elemental

fire
i’d never wish to be like fire
never wished to be fire
except to match you blaze for blaze
to rage on and on in the arid forest
where we stood
naked trees stripped of bark and leaf
bared arms and bodies reaching towards each other
under the twin suns of our hearts
in the invincible summer of our minds
where our uncontrollable bush-fire would devour
everything in its path
a smoldering salamander that would
finally
like the Ouroboros
consume even itself
i never thought our love would rise
from the ashes blanketing the course of our
all-consuming conflagration
rise like a phoenix
to soar for yet another five hundred years
and but for all that
i’d never wish to be like fire



air
when i wished to be like air
i thought i’d never be in anyone’s control
never caught
never stay caught
i never thought i’d feel so adrift
unrooted
rootless
never thought i’d be completely invisible
unseen and unheard
except through the things i touch
pass through
through the aftermath i leave in my wake
and even then
only when i’m out of control
when i wished to be like air
i really wished to be air enclosed in the bubble
of your soul
air on which you float
i never thought i’d be the wild wind
out of control in my desperate despair
to carry you away in my whirlwind of desire
i never thought i’d be the wild wind
from which you flee
when i wished to be like air


loam
then i’d wish to be like loam
only to be the soil beneath your feet
the earth into which your hands delve to unearth
the secrets and treasures i’ve hidden there
anticipating your discovery
such as the white gleaming bones of your skeleton
when you laid in me and i blanketed you
to shield you from wind and flame
where you fell asleep and woke again
in a different dress of flesh
to excavate deep into my core
more than your bones you stole my bones
wore the hairpins of my fingers in your hair
adorned yourself with the jeweled hoard
of my kidney stones and liver
my lungs and heart
taken from the silk pouch of my stomach
you tied the length of my intestines around your wrists
when you jumped off the cliff
on which you’d stood as you fed parts of me
you stripped off your body
bit by bit by bit
into a bonfire
and later tossed my ashes into the startled gasp of air
if only to be the last to feel your living body
to be the soil that formed the cliff from which you leapt
then i’d wish to be like loam



water
yet i’d never wish to be like water
because i am water
poured into the ceramic pitcher of this body
unwillingly taking a form that was never true
or mine
i tremble waiting for your dive that
slices only deep and deeper into me
leaving behind you a fleeting scar
of air bubbles
waiting for you to take that plunge
into the as yet unexplored depths
where sea monsters frolic
and his long-suffering mother kept house for Grendel
and you tried to stab an ineffectual Hrunting
into my waterbed
but then you strike blindly
at the dense walls of the flagon’s womb
and pierce the amniotic sac with strong bare fists
you pour me from the prison of the pitcher
drink the life of me from the cup of your hands
and you are ready to dive into me
again and again and again
until the clay of your body dissolves
and all that’s left of you is foam
would our love continue to flare even then
yet i’d never wish to be like water

untitled

when i retreat            deep into myself            sometimes
i leave            behind me            a breadcrumb trail
of hints & clues            hoping someone            will find it
and follow after me            into my innermost            self
someone with whom            i will then share
the feast            of my heart            my mind
& my soul

but no one ever does

living

if i have only one life
i know which life i’ll choose
in a heartbeat

if i have nine lives
i’ll still choose only that one
to live nine times over

and beyond

and that’s the life i’ll choose
but it doesn’t choose me
i don’t know if it’ll ever choose me

therefore
i’ve still yet to live



23^rd - 24^th January 2007

Of Five-Stones and Captain Ball

They’re picking teams to play Captain Ball.
I want to be on Livia’s team
but I know she won’t pick me.
I’m a five-stones player,
I’ve never played Captain Ball before.

My friend, Alvina, she plays it all the time,
she says I should give it a try.
I want to, too, but I don’t dare
to join them, because I’ve never
played Captain Ball before -
what if I’m terrible at it
and my team loses because of me?
What if nobody will want me
on their team ever again?

I’ve been watching them play Captain Ball
for a long time.
A very long time.
The truth is,
I don’t like five-stones;
I mean, I don’t dislike five-stones,
I just don’t like it very much either.
It’s just, you know, something
I happen to be familiar with.

Alvina says she’ll introduce me
to the girls who play Captain Ball
so I can join them and give it a try;
I tell her maybe.
It’s not that I want to think about it -
I know I definitely want to ...
I’m just a scaredy-cat.

Alvina says, if I started playing Captain Ball,
I’ll have to give up five-stones,
because a lot of the Captain Ball team captains
won’t pick girls who play five-stones.
Honestly I don’t care -
it’s okay with me -
it’s just that, you know, most of my friends
play five-stones,
and I don’t know the girls who play Captain Ball
except Alvina, and Livia.

I really want to be on Livia’s team -
I’m just ... I don’t know ...
Maybe I’m shy ...
Okay - and a scaredy-cat:
I’m a very shy scaredy-cat,
a very shy scaredy-cat
who wants to play Captain Ball
and be on Livia’s team.

They’re picking teams for Captain Ball now.
I want to be on Livia’s team
but I know she won’t pick me ...
Because I’m still sitting by the side
with my five-stones friends,
and not out there waiting to be picked.

[ ]

w()rds
w()rr’d

m[in]e

fighting to be chOsen

                  p^cked
selected                used

but

(is \ˈθɘs\ a
  w()rd
  and what is \ˈɘts\
  [meaning?])

w()rds
are
  [  eaning?]less


  [    aning?]

  [      ning?]

w()rds have no
  [        ing?]

  [          ng?] has no
w()rds

  [            g?] &
w()rd

there is
no [  ()rd]

just [              ?]


[                ]

untitled

i fear i’m strangling myself

my thoughts translate into
wordsiscribble
realize themselves
i fear i’m strangling my self
and all my other selves with
everywordicontinuetoscribble

i fear wordsarestranglingme
in my mind buzzing angrily
the black swarm of carnivorous flies
lay eggs hatch into maggots
burrow deeper and feed
on my mind
i fear my mind is already dead

i fear wordsarestranglingme
envelop me and string themselves
into a noose tighten around my throat
hair that binds my mouth

if i die
(thesewordsareatrap
  falsehope
  lies
  ifearimalreadydead)

if i die
when i’m dead
they will worm out
through decomposing flesh
imploding ears half-eaten eyes
the mouth without a tongue or lips
they will gather around my corpse
continue to breed and feed

until there is no me left
imthem

wordsiscribble/wordsarestranglingme/thesewordsareatrap/falsehope/
lies/imalreadydead/imthem/wordsiscribblewords you read

words

are Scrabble tiles
i turn over in my hands
thumbing their
cold, hard, smooth surfaces
i piece them together
and hope for the best
      does this make sense
      does that make sense
      is there such a word as this
      is this how you spell that word
      will anybody understand
      this or that
(sometimes i wonder if
 i would be better off
 using a Ouija board
 or a Tarot pack)

but none of these is of any use
and none of these works
will travel from one end
to the other
of a telephone cable
when i dial out

to
(i don’t know
 am not sure)
a random telephone box
in the middle of nowhere
or a line without a telephone
to herald the news of my call
or a line
long since disconnected
nobody is picking up

it’s just as well nobody is picking up
my words are voiceless
i am mute

nobody’s picked up
for ten years
for ten years
i’ve been mute

i hope to find a voice one day
i will stop swallowing words
stop choking myself
i will dig deeper
mine the loam of my body
for a tongue
the dust of my soul
for what i mean to say

one day
i hope to find my voice
(even if it should take
 another ten years
 even if it should take
 a lifetime)
because
i want to talk

to you

enough

what hurts more
is not that it hurts
but that it doesn’t hurt
enough

and i’m sad, miserable, and wretched
sadder, more miserable, and more wretched
because i’m not sad, miserable, and wretched
enough

and i’ve been given words
i’ve been given words
but not words
enough

to say
exactly
how i feel

panning

i sift through the dust
and dirt of my soul
looking for the smallest nuggets
of something precious

the pieces of a shattered heart
the fragments of a fractured psyche
the rubble of the aftermath
of falling apart
the shards and splinters
the chips and bits
the wreckage
the debris

the trick
is knowing where
and when
to dig
to sift
and resift

the trick
is to have patience
and no expectations

whatever i find
whatever i have
i will not be able to sell
my tiny treasures are of no worth
      or value
to anyone

but
(if you should want them)
they are yours
for the taking

untitled

i put my book down
just to watch you sleep

i couldn’t help it
my eyes desired
you

that girl you (never) knew

i
who was the girl you had known
the girl you talked to talked with
the girl you thought you knew

who was that girl you had liked
that girl you had laughed with
that girl you thought you liked

had that girl changed
or did you never know her
do you think you had known her

I think she you had fancied
was a different girl
                                        not me
(you are not disappointed
                                                       I am)

I have never been that girl
I am not that girl
I will never be
                                that girl



ii
I wonder who she was you liked
what kind of girl is she
                                                is she
everything I’m not
                                        does she
do everything I can’t
                                            can she
be everything I won’t

                                              will she
give in return everything
I didn’t



iii
... and I realized today
you don’t know me
had never known me

now
you will never know
me

Untitled

I feel it inside me      I don’t know
how to describe it      but I can’t
help      picturing it      how I’m nothing
but a shadow on a wall      and all
that can be seen is it
a golden ball      a firebird      a bright
burning hurt
which can’t be controlled or contained
I’m juggling      struggling      wrestling
with it      a futile fight      I seem
to have no right over it
it is in me      but it doesn’t belong to
me      I feed on it      or maybe      it feeds
on me      or      we feed on each other      bleed
the other dry      colorless      of life
so I am nothing      but a dark spot
a shade      a silhouette      a specter
wraith on the wall      writhing from      violently
resisting      and       desperately ravenously
devouring
it

Untitled

On the days when innumerable raindrops
Must be caught in the palm of the earth
She wonders,
                          Is one of them for me?

On the nights when incalculable stars
Have been caught in the duster of the sky
She hopes,
                      One of them must be for me ...

Of course,
What she really wants to know
Is:

      Are you the one for me?

Untitled

I had thought my heart was like
A multifaceted crystal
That reflects and changes colors
With the light -
It is not;
It is not hard
And cool to touch.

I had a dream last night
(could not remember what it was)
And saw my heart this morning:
It is no crystal -
A hot churning primordial soup
In which you have first scattered the germs
Of emotions, of life;
Out from which the first forms
Slither, crawl, evolve, walk,
Talk - and, later - will think, will feel,
Will be unable to deal,
Will cry, live life ...
Then, finally, will die
When the blazing meteorite of your heart
Hurl itself into the thriving planet of mine.

Lights out.
An implosion.
Absolute devastation.
Complete annihilation.

What will be left:
A lifeless, bloody, pulpy mass

Which I, with my dying breath
(yellow noxious gas),
Will feed to you.

Untitled

You are so hot
You are the Sun
Around which the planet
Of my heart
Revolves.

Untitled

If it makes you happy
If it doesn’t make me unhappy
I will do it
So you will be happy

Selfish

Do you know how long
It took me to get you
Out of my mind?

As I stared at her -
Her eyes and lips -
I wondered only:
Does this mean
I’m no longer in your mind
At all, anymore? -
And kissed her.

Do I Hurt You

Do I hurt you
Every time I leave your side
To go back to his?
You must tell me.
Maybe I hurt you too
Every time I turn up by your side
And stay just long enough
To leave
Wearing the diaphanous stole
Of your perfume and the
Imprint of the delicate bracelet
Of your arms
Around me.
Do I hurt you then?
You must tell me so -
Or you must tell me no
The next time I return to you.
And I will return to you
Because I cannot help myself.
Do not let me return to you;
You must not
Let it happen the next time
Or there will be a next time
And a next time and many more
Next time’s to come -
And twice as many next time’s
To hurt ...
If I hurt you, you must tell me so,
Tell me to leave, to go.
And maybe
Maybe I will not return.
I cannot help myself,
Going to you;
But I do not want to hurt you,
Leaving you to go back
To him.
Do I hurt you?
You must tell me so.

To Y__ Who Once Loved Me

or, I Have A Crush On You

I have a crush on you.
I know it’s ironic, but it’s true -
Unfortunately - that after you
Have upped and gone away
My heart begins to stray
From me and totter after you.

Is it just bad timing -
Your loving, my not reciprocating;
Your leaving, my desire growing -
Or something far more worrying?

It’s cruel; it’s crazy ...
Do you think it’s me?
Do you think I’ll only want
What will never mean to be?

Is that why I do not find
Myself paying back in kind
The things you do and feel
Until your heart has healed
And mended against me?

But it’s too late now -
Am I not too late?
Too late now for me to
Vow or disavow; too late,
Too late - because you will
No longer wait.

And what right have I to charge
Or recriminate?

I have a crush on you.
It’s ironic, I know, but true:
That when you decide to start anew,
I realize I can’t do without you.

Even Shorter Really Short Short Stories: The Happily Ever After Series

ICinderella marries Prince Charming, only to find he has a foot fetish. She divorces him soon after because after he got bored of her feet, he is constantly seeking new feet. This comes shortly before the collapse of his kingdom.

Cinderella goes on to be a foot model and shoots to astronomical fame. When Prince Charming comes crawling back to weep and beg at her feet, she sends him on his way with a good kick to his ass.



IIWhen Peasy, the Princess who got her pedigree confirmed by a pea under tons of mattresses, marries the Prince, she is sleepless on her wedding night after she realizes she is cursed to be plagued her entire marriage by a pea-sized problem: her new husband’s dick.

Finally, she runs away to join the circus. There she falls in love with and marries the star of freak-show, the Horse-Man.



IIIAfter Prince Charming wakes Sleeping Beauty with a kiss and breaks the spell, they marry in a resplendent wedding in his castle.

Never has an angry word passed between them in their long marriage - for, when she is not nodding off from her narcolepsy, he is boring her to sleep.



IVAfter the piece of poisoned apple has been dislodged from Snow White’s mouth and she awakens from her stupor, she sees the Prince (who has rushed to her glass coffin-side) and says, “What kinda sick fuck are you to fall in love with a dead girl? You may be into necrophilia but I’m not. I’m calling the cops.”

Then Snow White goes on to become a highly successful psychologist who specializes in treating the distress of damsels, and continues to live with the seven dwarves, who have given up their mining profession and now run a women’s shelter.



VThe Princess may have lost her golden ball to the pond, but she soon forgets about it after a delicious snack of black pepper frog legs.

A year later, after she has learned to swim, she manages to retrieve her golden ball all by herself, which sparks her interest in diving.

Three years later, she is an avid certified diver and runs a dive shop with her partner, a gold medalist in the women’s Olympic diving.


End

Really Short Short Stories: The What's the Point, Again? Series

IA girl wakes up one morning with a swollen left eyelid, like from a mosquito bite - except it’s neither itchy nor painful. As the day wears on, the lid swells more and more, until the girl is unable to open her left eye and is forced to go about her daily chores with only one eye.

Soon, however, she finds herself having double vision - not seeing double, but double vision. She tries closing her right eye, and finds out, to her surprise and shock, she can still see with her left. Eventually, she figures out her left eye gives her the vision of what has already happened (be it two minutes ago or two years later), and her right what is currently happening.

At first, she is excited she can look into the future, but after a week, after she has seen everything that will and has happened, she grows more and more disillusioned and depressed. Inevitably, she begins to contemplate suicide.

However, seven days later, she wakes up with a healed left eyelid. She can only see the things that are currently happening now. As she goes about her life from that day onwards, she tries to do things that would surprise herself: because she now knows that whatever she does in and with her life, whether or not she gets answers and/or wiser, when her life ends, everything she does and is ends with her.



IIA young man falls in love with a girl he thinks is the most beautiful person with the most innate grace in the world. This girl has become his world, and he finds himself imagining a shared life with her. He is thrilled when she falls in love with him. They become the couple everybody envies and hopes to be.

Three years later, still blissfully and blessedly in love, they are planning their marriage. The week before the solemnization, out of curiosity and on their parents’ behest, they consulted a fortune teller - who turns out to be the harbinger of bad news: if and when they should marry (the fortune teller warns), they will be bounded to each other for life but will find their love and happiness and desire for each other completely vanished within the first year of their marriage.

Worried, the couple asks what could be done to remedy this, but the fortune teller tells them it is their destiny; and, try as they may, they cannot change it. As the couple walks away, the girl insists they not believe the fortune teller and get married anyway; the young man, however, wholeheartedly believes in the fortune teller’s words.

On the day of their solemnization, the young man does not turn up. Thus he manages to retain his love and desire for the girl for as long as he lives, but loses her love and desire forever. He dies a happily miserable man.



IIIOne afternoon, a young lady alights several bus stops away from home to buy slices of pie for her mother. Since the bakery is located along a long stretch of road well-known for good food, the girl decides to walk a little down the road to search for nasi lemak, which she suddenly has a craving for.

When she has walked the distance between two bus stops, she sees a shop that sells nasi lemak. However, she walks on, because she thinks it does not look too good - and also, there may be a store farther down the road that sells better nasi lemak. When she passes by the next bus stop, she finds another shop that offers nasi lemak, and yet again, she finds it wanting and walks on thinking there may be better nasi lemak down the road.

Finally, three bus stops and three nasi lemak stores later, she still hasn’t found the nasi lemak she craves, and is getting hungrier and more tired and weaker by the minute. Finally, she realizes she is only one bus stop away from the stop she usually alights to walk home - a walk that is the distance of about four bus stops.

Therefore the girl decides to walk all the way home, the hope of finding something to eat still burning, although less brightly. Unfortunately, all the eating places she passes then are closed. So, when she spots a small dry-provision store, she goes in and buys a bag of crisps.

When she finally gets home, she eats the crisps and finds they taste better than the nasi lemak she had craved.



IVA girl, who wishes to acquire every piece of knowledge about the universe known to man, one day gleans piece of knowledge she immediately regrets to possess: she can see more and much farther than she is able to comprehend.

She despairs about this fact for a long time, at the expense of time and her studies.

Then, it occurs to her that even if she should be killed by what she does not know, she would still die in the bliss of her own ignorance; and if she should die knowing with a clear knowledge of what has killed her, she would die in comprehension and awareness - but in any case, when she has died, what else will and can matter?

She lives to learn as much as she can, and dies having not learned more.



VA man vows to spend his life seeking the al-iksir of life - Immortality - and the Truth.

When he has found, not just one, but both, he is slaved the infinity of his immortality to searching for a way to die – and to forget.


End

An Even Shorter Really Short Short Story

Before Zeus, in the guise of a swan, could make love to - or rape - Leda, the Ugly Ducking waddles up and asks, “Are you my Daddy?”

Clipped

A bird with clipped wings set free from its cage
The knowledge that there is knowledge forever beyond
      my knowledge

Really Short Short Stories: The Birds Series

IA little woodpecker flies through the woods, and finally settles on a sturdy-looking tree. Perched on the highest branch, it then begins to peck at the trunk, ceaselessly, industriously. Soon, there is a growing pile of woodchips at the base of the tree and the tree is bleeding.

When it starts to bleed profusely, the tree stirs and groans, begging the woodpecker to stop its pecking because it hurts, and asking the little bird why it’s doing what it’s doing. The woodpecker only continues to peck mutely.

Finally, for the last time, the tree asks the woodpecker, and this time, the woodpecker stops its pecking to say the tree is no longer a tree. And it’s true: the sturdy tree is now a naked slender young girl who is bleeding where the woodpecker’s claws and beak have been digging into.

The girl looks at the blood running down her arm and asks the woodpecker why. The woodpecker looks at the girl, who doesn’t hear the bird’s answer but now understands everything. She accepts the woodpecker, still perched on her arm, whose claws are still digging into her flesh and making her bleed, and asks the little bird to teach her more.



IIA young lady walks through the market-place and spots a seller of birds surrounded by cages and cages of the winged creatures and is attracted to the store. There she sees a cage with a nightingale and buys it without bargaining down the outrageous price the bird-seller quotes her.

In her house, she feeds the bird honey-water and it begins to sing. She opens the cage and takes it out. The bird is still singing as she lays in down and runs the sharp tip of a knife from under its beak to the bottom of its tail feathers. Then she pries apart the body of the nightingale and bends down to breathe in the nightingale’s singing.

Later that day, in the evening, she puts on a beautiful gown and goes to the opera house, where she sings sweetly before a mesmerized audience. At the end of her singing, they give her a standing ovation, whereupon she uses her knife and runs it from her forehead to the hem of her gown. From the slit the blade has made, a little brown bird emerges and flies away, and the woman’s entire being and costume - wig, birthday suit, and gown - collapse onto her shoes in a pile.

Outside the opera house, the bird seller waits with the cage. As the nightingale flies out from the opera house, he catches it in his hand and puts it back in the cage. He walks away into the night. In the morning, his bird store has completely vanished from the market place.



IIIEvery night for a month, a young man dreams of a young lady who wears a black half-mask of shaped a like swallow. She sings to him a song which he cannot understand but nevertheless thinks is sorrowful because he feels drowned by tears whenever he hears it. When she stops singing, he awakes.

One morning, he sees a black swallow perched on branch just outside his window. Without much difficulty, he catches the bird and places it in a cage beside his bed, so he can gaze at it until he drifts off to sleep. That night, he dreams again of the young masked lady, but she doesn’t sing to him. He gazes at her until he falls awake.

The next morning, he finds the cage locked but empty. He is inexplicably sad, and feels his heart ache. By late afternoon, he has taken to bed because his heart hurts too much and he feels drained by the pain. That night, in his dreams, the young lady sings again to him. After her song has ended, she removes her black swallow half-mask. She is so beautiful the young man in his dreams thinks he must have died and found paradise.

Some time later, the young man is found dead in his bed, wearing a black half-mask shaped like a swallow, and where his heart is supposed to be is a small nest in which are four little eggs that hatch into four black swallows that fly away and are never seen again.



IVOnce, there is a young woman who keeps a whole aviary of birds about her. Every time she feels for someone, a single bird will fly away, never to come back. Therefore, she is very careful about the people she comes in contact with, lest she should find herself bereft of all her birds and left with an empty aviary.

One day, as she is taking a stroll in the middle of a field, the front of dress bursts open, and from her breast hundreds of birds fly out from their aviary and soar into the sky. As they fly pass above her - an avian cloud - feathers rain down on her, burrowing under her skin, until she is feathered like a bird in her aviary.

Just as she is about to fly away with her birds, she is caught and placed in someone else’s aviary.



VA young man buys a cuckoo clock from a little shop tucked in a corner of the market place. The shop is crammed with cuckoo clocks of all shapes and sizes, and, on the hour, every hour, the shop sounds like an aviary of hungry birds.

When he gets home, he realizes the clock he has bought should have two cuckoos coming out on to cuckoo every hour on the hour but one cuckoo is missing. By then, it is too late to go back to the cuckoo clock shop, so he decides to go to bed and return to the market place the next morning.

That night, he dreams of meeting a beautiful girl inside the cuckoo clock he has just purchased who has the wing and tail feathers of a cuckoo bird peeking from beneath her dress. He falls in love with her and kisses her. The bird girl tells him to fly away while he still can, and he realizes he too has the wing and tail feathers of a cuckoo bird.

The next day, on the hour, two cuckoo birds are thrust out of the cuckoo clock to cuckoo, and when they are whisked back into the clock, the cuckoo clock seller lets himself into the young man’s house and takes with him the cuckoo clock. His cuckoo clock shop is never seen again in the market place - nor is the young man ever found.


End

Really Short Short Stories: The Matryoshki Series

IA writer of short stories often uses her friends, acquaintances – even strangers who catch her eye - in her fiction. One day, in a blink of her eye, she finds herself ‘kidnapped’ and brought into someone else’s fiction work. (She doesn’t know how she knows that, and she doesn’t wonder about it.) She tries to get out of the fiction she is in by writing that she herself had written about the person (she doesn’t know who) who has written her into his fiction write her out of it. She doesn’t realize both she and the author who writes her into a character are both characters written by someone else who is writing about a writer who gets written by another writer and then tries to write herself into her reality and out of his story.

Finally, the real writer writes the writer of short stories back into her fictitious reality and she is happy, thinking she has won the battle - but not realizing it is only because she has been written to think and feel that way.



IIA girl suddenly realizes she is in a dream of her own dreaming and she tries to get out of that dream and wake herself up. But every time she manages to ‘wake up’, she finds herself waking up to another dream of herself dreaming. After countless ‘waking up’s, she finds herself staring at a sleeping girl who looks exactly like her - and she knows that girl is her and she that girl. Now she is in a dilemma: she isn’t sure anymore whether she is the conscious and real one, or just a dream, and she’s worried if she woke up the sleeping girl who looks exactly like her, she would be obliterated and no longer knows she is dreaming and unable to wake up.

Finally she decides to try to wake the sleeping girl up, and when the sleeping girl does open her eyes, the girl who holds the realization that she is unable to wake up dissipates into the air. The girl who had been sleeping looks around groggily and wonders why she’s awake and who has awakened her. Then she goes back to sleep.



IIIA girl sits in front of her three-paneled vanity mirror, looking at her reflections. Then she arranges the two folding side-mirrors so that there are two sets of infinite reflections. What she doesn’t realize is that she has just created an infinite loop of different realities which is paralleled by another infinite loop of realities. Then she is sucked into one loop and is forced to fall from one reality to its parallel, then back to the first loop but landing in a different reality than the first, then falling into that reality’s mirror image ... endlessly. Much like Alice through the looking-glass forced to move from chessboard square to another chessboard square in a boundless chessboard.

She tries to escape, and once, finding herself in front of her three-fold mirror in one of the realities, she breaks the mirror, hoping to break out of the loops. Instead, the mirror fractures so that there are now even more reflected reflections, and even more realities are created. After a long time, she tries to kill herself by cutting her wrists, only to find herself dying painfully over and over and over ...



IVA girl dreams that she wakes up, but only to another dream that she wakes up into another dream of waking up into another dream of waking up ...

She finds herself unable to stop herself from waking up, and every time she wakes up, she is so tired she hopes to sleep on dreamlessly, but she is unable to break out of the loop of waking up.

A week later, the girl is found, emaciated, and, having not awakened from her sleep the entire week, has died in her sleep.



VOne day, a girl finds an old book in a used book store and finds herself reading about her life since birth, and unable to stop. Although the book isn’t very thick, however many pages she flips, she doesn’t seem to ever get to end.

Within a week, the girl has read her whole life story of her twenty-something years, and can’t find another written page beyond the page that tells of the very second she is sitting down and reading the book about her life story. She flips ahead, only to find blank pages; she flips back, only to read about her flipping ahead and looking at blank pages. Then she writes in the book, filling up seven blank pages with her life ahead, and takes the book back to the used book store and sells it.


End

running: cycle. karma.

the first to run away
was not me

someone else ran
from me
and when i caught up
i had asked why
said you promised you won’t
for a reply
i got evasive eyes
more lies

so the next time round
i ran
just to see what it was like
to be on the other end

then
someone else came along
this time a Mexican stand-off
neither of us ran
nor took a step forwards
just stood staring
at each other from a distance
(faraway, close enough)

at the same time
someone ran away from me
again

when the stand-off dissolved
into a truce
i set off immediately
caught the runner

cornered like a rat
more promises came my way
false and soon broken as they were
i let go
(what else could i have done?)

after all that
i chose to chase
running after
not away

but it got really tiring
i got tired of running after
you and you and you and you
      and more yet
of you

four years was too long
so i stopped to catch
my breath

but soon i was off again
running running running
this time
away

now
three years later
i think it’s time
i stop

i think
the next time round
i will walk instead

a haiku for my brolly

delicious cherry
ripe for picking, red as sin -
i almost taste you.

Resolution: A Promise

To A_____

You will make good your word,
I know - that’s why it’s you
I asked.

But, to make me write mine
down in black and white, to be
folded and kept in your wallet,
so you’d have it at all times
      with you -
you are oh-so sweet ...
and way too smart for me.

You silly girl!
When I promised not to run away,
do you not trust me?

Why do you think it’s you
I made the promise to?

Because I can never break
one made to you –
however much I want to.