Week 28: Hello Blade, meet Wrist.

there's a change in the weather.
it is soft like a not-too-distant memory i had intentionally buried.
yet sharp and short - this change penetrates its way into my bones.
the corners of my photographs have begun to bend and peel back.
i tried pressing them into place.
it defies me and springs again - what am i supposed to do?
i remove them.
and you're tearing up your photos cos you want to forget it's over
the ones attached only at one corner i take away from the wall.
they were always too colourful anyway.
sometimes they hurt my eyes.
i still listen to all my old songs though because each one conjures a specific memory.
Granddaddy told me to aim towards the sky
fly away far away far from pain
and i see my back on the floor with my mind up in air in an empty house on Ruth street.
The Academy Is everything we had
you saw for yourself the way it played out
and my head is resting on the marble-topped dining table back home.
Damien's album O
like time, there's always time on my mind
and it's november 2005 with my stomach against those impossibly hard cushions of the antique chairs.
the christmas tree winks at me with its christmas lights.
he sings to me that it's the same old scenario, the same old rain.
it was always rain.
now it is heat.
but i guess i don't really mind.
the heat reminds me of last november.
i remember december
of nights that melted into day - a transition i was a witness of.
idle talk is something i've not had for awhile now.
how did i not anticipate its departure?
if i had known, would i have been kinder?
your stomach's filled up but you're starved for conversation
tomorrow my country holds its breath.
mildly anticipating* the fulfillment of a promise.
if it happens, it happens. if it doesn't, life goes on.
i am still holding my breath.
in my enthusiasm, i fail to realise
that i am now blue.
what am i, darling? a whisper in your ear, your biggest mistake?

*Liew Eu-Gene, 2008.