Shyen Lee

So much of what we have can be stolen. Things that we may not bother fighting back for; things that we don't know have been/can be taken from us.

A friend almost got mugged last week. Almost, because he managed to fend off the assailant, while sustaining physical injury. We fight back, when what at risk is valuable and precious. When it's ours. Why is it then, that we let our minds wander so easily, letting songs pervade them and linger, pushing out all other things that strive to leave their mark. All the while not knowing that we've already lost the fight to the thief of our mind space.

We can't control who steals our hearts, nor can we prevent them from being taken. Impressions are formed, words are uttered, acts are done, and people become familiar. Eventually, their company fits us like a glove. They keep us warm, protect us from nakedness, and become a second skin. Our hearts have been stolen.

Our will is our weapon. Only when it has been defeated can we say it has been lost. Unknowingly stolen, sometimes. Fought with and lost, most others.

Lying in bed at night. Eyes opened, eyes closed, no difference. It's hard to tell what's real and what we're imagining if both canvases look the same. Consciousness gets stolen by fatigue, not so much like a thief in the night, when we most want it to, but very much so when we don't. Resistance is futile.

Dreams. What some may feel are worth brutally fighting for. In a paper-chasing society, I only hold blank sheets; for the things that are not 'valuable' in society's eyes, for the things I feel are not 'worthy' enough to be constituted as achievements, for the things I have yet to accomplish because I'm at crossroads. Attempting to stray from the ways that society dictates is possibly like using language in a way that doesn't impose gender (as a linguistics student, you learn that this is in fact a lot more challenging than it sounds).

Minds get stolen by songs;
Hearts get stolen by people;
Will gets stolen by temptation;
Consciousness gets stolen by fatigue;
Dreams get stolen by expectation.

How much of what is a part of us, is in our conscious hold. 

Jollin Tan

This is not for any specific one who has left me.

Years back you read my blog after we started talking again, post-silence. You said I wrote better when I was sad about you, that you were my muse. I think now that I bristled and got annoyed at that because you sounded so smug about it. I don’t want you to think so highly of yourself.

The drop is harder that way.

Something that inspires me needs to be familiar and intriguing at once. There has to be a gregorian knot somewhere in there that I haven’t yet figured out. That’s the thing about you, though. I think I know what you are. And if I actually do or don’t – why does that matter if I think my knowledge is complete enough for me? I’ve never been one to get caught up in epistemological questions. I have quite the negative capability.

My muse is pain. You see, it always feels like an old glove. I know that’s over-used, but what better way to describe something that fits so comfortably but still manages to feel like it’s suffocating you? I know the shape of the ache that sits inside me when someone leaves. I know the way I can’t vocalise anything but oh in realisation; in the times when I find out something I’ve always known but refused to see. I know how my palms feel like they have nails driven through them when I read something that makes my heart catch, as though I have crucified myself for art or with art. I know all this acutely, but I don’t know why my body reacts psychosomatically to them.

I can write about it. I can write about the empty knot tightening and tightening until I feel shaky, out of balance, reduced. I know it. I write about pain and loss and people I lose because I know the grooves of the subject well enough to not get lost in my writing; to know what I’m trying to say.

Listen, I can write about these things also because there is enough I do not understand about my pain and my eternal stupidity that writing helps me to untangle. Each time there is more.

I know you want to be important and you are, but never enough for me to really be writing about you. You see, it does matter if I’m writing about the idea of you and how I have been hurt by something else I expected you to be (and found out you weren’t). It does matter because it’s an idea and I will forget and come back to it in writing, but never with the same intensity or emotion. It does matter because I never write about you.

Even if I tried to I couldn’t.

Joey Aziel Tan

It was the day before Lunar New Year, the day for a family dinner, a reunion for one big happy family. We had two additions to the family this year; it was strange but warm having six at the dining table. There was laughter and food and drinks and smiles, a sight for my swollen eyes. Just two weeks ago and you might have been sitting at this table with us; strange how in just two weeks, our lives might have been different.

I overheard my mother talking about one of the dishes: Braised pork with sea cucumbers. The sweetness of the herbs and meat in the brown sauce always reminded her of my grandfather, for this was the one and only dish he would cook in the year. He is never too far from her mind, gone from her touch but never from her heart. It was times like this that we miss him.

It was at times like these I wished we did not have to visit my grandmother. Old, dark house with old, dark memories, dark and tainted relations with my blood and those through law. Respect your elders, respect the tradition, bite your tongue and greet politely, hands out, money kept, smile and wave then back out slowly to the safety of your mind and phone. Each and every year, except for when my grandfather passed on, now each and every year darker and heavier with his absence; the irony of death and the heaviness of absence.

We went on to play a game of mah-jong, whispered shouts of close calls, near-wins, feng shui and collaborations. Hush, the baby is sleeping. Mute the tv, mute our voices, for the baby must dream and our game is secondary. Hush, my parents want to sleep, too many bad tiles, too much money lost, no more excitement and no more thrill. The company brought but a fleeting explosion of ecstasy, fading with drooping eyelids and light wallets. To bed they dragged their feet, while I dragged my heart back into solitude and four walls and the cold night sky winking as Orion flashed his studded belt. To new beginnings and great fortunes for this chicken, wishing to fluff out her feathers one day and become as respected as a rooster in this cock…a-doodle-doo dominated world.