mis-spending on fragile things

Writing at the edge of a precipice

[soap008]

Hidden figures

[thequotejournals]

I fell in love like the sun fell in love with the moon, still knowing that they could never be together.

Amairani M. García

original: “Me enamoré como se enamoró el sol de la luna, aún sabiendo que nunca podrían estar juntos.”

(via wordsnquotes)

[fyp-psychology]

33 Unusual Tips to Being a Better Writer

[wordsnquotes]

culturenlifestyle:

via James Altucher

Originally posted by byaseashore

Back in college, Sanket and I would hang out in bars and try to talk to women but I was horrible at it.

Nobody would talk to me for more than thirty seconds and every woman would laugh at all his jokes for what seemed like hours.

Even decades later I think they are still laughing at his jokes. One time he turned to me, 

“the girls are getting bored when you talk. Your stories go on too long. From now on, you need to leave out every other sentence when you tell a story.”

We were both undergrads in Computer Science. I haven’t seen him since but that’s the most important writing (and communicating) advice I ever got.

33 other tips to be a better writer:

Read the Article

[soap008]

ANTICIPATORY GRIEF (n.) grief reaction that occurs before an impending loss

[thequotejournals]

I aim to be lionhearted, but my hands still shake and my voice isn’t quite loud enough.

Michelle K., Earning Your Roar (via thequotejournals)

[soap008]

OPEN THIS BOX WHEN I LEAVE

you will find my photograph, set in the face i was most comfortable in: pouting unconvincingly: the cynic in the idealist; you will find the notebook of all the goodbyes i've ever said, all the goodbyes i needed to say, all the goodbyes i'm afraid to say; you will find my porn stash; you will find that i'm lying-- i have no porn stash; i stream it-- you will find the letters left to me by all those who left before me; you will find your photograph, set in the face you were most comfortable in: eyes sparkling, the unwilling smile of a cynic idealizing; you will find i lied when i said i burned that photo of us dancing at Lepark; you will find it in the last page of the goodbyes i couldn't bear to say.

[soap008]

an ode to old lovers

your longing comes in the mail, a parcel: words on pages you've never read, chocolate less than a quarter sweet, a drawing of a cat. not a mark of your existence; not even a return address.

it bewilders me to think you've encapsulated who i am in a package, fill in the spaces with a bubblewrap of apology as if to say, here are all the ways i can never learn to love you.

[soap008]

BEHIND EVERY GREAT MAN--

she tosses her pillbox hat on the vanity table, composure unraveling in clumps of brown hair recalcitrant on her magazine face. his shirt is on the floor, the chanel whiff mixing with tobacco traces and the sterility of radiator buzz. was he back already? she scarcely noticed. she slips out of her pink suit and slips into the cold bed. her thin arms reach under the ocean waves of sheets until they find the solid ground of his thick shoulders, his twisted back to her. long fingers trail over the smooth expanse of his warm skin, finding it still too cold for comfort. her red fingernails itch to dig in. her hands discover the lifepost of his neck and her chest throbs to hold unto them – to squeeze. to grasp for dear life. to ask him what this country has done for her that she hasn’t already done for him. somewhere amid the rumble of his laboured breathing, she sees her Camelot without its master. her body trembles;

He calls out to her like a lost boat, “my darling ja–.” she lets go, allowed her limbs to float adrift into the only shore she knows– her own. the moon casts a glimmer over the tranquil surface of their slumber. a silk thread of blonde hair catches the light over his face. the deep throaty hum of happy birthday fills the silence. she sleeps anyway.

[soap008]

this poem is for you, you nerd

Whoever incepted the thought That i was happy pushing drinking Limits with friends must have some really sick sense of humor

Placing you in the hurdle of the timely timing Of finding myself relatively content with How my life went from acceptably stable To unable to even put two related Things together

It wasn’t that my life was a total mess either But between being best left behind And trying to grind my way Through these woods, I had concluded That I was relatively satisfied

And then, I find you

As though life was not through Giving me thought experiments In its attempt to make me an expert At playing pretend at getting my heart Broken, assuming I’d get better At steering away from future disasters When–

There you were

Thumb-smacked right in the middle of a cool evening While i was still reeling from seven shots Of whiskey, my knees buckling because Whiskey and stiletto heels don’t really come together The way talking and alcohol come together Like panadol and fever; i spoke Too many words I couldn’t even remember Because for the better part of that evening -and those that came after- I was stoked with the idea of thinking …that you were pretty cool

But I was no fool When I’ve ascribed the term “cool” It was with the cool detachment of coolly Saying that I find you in a some sense Kind of totally like the person I would really Possibly - like - hang out with often on A basis that would most preferably be Regular if not on daily succession, on occasion, of course, that you can– Coz I’m lowkey and not in any way at All too keen to be starting another Windmill that would go crashing Into the tranquil energy-generating Sense of stability i’m finally finding myself in

This was not my first rodeo after all The last time I buckled my thighs Between some guy’s sense of ego I went hurtling into the air, Causing a tear in the spare Pair of eyes I was using to look At the world with a tinted disney Color combination, trying to rationalize My way through the pain of Compensating the lack of another Person’s presence by saying “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” As though convincing myself That there was something to gain From the patience of holding my ground When the other person has found Better rodeo players to ride around

It wasn’t that I’m a cynic But more often than not, I come out of it Disappointed

Not that I have appointed you to be The next human being responsible for proving me wrong -I’m never wrong- But I have long held unto the idea that Persistence was the siamese twin of finally Getting things right, blindly believing That if i worked hard enough, some Poor sod would realize that it isn’t Such a bad thing to stay

They say Never place your heart on your sleeve As though i had pockets to keep my bursting Cardiac muscles in when I’m the kind of girl Who wears dresses and bandeaus -where are am i supposed to keep that all shit-

When at twenty-two, i folded origamis For a boy who crumpled a thousand Folded cranes into a fist and released Anger the way bullets hit There were no dead bodies Just a trail of bruises leading its way To the candy house of my optimistic belief That I could somehow conceive A good enough plan to retrieve All the bad memories of person’s fisted hand And unfold them into the makings of a real man

It was not for the lack of patience Not for the lack of faith That I’ve surrendered my late belief Of being able to poke my face close enough To another person’s cheek Without knowing the quick trick to pulling away

These days, I like to think nothing surprises me Anymore

But in the folklore of every irony, You came through that door Bearing puns and a glass of beer The beer I can take the puns though Were harder to swallow

But it was easy enough to follow Your own fairytale trail towards a Spy vs spy james bond-esque techy mecha Wonderland inlaid with your own self-destructive segues

The way you look at things sometimes, Classify objects into movements and shapes Wrapped in the devil’s advocate’s advocacy of The necessity of understanding both sides

The way you slide into my life Like a nicely timed warning That this what was I was missing Realizing that I could probably miss everything else As long as I have this

And I’d really like to write this poetry Without having to symbolize the way Your fingers curl on a cigarette stick And your laughter rolls like smoke With a stroke of mint and bitterness Somewhat self-destructive but always there The way you never cared if I was a little tipsy And get a little creepy crawling up beside you How you make do, tolerating my constant Inebriated shape within the confines Of your personal space How we could waste hours watching Birds prowl without saying a word how your hands somehow always feel colder than The rest of your body Or how unusually you were first person to tell me That i kiss my way through a cigarette filter

Knowing one day this may not stay The way it is That the paths converge only to wistfully Diverge

But for the lack of a better word, I will hold unto this Because despite knowing this uncertainty Will probably make haste our idle little dates And you telling me that nothing is ever disney I find myself stabilising in my high heels And whiskey drinks knowing if I fall, I’ll probably bump into you and be saved

And not in the damsel in distress sort of way Just in the I know you’re fucked up too Kind of mathematical rule That my negative would negate your negatives too And even if it doesn’t, We’ll probably be smart enough to formulate an Equation through it

This is not the cynic nor the optimist talking And we could be walking straight into a trap without Either of us knowing -and we both know you’ve gone through hell And back again- But I’d like to pretend that even if you were The wrong answer to the question I’ve been Asking, Despite knowing the rules, I’d ask again And bend the rules to full circle if I have to

And even if this hurdle remains just a hurdle And we somewhat find our way at ease To release this piece, in either agony or bliss, For this moment at least, -for this moment- I can tell myself: If this isn’t nice, then what is?

[soap008]

The artist is a masochist

to an empty screen, you ask “what is missing?” your heart replies:

pain.

[soap008]

a researcher's instruction to endings

how this ends will not be dependent on the when;

having already spent ample time plotting out a research design;

suspended our sample in a jar of formaldehyde; monitored close;

notified each other of any breakage in the timeline; figured at some point

this would need to be revived; douse it in isotonic fluid; hook an IV drip;

keep it alive long enough to successfully say that we’ve trial-and-errored our way

until the eventual expiration date; scribbled equations on our findings of each other

until the final submission; make the empirical decision to our research question

and if somehow our sample leaves traces on each other, we’ll gather all the living cells

we’ve inoculated and frayed; euthanise the rest and call it a day.

[soap008]

no one ever stays here long enough, not long enough to fester; never long enough to grow.

the music fades far too fast to grow roots; the ethanol cools into distillation; the high dissolves into water; never enough to cater to the disillusion of having your arms around mine; it never lasts; you never last.

moments resonate as fickle as touches; a second too long, lingering into a memory i don’t even remember.

the melody continues; my fingers reach out to memories.

no one ever stays here long enough, not long enough to fester; never long enough to grow.

and you were gone before I know it.

[soap008]

the sober poem

this is you sober.

the pauses in your sentences punctuated with full stops; the silence never short enough for a quick comma; the words dissolving into ellipses; faltering dashes mid-sentence, breaks—

in phrases. swallow syllables like air, the letters lingering like confused punctuations in your throat as your mind bubbles into exclamation marks that can never translate themselves into proper dictation; fumbling over conjunctions, too weak to mend two clauses too independent of each other; they fumble over one another; garbled pronunciation spill into the silence; fillers of umms and errs.

your throat dries; your gumption surrenders; too many syllables are lodged between your teeth.

so you give in, down that beer.

[soap008]

chalice

my chest is a chalice; its mouth open to anyone who would pour into it, it bears weight like fingers clasped together, never tight enough to hold unto anything for too long; but it tries; sometimes, too hard; soon spilling like rivers through corners and cracks, invisible to the eye; its girth too small for comfort, too narrow for the amount of sorrows it handles; it splits clean in the middle, creasing in a curved pattern; from up close, the liquid escapes like tears; from afar, the crack splits like a smile.

[soap008]

Fifteen minutes into the craving, your finger twitches. three miles away and an hour late, sixteen days apart. you’ve started counting with each pint. swearing that the next will be the last. but it never lasts. the hour spills over into the next. doing six shots won’t make the counting any faster.

or easier.

waiting is a fool’s errand. so you down one more.

the night has just begun.

[soap008]

the case of all the people i love(d)

All stories start with heartbreak.

Some start with a hailstorm of loss. Others - the more unfortunate ones - come in the slow steady pace of a heartbeat, pumping the blood out of itself in its every attempt to live. Sometimes, it comes in the middle of the night, triggered by an endless buzzing of messages that aren’t for you and aren’t from you. It starts with idling thoughts of curiosity, the reach of a curious hand, the throbbing of an anticipatory heart. You assure yourself that this is nothing.

The screen highlights your face as the blood escapes from it. You feel the heat build in your chest, a sudden tightening, a sudden need to burst. Your fingers tremble and your lips quiver. You want to say something. But you don’t. No voice escapes from your clenched throat.

In the darkness, sitting warm besides a body you’ve known so well, as swift as the sudden attack on your ribcage, a wave of calm settles. A sense of disengagement not unlike the way a goldfish looks at humans through a layer of transparent glass and chlorinated water. Your possessions are magnified: the canvass bag with a picture of a cat on the couch, a couple of your books on the coffee table, your hairpins all over the dresser, you spectacles beside the bed, your clothes on the floor.

You take them one by one, as quietly as a thief at night. In the mirror, hidden within the shadows, you dress yourself. Unreveal every part that you’ve made vulnerable, layer upon layer. It surprises you how little your face changes, only the paleness lingering, the trembling of your lips barely noticeable.

You tiptoe. You slide. You pull the door open and you leave.

Outside the building, the windows remain dark. It’s as if you’ve barely been there. Perhaps, after all this time, you haven’t, not really. A shiver runs down your arms. You blame the cold night air. You give it one last look, then turn your back.

Sometimes, loss begins with a step. And then another. Each footprint a memory left on the earth, perhaps for the better. It begins with leaving and not leaving a trace. It begins with forgetting. It begins with not looking back.

from my wordpress/prose blog: http://wp.me/p2IjUo-4g

[soap008]

nobody gets out of this alive

Debauchery is a three-day ritual. chilled and lighted. mixed with bitters. on the rocks. an arm’s length away from the nearest ashtray. from the next big dependence. another mistake waiting to happen. your secondary heartbreaks. intermediary cravings. rebound temptations towards oblivion. skidded skin. colliding flesh with bruised bones underneath. and a hangover no amount of aspirin could ever

fix.

nobody can fix this. let’s be honest.

living is a symptom of existence. wrapped in the cosmic improbability of carbon rings and oxygen. the spaces in between jarring. supplementing emptiness with ethanol, Netflix, cigarette sticks, and the feeling that one day this was going to stop

hurting.

it wouldn’t. let’s be honest.

for a mote of dust, we suspend ourselves in this little sunbeam with too many broken windows nailed shut. every door boarded up. the wooden planks ready at our desks. the hammers tucked underneath our beds. all exit signs have been shut off. we escape knowing there’s no escape. pick the splinters from our fingers and hold unto them like the keys to our empty chests as we say,

we’re alright with this.

we aren’t. let’s be honest.

there’s a manifesto to drinking too much. the first shot is demanded for the necessary appropriation of all your awkward humanness into a social construct acceptable for public viewing. the third is anxiety drilling a hole at the back of your throat. the fifth is the hyper-awareness of not wanting to be here. the seventh is for walls no sobriety could ever break. the ninth is for pure pleasure. the tenth–

well, that’s for pain.

there’s a painkiller for everything. even living.

this is our knee-jerk reaction. our conditioned response. a function two million years in the making. fostering a fully formed generation force-feeding themselves with memes and three-minute YouTube videos meant to stroke formative years of self- indulgent self-destruction. learning to practice in the mirror to tell ourselves this is an accident. we are an accident.

this our car-crash lives. colliding with the realization that we are never safe enough to tell ourselves

we could be happy.

and i’m not going to be the one to say that it’s going to be alright. that this beautiful world, in all its madness, would somehow reverse the destiny from which we were brought in: blood-stained and crying. our tears are justified; our nihilism aptly fueled. this reality is a cynic’s paradise and we are adam and eve. there is not enough white lies in this world to make you believe that things will be just fine.

it won’t. let’s be honest.

but this place is the only planet in this galaxy with bacon. and sushi. and the insane amount of chocolates fit for a lifetime of diabetes. (and of course, alcohol. don’t forget alcohol.)

we build lego houses with with our egos piled brick upon broken brick. fashioned prisons into our very own fortresses. isolated and safe. this is our cave of solitude and that’s the point of it, isn’t it. that we’re safe. that we’d rather siphon the air between our bodies and form vacuums than fold our arms into the splinters of another.

and I’m not saying that merely rearranging the stars in our own solar system would fix all of this. if ever. but we are giving pain all the credit for all our living. not enough weight on the strength of our legs to step out of the boundaries we’ve made to keep safe from everyone else. that the reality of the matter is that we’re merely cosmic dust and hot air. that if at the end of it all, it doesn’t really matter

then why do we have to be so miserable

(if the express purpose of humankind was not sadness, then we are doing a very bad job at it.)

in the words of a pubescent teen eating breakfast every morning twenty yards away from his own rotting corpse i repeat

nobody exists on purpose nobody belongs anywhere everybody’s gonna die

for better or for worse nobody’s getting out of here

alive.

so won’t you break that wall. take my splintered hand into yours. and come watch TV.