admonishing my wearied soul for being so weak-willed in everything, for liking so many things but being competent at none 

thinking of the future scares me i cannot envisage myself fitting into anywhere

lord grant me courage to face my giants  

thursday was the worst day of the week, nothing colossal went wrong but i just felt like a violated & exposed hermit crab--all i wanted to do was to retrieve into my shell because interacting with people on a daily basis can be so tiring don't you think? 

found myself wishing i could mute every single person whose happiness took the grotesque form of noisy loudness, i really cannot fathom how some people think the way to attract somebody's attention is through making gorilla-like clamors or nonsensical statements that will elicit the phrase "trying too hard" (empty vessels indeed make the most noise)

everyone seems to enjoy mindless chatter and unproductive conversations but maybe it's because i'm anomalous (if i am it's something i will like to pride myself on)

on a bright note, today was pretty blessed

had a swift impromtu meet up session with joy & hannah because of othello tickets

cannot stress my inclination towards impromptu meet ups because spontaneous sessions are borne out of genuine relationships (which makes me miss rabbit hole impromtu dates so much)

(sorry for the incoherent post, my mind is whirling from fatigue)

long day ahead tomorrow, good night, sleep tight
& let god love you tonight xx

// trying to carpe diem my way through every weekday but it's getting really exhausting to keep up //

stagnant

feel like i am not living life to the fullest:

i am neither working hard nor playing hard, i am just drifting in between, missing the feeling of being alive & constantly running back to relish in the momentary remnants of remembrance, yet finding myself incapable of reenacting how it feels to have one's heart singing like a bird, having its first whiff of air outside the enclosure of a cage 

i am doing a little bit of so many things that in the end i don't even know what i am doing

having one of those nights where i wonder what i am actually doing with my life, how my friends are all going to go to wonderful places & i will just be stagnated in one spot, being mediocre, feeling mediocre - aimless, only capable of falling in love with ideas 

i miss the school library but until i finish my lit texts i am not going to set foot into my favourite place (but i really dislike how i regard lit work as secondary, as a "waste" of time in comparison to other more "pertinent" subjects, when the primary purpose of taking lit this year was to prevent such a situation)  

can we all just go back to december 2k12? 

i miss murakami nights, i miss reading classics with stolen hotel tea stash, i miss visiting kino & feeling like a traveller finally going places, i miss going for cheap ice cream with my favourite people, i miss feeling enchanted with joy in m&s/times i miss everything but the only way to go from here is forward

(conquered 2.4 with 1F & had my celebratory glass of apple juice from the fruit stall for accomplishing my goal, perhaps i should really start setting smaller goals for myself-- instead of really hefty ones where i lose heart then end up comparing with people & we all know where it goes from there) 

reticence

the kind of silence i will relish in, is one which permeates with an air of inexorable understanding, despite the lack of utterance

perhaps the lack of words is the crux of comfortable silence: maybe words will never be able to do justice to pensiveness that can only be sent through telepathic brainwaves & retrieved through the wired arteries leading to the heart

// class camp tomorrow, let us all fall in love with the idea of reading 'age of innocence' under a blanket of stars

(my heart sings when i'm around like-minded, unconventional people)

i miss feeling truly alive

i miss solitude, i miss spending quality time with people who know my need for placidness even when i am around them, i miss 2k12 with the bunny roaming around 'm&s' & 'times', or stopping by for cheap ice-cream in marina square after work, or even jip period where i could go off by myself to seek my own quiet spot in the school, untouchable

& watch time elapse as people, languid bodies, drifted fortuitously about, while i sat back to watch them drift from afar - there is a distinct difference in being a spectator instead of a participant

or maybe it's because people can be really tiring to keep up with, especially relationships you would rather not keep

(smarting eyes but praise the lord i am finally done with ihist term assignment + my part of gp proj, i can cry relieved tears in the midst of fatigue & accumulative exasperation) 

(old) photos of the sea never get old

people

“I like people too much or not at all. I've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them.”

-sylvia plath

it scares me how one can never know how real a person is and i just get so exhausted when dealing with people sometimes i wish i could have more solitude, because at the very least i know that i can trust myself, even if i am existing in another realm of the world: i rather believe in the idea of myself than an idealistic conception of fallible people who are inherently carnal

still struggling to find an anchor point but the moon just gets fuller: the currents get stronger & i can't find anything in me, or in the seaweed-strewn sea to hold on

instead the clammy hands of the weeds estrange me: they choke me & leave me utterly repulsed

nothing keeps me 

(& i cannot help feeling i've been played to subject myself to this predicament, all the 'promises' coined with mere air, the hyperbole of rejoicing: all these empty things which were instrumental in my decision, all these empty things which vanished into nothingness like the substance of their wretched beings, yet this place of struggle is where You ordain me to be- h e l p) 

headfirst

i am like Newland Archer, i fall in love with ideas

i dive headfirst into something without knowing that the ground had always been hard

sometimes i wonder which of my days are not spent enrapturing myself in an artificial construct,
cushioned by my own bubble of unreality that only i have access to

maybe that is why somedays when i wake up,
i still feel queer, the aftermath of reality undealt with:
as if the things that had passed, the things that had been lost,
they had never been gone at all

more than conquerors

i had a pretty blessed day in school today for a first day:

enjoyed a hilarious SEA lecture,

learnt that my rsp scholarship got renewed after they had examined my msp results (hahaha the irony was when results were mentioned) 

surprised dear juey with cake & polaroid with a bunch of (mostly) "strangers",

was wide awake & comprehended econs tutorial, 

got to bond with a few of my dance mates for a brief moment

and am currently listening to hillsong on a (supposedly) work-ladened night

(but am doing everything except work)

i really miss leafing through the great gatsby with a mug of hot tea on a rainy night & feeling truly alive,

or jotting down plath quotes in my "state of new york journal" in fascination of morbid thoughts that others would have shunned away like an imminent plague 

sigh 

but philippians 2:13 has been my victory song 

and i'm a conqueror through christ

reign

save Your people lord, bring them back, bring them back,

before they lose the heart to return

i think i finally understand this song verse "break my heart for what breaks Yours"
my heart is crying for all the lost souls, my heart is crying "come back, come back"
i can only imagine how much harder it is for You lord

i guess it hurts more when they were the ones to guide me back on that straight & narrow road when i faltered, & now i feel so helpless

i have no clue how to
i don't even know if i can, i struggle to take ownership of my own faith myself, who am i to exhort, to champion a revival in these cadaverous souls

i can only pray for Your hand to be upon them,
for the stirring of souls

(i love how listening to hillsong's zion brings so much godly peace into my heart)

went for cell today after so long, i am so glad for a community that treats one as if one has never "left"
this has only convicted my soul to pull away from a life of lukewarm passiveness, but lord let us not be complacent

pretzel & book scavenging with dear joy after cell today, it was good feeling like nothing had changed

purity

been parading around today with a cavern in my psyche

am unsure if it was the cumulative product of self-conflict, or if it seemed abrupt because i hadn't noticed it growing in my lungs

on deciding whether to appeal for isle, i had questioned my agenda for applying for it in the first place,
& i honestly do not know myself if i actually have another agenda buried under wraps that even this heart cannot detect

yes, i wish to serve, but some part of me keeps telling me that i don't deserve to because i am not sincere enough, some part of me keeps whispering that i've only but fallen in love with the idea & not the act itself

i have learnt enough to know that falling in love with ideas is my pitfall

if i am waging an internal war, fighting in a plume of smoke within the recesses of my head
how can they take me seriously if i am not 100% convicted that my motives are pure?

lord cleanse my heart & let everything i do be solely out of glorification
let everything that i do be done in love

turn my eyes to see Your face

spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, let me walk upon the waters, 

where ever You would call me 

feel like i'm wasting my time away at certain designated, mandatory periods of my life, but You have ordained me in these circumstances, & i can only hope for a change of heart: help me to say with conviction that Your will be done

feeling the pressure of increasing workload burdening my frail shoulders, feeling like i don't have enough time to pursue my interests (extremely sucky timetable at play, for one)-- i can no longer afford plath & fatm nights, but i still want to thank god for the all the lovely, hilarious people in my life who make life more reckless than the box i feel like i am conformed to, & i pray things will stay this way

been studying with cheryl after school for the past few days, somehow the idea of spending prolonged durations of time in school does not repulse me as much as it did last year

hillsong nights are the best, love how they lead me to Peace, but i should be more careful, least they become peace in itself

"but we have treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of god & not of us"
-2 corinthians 8

i miss 2k12 with the bunny, i miss feeling unafraid of falling in love with the idea of morbid things (not at our own expense of course), i miss how we memorised p&p quotes while wiping plates at work 
 rabbit hole & pizza date during march hols please? 

hutalu

dance feste 2013 was beyond amazing
i am so proud of all of us,
proud of ourselves for moulding & refining something
that lacked even a primary form six days ago
proud of ourselves even if we didn't win any placing,
because heck yeah we were the only house without legit dancers in df at alllllll

thank You for seeing us through these few nebulous days,
that everything unfolded perfectly in the beauty of Your plan

above all, i had so much fun
i got closer to people whom i hadn't talked to for a long time
i got to know incredulously hilarious people
i got to do so many things i couldn't imagine i would do at the start of the year

"one in a million" team dinner yesterday ended the hugely blessed day with a bang

there is so much i will miss
house party tomorrow, so much love for hadley hullett ♡

stupid

i feel like i should castigate myself for going against the circuit of my being

i was so close, yet i stupidly chose to follow in the footsteps of rationality
unabashed of kidding myself
i should have known to follow my heart, this is how i am crafted to be
stupid stupid stupid

a few cautious words from loved ones: "don't act on impulse"
but i don't even know if i'm striking while the iron is hot
on the mechanism of imprudence, because i'm not evaluating the situation enough,
or if i was so wrong to overthink, i was so wrong to act prudently

is this "impulse" the effect of accumulated agony?
i honestly don't know

leaving the outcome into Your hands,
i will be where You will me to be


df reh tmrw, we may not be the best, but we had fun
& that is honestly the crux of an IHC, am so glad to have been a part of this
(we fight, for purple & black, we fight
for hadley hullett we fight--
HU HUTALU BINGU BINGU) 

blessed day

today has been such a blessed day,
i think my heart may actually be singing

free from the weight of guilt
free from the weight of expectations crushing my psyche

lord help tomorrow to be equally blessed amen

lithe

i am supposed to be asleep right now, but my fingers are itching

today has been more kind than sour, flowerless but nevertheless,
i shouldn't raise my expectations to the roof considering the (unfortunate) 3 : 20 ratio in class

the morning had been liberating when i left for some solitude before lectures, & i think it is these nuances that i will miss in time to come

it is as kate moss puts it "the morning has buoyed her somehow, its small beauties...she craves it now, this feeling, she can tell there's something waxing in her, like the moon. she can feel her own forces gathering--slowly as the morning light. she loves it, she really does, her life-- the sudden boundlessness of her choices. if she could only remember this."

had class lunch after school, took an fad commemorative photo, & left for the library after that to pay my pathetic 20 cent fine, (marcia commented that i "don't look like a library person" haha)
so many books i want to devour but i should have known that i should have done it sooner, much sooner

soon the workload is going to be a burden
soon i will have to compromise my leisure reads
no, i refuse

shelving dostoevesky at some intervals for triple plath time (poor d. is always the victim of momentary abandonment), can't wait to digest all of them

take five tomorrow, praying for good weather
hu hutalu bingu bingu 

peel away

felt like i was a floating body in a languid state, pulled & shoved by the relentless waves of people in the canteen today

watching, subconsciously aware that i was immersed in such an environment, yet my thoughts were thrown in the wind, drifting fortuitously about

watching people look like they had it all
watching the effacement of my own form, watching myself spinning dizzily from the blank walls

maybe not talking much makes me retreat into an inner shell
"maybe it's the thresholds that swallow us whole" 

what happened? it hadn't been a day
but it felt, it feels
 like walls are building up, people are struggling to justify themselves,
& the air slowly reeks of hostility, of fierce competition ignorant of a goal

all that's left is a trace of lightness
soon, it will be as such:

"all morning / the morning has been blackening" (sheep in fog, sylvia plath) 

if only dealing with people were as easy as peeling off the petals of a dead rose-- less painful & like worn paper

aurora'13

orientation'13 was amazing, am really inspired by the invested time & effort (evidently reflected in every event) put in by council/ogls & whoever it concerned

the house spirit was overwhelming & i think we have really capable house captains this year 

there wasn't much of a semblance of house spirit in rg, but i think i really love hadley hullet (which andrew attributed it to the cooler cheers with catchy rhythms). the sense of community & empowerment of cheering with HH is incredible. (SO MUCH LOVE FOR HUTALU) -- i may even try for house comm 

i will miss orientation so much: was sick for day three but i still thank the lord that i could make it for day one, two & four! the ogls are lovely people, my og is (deliberate use of present tense) made up of lovely people (although whether our personalities click is another matter) who are kings & queens of puns

 last night--o nite' was the best thing ever despite

my poor throat that feels as if it had been mauled by bears 

i think HH12 managed to fulfill the playful wishes of many who knew the inside joke since 2010 (the belles are ringing, marc your calendars) i must stress: let not your imagination run too far hahaha

doing the SND was a blast despite being cooked in the gallery (where we felt so isolated because the elevation negated our participatory factor), i think it was the learning & screwing up that made it fun (how this was the first few legit times i held hands with a guy hahaha). having guys around are actually quite a lot of fun when you're bored (most are gentlemanly lul, some are actually secret gossipers & many have 'interesting' stories to share hahaha) 

will remember how we wrung up our arms together & croaked (maybe it was/is only me since about three of the guys are from chorale) the batch'14 song, how we jumped like bunnies & how the ground below shook in sync with us, how we exploded with house spirit (for the first time in my life) as we cheered with the hutalu headbands & got ready to fight for war games, how the guys freaked out over the batch dance & practised with each other, how much fun we had screwing up the batch dance as a batch (irony in that haha), how HH12 flooded swensens after o nite for our late dinner & shared stories as if there wasn't school the next day 

i think-

 i miss orientation already 

sing me to sleep

pushing back the clouds of foreboding into the recesses of my head
& burying them under the enveloping canvas of good music

tonight i will not allow anything to sour my merriment
waking up tomorrow to an environment of lukewarm familiarity,
but this time, with the official integration of boys & new "family" members

ambivalent feelings, not expecting anything but praying for a memorable orientation'13
(i also pray for more house spirit hahaha)

wind's trail

today, i found myself more alone than ever

but today, i found myself more alive than ever

i am an 'effacement at the wind's hand",
i am the product of a reconciliation
of soul, flesh & still bones

people must understand that choosing solitude is not a weakness, nor is it something that should garner pity--
it is a deliberate, living choice:
as murakami once put it, "loneliness wasn't such a bad feeling. it was like the stillness of a pin oak after the little birds had flown off."

hermit in my own head

today started out with the promise of corpulent ennui
but ended kind if one negates the aftermath of guilt-tripping & pounding dilemma

started the day envisaging the end of seven speculated hours of torture- yet another personality test workshop, bemoaning the considerable myriad of personality test workshops from last year alone that were mandatory

the verdict was INSJ which was pretty accurate, especially the first syllable.
long saw myself as an introvert contrary to a former me who used to relish & recharge from a company of people, wonder if it was a gradual attraction to all things metaphoric & abstract that pulled me into an introverted scope...was it this lure that changed me, or did it enable me to find myself in the midst of that engagement?

it is as if the mind, conscious of the essence of introversion, drowns me further into my shell for no particular reason at all & on the contrary of constraining my being, it liberates my soul

maybe that is why introverts prefer solitude-- silence amplifies one's thoughts & allows one to look into the core of oneself, to examine oneself like an open book & still be granted freedom & privacy

is it only me or does reading make one feel...invincible?

the day ended kind because my batchmates who went with me for cdance sit-in session got accepted/invited on the spot, which to put it less modestly (excuse my acute honesty), was rather gratifying-- to be acknowledged to be relatively good at something that seeks one's interest (regardless of the extent of that interest) is a kind feeling

feel really inclined to accept the offer, but i really want to try for street dance first, which the teacher ic claimed is a 'waste'...somehow am rather convicted that i will choose cdance regardless but i want to live & leave with no regrets-- the teacher ic is an expert at attempting to "guilt-trip" people, i felt really bad when i mentioned that i had another probable prospect, it made me feel apologetic & ungrateful

consequential dilemmas are nasty things
but admittedly they are better than none

conformity

"it is precisely his (man's) fantastic dreams, his most banal stupidity, that he will wish to keep hold of, with the sole purpose of confirming to himself (as if it were so very necessary), that human beings are still human beings & not piano keys, which, though played upon with their own hands by the laws of nature themselves, are in danger of being played so much that outside the calendar it will be impossible to want anything."

                                                                                           -notes from underground (f.dostoevsky)  


completely free like a bird for the whole day of jip tomorrow, heart is surging with adrenaline when i envisage myself spending quality solitude in my new, & probably the most favourite part of the school-- the majestic (literally) library which mr purvis (the lit lecturer who resembled mr keating in my opinion) deemed an "asset". traced my fingers along the shelves of fictions today, the library is a treasure chest of classics which i would otherwise be too poor to afford all, in fact i am considering shelving dostoevsky for the moment to relish in some thomas hardy/charles dickens/jane austen etc

i have a good four/five hours to burn before we are all allowed to leave school
& no, i do not regret not signing up for any modules at all (all which were too science-orientated & too orthodoxed, thus failing to capture my interest), but before hiding behind shelves i have to spend time chasing teachers w the batchmates around the school tomorrow cuz the school is "cunning" & i do not wish to continue with gym, & i will not no matter how the school tries to pressurize all of us!!!

first of firsts

first day of school today,
many more firsts to come

firstly, happy birthday zeng! ♡ 

should really learn to treasure time which is slipping like sand through my fingers
wish i could hold it, hug it tight such that things will stay as they are now: where the most burdened of our worries are how long a (relatively) inconsequential talk will last & whether we are nearing our lunch break

how gentlemanly of the guys to take the hall while the girls get the pac :> (to whoever who deserves the credit for this arrangement tq) that is really nice because i don't know how we would have survived sitting cross-legged on a ruthlessly hard floor for hours on end

meanwhile, hope this awkward turtle will learn how to swim in such an alien environment

thank god that today went pretty well for a first day :>

lightness

have the scales been ripped off this ghostly heart? are they in the process of shedding their hidden claws off my palpitating muscle?

something has deposited in me tonight--intangible but struggling & for once not beaten down yet

i cannot ascertain its form but i feel a certain lightness

like i can feel invincible again
like i can crawl from this, maybe not stand but maybe, just maybe i can move away from this wreckage & rebuild it with the same knifed hands

my heart is still sinking but it has gone past the sunken stage

i don't wish to sleep because i may wake up & have that dreaded stone of a heart again

where am i

i keep confusing 'unreality' with the 'real' world
what am i grasping on to? this senselessness that pervades the air, are my very hands the accomplices (among many others) which mould it into something that will gratify my prejudicial perspective of the world? such that when my hands are no longer reaching, or out of reach, the same senselessness that made vague sense a few minutes ago become formless?

the same senselessness that killed dreams

was just telling j yesterday that i feel like everyone is struggling for a piece of the world & the world has no place for me, in which she said 'it's true, the world has absolutely no place for us, we don't belong here"

i want to believe it with every ounce of my heart
but my love is weak

took a long time to fall into slumber last night, was staring at the ceiling of my wall, watching the light dance & shadows engulf any remnant of light left with every passing car downstairs, yet the light from the street lamps reflected below never failed to bounce back after every fleeting car--

is that what faith is like?

hovered on the brink of unconsciousness half-ill between grotesque reality & killed, savage dreams,
turning ideas at the back of my head

where i had an image of a clenched fist encapsulating a hapless fruit
the clenched fist tightened around the helpless fruit
tightening, tightening
until the juice of the fruit was excreted & collected in a pool below
until all that was left, trapped in the unrelenting fist was pulp
useless pulp
bound for the bin, bound for the incinerator
bound to be ashes

& i wondered if i was the juice or the pulp

society only rejoices with the competent
& eradicates the rest

who am i to struggle against the suffocating fist?

she looked at the girl at the base of the mountains cowering in the shadows of incompetency

& she scorned at her colossal failure

she whispered ferociously with jauntiness, "let it wound you, till you bleed dry, till all that's left is a hollow cavern, let the oozing blood from your eyes & heart seep back into your pores, absorb it all, till your soul starts to scream for a respite & morphs into another lifeless being, till the incarnation is complete."

not knowing that she herself was still living in the ineffable realm of unreality, within reality
that she was merely acting like a tourist in the woken world
that she & the girl are one & the same

sovereign

lord you are still good regardless

in this battle of self-worth i pray that you will rip the scales off my ghostly heart that refuses to see your goodness

and i lift this knifed heart into your hands

invincible

spent the night listening to bedroom hymms & jotting down the great gatsby quotes, conscious that tomorrow is such an important day for many beloved people & aware that my stake is trivial in comparison to the others 

so i shove the anxious nerves back under my skin.  

trying to negate the contingency of having to deal another /unbearable/ year with chinese with invincibility--

i love how listening to florence & the machine makes me feel invincible

like i am capable of anything & everything

-- can i just say the trailer of the great gatsby ("gatsby? what gatsby?") thrills me so much & peaks when florence starts howling--

florence is golden, her voice is a deathless song 

please lord i pray that chinese will be bygones

but lord over all i pray that You will guard the hearts of all & never let them go

help us to be in a posture of thanksgiving for what You have settled for us 

tempest

emotionless effusions from the walls
but walls have ears
do not be deceived

beneath those walls is a tempest
stirring a hurricane of mangled emotions

i have ears
i absorb

maybe at the end
everything, including the broken pieces will be blown away
& to the wingless all that remains is a cavern