debbi r. saragih

Write something absurd!

[debbiersaragih]

A Weekend with Oneself

One wake up with dizziness in her head

remaining of days where she steamed herself

“Nothing, nothing” 

she thought nothing could break her down

now half awake she tries to get up

all the weekday burdens spread out of her chest

she can not breathe

“Oh, how I wish all could just end”

she remembered about the ginger cat she dearly loved

dead of common misfortune

“Oh, how I wish I’m just like everyone else!”

Get up early, raising a family

but like everyone else

she lies to herself that weekend is given

to heal what’s broken on days before

but like everyone else

she forgets

one can not heal what’s already rotten.

[debbiersaragih]

Laying on Places

truth are stones they lay on places waiting to be used

but how we use and what for is not what truth made for

when we use it it's completed its mean.

[debbiersaragih]

Now It’s You

There was a party

and you weren’t invited

you were angry because you felt

left behind.

There was a party

and you weren’t invited

just like thousands and millions people

who never known the party maker,

It is important because it’s you

It’s you because you only know you

Not the thousands and millions people

Who just known themselves.

Now,

Who’s important?

[debbiersaragih]

Pain is (not):

Pain is not the money

which you can calculate

or compare 

how much you’ve burnt

how much you bear.

Pain,

no matter how delicate they are

how familiar it’s to your bone

it explodes and radiates

to the region of unknown.

You can not say,

“Be gone!”

because it can’t hear

and it shouldn’t

but with time,

pain could grow

to something you’d never

expect before.

[debbiersaragih]

Living Body

Real body oh,

those living breathing bodies

how could I despise you?

Born with red flesh tore in a rash,

how could we never wonder,

“Could they have enough rest?”

“Does it hard to catch a breath?”

Oh, body those living and aging bodies

how could I ignore you

as I ignore mine.

[debbiersaragih]

You Do (Not) Know

When I thought I lost my voice

I didn’t search for more

silence fits me

as I thought when I say nothing

I could hear none

the moment I lost my voice

I can’t distinguish,

whose voice is this?

I was immersed into someone else

someone I don’t know

unreal,

yet, always watching

if then I spoke,

don’t look me in the eyes

cause I don’t know who’s talking

and I’m not sure

you do know too.

[debbiersaragih]

Aren’t We All Broken?

One could only too broken to fight

when the anger’s so tight

breathing the flaming fire

burn within and all

The time has come for us to stand

looking out of things can’t be an option-

but to rise and rise again

fall and wreck our bones to two

and rise and rise again,

then I’ve been too broken, not to fight

left myself, but ashes walking

screaming,

protesting,

but, aren’t we all broken?

thus, why I hear silence, instead of

broken people roaring?

[debbiersaragih]

Precious

In the very next day you might find

or cease to believe

that you are worthless

never done anything good in life,

but-

you are not worthless

you just need time

to figure out what you 

want to do with

your precious

beloved

life.

[debbiersaragih]

We x Me

I see a headline, somewhere

stating about

“Who we are” but,

who are we?

Human you said

people power-

tell me 

how could you say we

when world could, left

me.

[debbiersaragih]

Learning About Courage

I never know about courage until I fell in love. Deeply, dwell myself into the most uncertain thing. The sweet and tangy feeling, too much to bear in the thrill of sort interactions where two people meet, not knowing how to greet.

I took the first step, say hello, and slowly let the life flourishes. Then, we talk whatever we have in mind, whether it’s a clear blue sky or how ridiculous it is to be ourselves. I look wherever she wants to look, I stated myself, I don’t need to look any other way. I have the best thing I ever asked for.

The more words I try to make myself understand what’s happening, the more my mind getting fuzzier. Starting the quest of never ending questions whether we could be together or not and how would I say the first word, ‘I love you’.

Now, I realize, even to have this feeling, I need to gather all courage I have. Take it from here and there. Tell my dearest friend to help me think through this thing and suggest whatever the best decision I should do. This love feels very hard to endure, but I never do something so sure.

I will never understand my courage, until I fell in love. Save all the feelings, water it with every encounters, and keep it best until it picked. I will never know what will happen next. Nor, do I could predict. All I know that it is real and a good life is a life genuinely fulfilled.

Renouncing the words, “I am what I love, not what love me”, I put the whole courage to love you.

[debbiersaragih]

Falling Thread (2)

World is a falling thread. Entangling to one another. Hanging in the middle of air-space between us. Then, we seek out for different thread, colored blue or red, with a false hope that it’ll save us, where we are nothing, but doomed.

I woke up holding a match and scissor. I know it very well, I could burn the thread to dust or just cut everything out. I cried for help and they cut my hands. Now, they are saved, but I am falling. Down..down...down.

In the falling I hope, I’ll stuck to a thread. That’s the only option where I could be saved.

[debbiersaragih]

Falling Thread

We hold on to this thread

this very small

and fragile thread,

where we attach

each other hopes

on...

[debbiersaragih]

Remember When?

You remember when the train came?

I spitted the wall and we ran around the corner

straight to the house we didn’t like about

you say the dogs were wild

but we’re all just a shame

These days you barely come

I am busy chasing dreams

and you, dear, is the same

These days time’s getting clearer,

telling me something I don’t like

to hear that,

my long friends are gone

and I am sad--

but to know the other will come

introduce me the name I never heard of

both excites me

well prepares me

for another goodbye I haven’t spoken.

[debbiersaragih]

Runaway Wolf

I take all the time

thought I need

lay the wolf to sleep

stop him from roaring

unnecessary harsh words

unprecedented ideas.

yet, he ran...

from now to ever

he’ll shout the villagers

away, and if...

they cut his gut, he’d smiled,

for at last he’s free -

for at last he’s be.

[debbiersaragih]

Home

I try to seek

the deepest part of me,

the ocean

of nothing unknown

nothing begone.

Sometimes while I’m searching

I feel lonely, you know

To put the torch in my head

and diving contra-flow.

People talk and laugh cheerfully,

none want to be with me

to light the torch on

and swim

swim

leaving all the things behind

to finally arrive at home,

alone.

[debbiersaragih]

The 21 Letter

It’s become a habit for me to write something to myself to celebrate my own birthday. A habit which demands me more silence and quietness than any other day. Just like this year, I finally made myself out of town and try to feel some breeze I scarcely get. In the place which I considered the best gift I could give to myself with this current condition.

Here, I spent most of my time by doing nothing and think about the most absurd idea which I got from Jung. I brought his “Mandala Symbolism” with me and read it heavily.  The idea of “whole man” struck me as it’s not what I have in mind. I think that a great man or in this case whole man is a man who has strong principle and idea. A man who do everything which blazes his heart and do it right away with everything he has. Yet, Jung said it is not what a whole man does because to be a whole man or human it means one must be as big as the universe.

Sure, it is understandable if you ask what does it mean to be as big as universe because it is tremendously abstract and can mean everything. As in this book he talks more about symbols, so as big as universe is a symbol as well. A symbol which he relates with many Greek Gods symbolism, like Hermes. Before I make you more confuse than what I initially intended, thus I’ll explain it shortly.

To be as big as universe means a man contains everything in him and outside of him. It means one can only becoming big not when he choose something over another, but when he accepts everything. When he accepts more and more the things which usually oppose one another, he expands. Expanding like the universe and he is the imitation of the universe itself as universe never rejects, only accepts. The planet might be vanished but it does not mean the universe rejects it, the planet died because it’s the time for it to die.

I know, you think this writing should not be my comment to Jung book, but about my birthday. Yet, his book answer my deepest question I lately ask to myself. In maturing years I feel I become more inflexible to my own choices. I think I have to possess a clear purpose in life and keep on striving to achieve it, then I’ll be the “whole man” I always want to be, but it is not. It only leaves me with more confusions whether whatever I do is worthy and whether or not this is what I always want to do.

Consciousness loves onesidedness and it never liberates us, that is what I got after reading his theory about Mandala. Whatever happened to me also happened to his patient who felt struck in her life. She felt that for whatever she achieved, she didn’t feel any climax in her life. Jung didn’t say it is because she couldn’t feel grateful for a great life she had, instead he said it is caused by her consciousness which denies every important messages from her unconsciousness. A message which applies to everyone that ego (consciousness) is nothing but working under the universal law (unconscious).

His theory might be confusing and not readily understandable, but the message is clear and simple. A man, with his thinking and feeling ability, tends to choose one over another. He thinks by thinking he will be better or at least feel better, but instead he feels the otherwise or he finally can not feel anything at all. Fighting forces are always within us, from thinking to feeling, and conscious to unconscious. One can only be the highest potential he could ever be by accepting all the forces equally simply because they are identical.

I am me and I am the anti-thesis of me as well, and I am me. This logic hardly acceptable for consciousness as it loves onesidedness, either/or. Yet, consciousness will never set you free because it is its’ job, to constrain you with the reality. Only the unconsciousness which has the power to reveal many unknown dynamics of the universe which we barely understand up until now and it is the source of limitless energy.

This new realization leaves me with the understanding that there is no should in this world. There is no one fully understand the world which has any authority to set you about what is right and what is wrong. Whatever I do is never be right/wrong, but right and wrong. The act explains more than the word we make to make sense whatever we do. Rationalization never helps because it means we have to reason with whatever we choose and we can not bear if what we chose is wrong, hence we rationalize. Denial is dangerous as well because when we deny something, we deny a part of ourselves who knows that the other part might be right for us.

Yes, I am twenty-one now. I know in every birthday there is a culture to hope something good to happen this year and the years follow, but I don’t think it is necessary anymore. If I work under the law of universe as what Jung said, it means wherever I go is whatever myself (whole-man-being) needs me to be. There is no need to hope because it will happen in one way or another. Whatever comes to me, it is never be good or bad, but both and needed. I might not know why things come the way they do, and maybe never will, but the understanding that I need them already sets me free.

[debbiersaragih]

Repetition of Misunderstanding

It is not nice, you know, to put yourself in the most vulnerable state to others. Open your true self with the true aches you own and hope that hopefully they will understand. Oh, God! Why not this time? Why can’t they understand yourself for once? Only for once to be fully understood with no misunderstanding between each.

Yet, the more we try, the more we realize that misunderstanding always come. You might have tried your best to give the other part the most detailed information you think they need to know to make sense of yourself. You hope that with it they will feel whatever you feel and understand yourself better. If you are lucky, then they will, but the most part of us unfortunately don’t have that kind of luck.

You might ask why? Why it is so hard to make others see you as yourself? Why it feels like the other need more than the information to build an exact figure of yourself? Why no one ever understand me well? And if you ask all of those questions, I will answer it with “I don’t know”.

The need and urge to be understood is imminent within all of us. We want others to know us as well as we know ourselves simply because it is nice to be assured that we see the same thing. It is nice when I describe myself as a deep thinker and my friend say it as well. Yet, most of the time we need more assurance than the acknowledge of our own characteristics. We demand them to know our own private dynamic of being which is hardly to be understood even to the psychologist itself.

Slowly in the relationship, friendship or else, we want the other part not only know our characteristics, but to be aware on our ups and downs. We think they should understand when we’re sad, what we like to do when we are sad, and we want them to constantly cherish us by saying nothing. We believe that even by saying nothing they will understand at the time they only have basic knowledge of yourself. Even when they have sophisticated knowledge of yourself, they still can not or do not want to do what you want them to. Simply because it is irrational.

It is irrational to believe that people must take care all of your emotional needs. It is irrational to make other cherish yourself when you say nothing. It is irrational to think that people must understand yourself. It is always be irrational to believe that other must do whatever you wish them to do because they are human and they have choice to do so or not. It is such an irrational and immature belief.

To be understood in the end is a matter of luck. If you find a good fellow to share your story and   she can see who you really are with that then you are very lucky. If you try your best, but the other seems can not understand maybe it is simply because she can not relate with you in that way. You can not push them to see what you see for she is another being who sees thing differently. It does tiresome to put ourselves over and over again, exposure them with our own fragility, and being misunderstood anyway.

Yet, I think that is the only way to make us to be fully seen by others. It is exquisitely exhausting and hurting as hell, but through the process we slowly learn which kind of people whom we can trust, which kind of people who might be understand ourselves. And in the process, one needs to do it in a fairly good faith and hope that maybe one day, whenever it will come, we finally can find the one who can feel the thorns and ecstatic inside of us and even help us see the things we never see in ourselves. Hopefully one day, if ever and if we really need to have one in this current life.