a world without images

[yournicknamewassnowflake]

a hierarchy of memories

today I visited you at the columbarium

I debated about doing it

what does paying respects mean?

do I have to be prepared?

can you overthink it or is it just a duty?

I haven’t visited you in a year

but I have spent many days writing about you

talking about you

talking to you to me

it was never very real, our conversations

real by whatever standard I am implying

I got to Sha Tin station

wandered, thought I should maybe go home

but found enough coins to buy

the $35 bunch of flowers

I felt bad I couldn’t buy the more expensive ones, but what do you care?

you might have cared

but I met the bare minimum, I guess

I debated whether to get flowers at all

but thought that was a stupid question so

went up

and guess what I forgot

I forgot where your niche was

I took an instinctual right, and made the mistake there

mosquitos were eating me already

the first bite

led to the next five, six, nine

I wanted to leave

and drown in wet drizzling

defeat

the caretakers saw me

they knew

one asked if I was lost, and told me I could go to the office and check

would she judge me if she knew I was your daughter?

I went to the office and

it was so cold

a tiny makeshift office

those temporary walls

AC on high

my wet shoes dampened their floors

mop aside

the woman asks how I spell your name

I didn’t even try

tried to pronounce it instead

tried to draw the left radical

she took a while to find it, so long I wanted to leave

I told myself not to be embarrassed

so what if I forgot your niche number

it’s been a while

I got there finally

with a map

almost lost my way again

but got there just in time

B-9

604

put the flowers down

sweating, so, much

looked up, saw your tiny smiling portrait and the Beatles quote

below

(I can’t help but laugh wondering if you ever liked the Beatles? funny that we get to choose a quote in your name? Honestly Dad didn’t even know it was a Beatles’ song he just picked it out of a quote book, but his reasons were so genuine…)

I said some words

first out loud and then became unsure if this was appropriate

to do this in a room of other dead faces

and…ashes

I spoke inside my head too

but it felt weird

all of this is weird

I am still scared to talk to you

I admitted that many times in solitude but here

I have to learn how to talk to you, again

I also misremembered your birth year

and the day that you died

so I remember the things I want to remember:

like what we said over silent lunches

what games we played at home,

our many hours spent watching TV together…

yet here I am

still sweating, mosquito bites throbbing

I have forgotten your beginning and end

that sounds too dramatic

dates are

dates

memories are

memories

mundane or celebrated

or mourned

all of these days assemble on a neat little hierarchy in our minds

it seems.

if time didn’t exist

or if I would give it up for just    one     moment

niches wouldn’t be needed

respects might not be paid in this tradition

maybe I would feel you with me

eternally

infinitely

when something is invisible

it is all we can see

I leave and down the steps

a moth lands on me

I laugh and pretend that’s you hugging me goodbye

it’s a false comfort I am allowing myself today

[yournicknamewassnowflake]

originally written may 25th, 2019

today doesn't mean more

than a reminder to remember you

in death

dying

I also find myself forgetting the exact date sometimes

because I remember the day happened

the day after the season 6 finale of LOST

a show we watched together, all the time

some of the time

how quickly I almost made that lie

but not on may 24th, I didn’t want to be at home

I watched it at my best friend’s

not that this matters, because the emotional significance

has lost its weight

instead I use an episode airing as reference

to remember to remember

is there any meaning to the day someone dies?

we seem to give plenty to birthdays

deathdays do not count

we don’t want them to

it’s too hard to think about the dead or dying while living

we mourn for ourselves

but context aside

an excuse to reminisce

that feels like the opposite of the right word

an obligation to grieve

or counter it

so funny that we have dates

so we can remember to feel something we either already forgot

or have been thinking  too much about since

what is the difference between remembering you yesterday

two months ago

47 days ago

23 years from now

or never?

a test to see if I can feel differently

a reminder to see oneself and how one feels about a memory

your death has become all about me

and how I feel about you

how do you feel about that?

do I really care to know?

is it okay that I don’t?

[yournicknamewassnowflake]

攝影

catching shadows

catching time

as it slips

into

gone

see, you tricked yourself again

what you see is static

a frame of a moment unlived

but you see and believe it

yes! that’s it, that was the moment

the moment happened before you

but you weren’t looking

the camera did that for you

but do you trust it?

the shadow we want to hold onto

is like the fabric of time

like air that moves

not the wind

the wind is driven by something

time is a self perpetuating clock

you the self

perpetuates that clock

that you live hoping

that you won’t die

do I know all this when I click the shutter?

the split-second click

that never quite gets it

I know I miss it each time

I know this

I’ve gotten too good at missing

and convincing myself that it was worth it

there’s something about knowing that

I miss and pretend

and go on to do it again

why else would we be able to imagine

and dream?

if we’re going to pretend that there’s a clock

maybe we can trick ourselves, again

stare at its face

dare the hands to keep on going

don’t stop taking photos

[yournicknamewassnowflake]

a mother’s gaze (edited a year later)

I found you when I wasn’t looking

Dad sent me the tapes

out of instinct

chance

he either knew

or just felt like it was time

I was ready to finally watch them at a time I wanted to feel

It took a while to actually want to feel

sad, angry, guilty about you

for a while I felt ashamed that I had nothing to say about your death, or to say about my feelings

I doubted my love for you

and your love for me as a result, because you never really said I love you like those western movies

but I was silly

I found love almost immediately

as soon as I met your gaze

in seeing my eyes

through yours

that intimate hold you had

of the camcorder

following me

staying with me

you were there this whole time

and I smirked at you because I knew that

I knew that so well

I miss you, I think I do, I thought I did

sometimes I do but honestly most of the time I don’t

I spend a great deal of time thinking about myself actually

And with that profound feeling of presence

of you there with your camera

I wanted to look into your gaze

and discover how you see the world

I look at you

looking at yourself

and can feel your presence

so fully in that one instant

and it’s gone

I replay it

over and over again

that’s you, holding your camera

capturing

loving

feeling

and I can’t even return that gaze onto you

but enough about what I cannot do in your absence

absence is presence

presence is absence

I can imagine what I lost

but what I can gain back

I cannot possess you

I can only hold you as an image

that can be replayed

paused

rewinded

resumed as though things could be restored

at the press of play

remembered again as blurry pixels

but that’s just silly

…

or maybe it’s not

maybe I’m doing what any daughter who has lost a mother

would do

I am allowed this

I can keep digging for clues, and leave new crumbs for later

retrace your steps that are now too cold to be visible

but

to what end? someone might ask

I ask

you might ask:

to tell myself at least I tried

to get to know you

in the most unobservable way

there can be no hard proof

that I tried to love you

is this my punishment?

to refresh the images

to reinterpret

to forget and forget again

to lose only to continue losing

when will all my memories become celluloid?

[yournicknamewassnowflake]

to know her is to love her

is inscribed on your niche

I asked Dad where he got it from

he picked it from a quote book

I did a quick google search

it’s a quote from a Beatles cover 

not sure if you ever listened to the Beatles

not that it matters

it’s still a beautiful string of words

but it haunts me thinking about it

because at this point I think I can say this

I don’t think that I know you

or is it because I don’t know myself

I know what I wish I knew

and that’s why we’re here

writing

each word written about you

𧝁雪花

花姐

雪花

I only called you mommy

because that was all I knew

you were not a woman

a friend

a lover 

a sister

with hopes and dreams

wants and desires

fears and shame

pain

humour

anger

joy

even if I understood all these written words

I didn’t live them

I didn’t know you as they knew you

even if I asked all these people

to remember you and describe you in the past

their vocabulary will have deteriorated as well

time shatters every rope I throw out into the deep

water of memories

my reflection keeps getting in the way

every time I try to recover a part of you

I never had

and I know I don’t need these things

I don’t need to know about your life as a teenager

when you were my age

when you got married

when you got pregnant

I don’t need to

but I’m going to keep asking questions for now

[yournicknamewassnowflake]

the poem that started it all

-- since been translated into cantonese / video poem

who were you?

what did you like doing? what was your life before me? before my ego took over and made your existence revolve around mine before I blamed you for leaving before I feared you I found an old photo where you wore this beautiful black dress I think Dad took it you smiled in this playful way like Dad said something kind of embarrassing and you’re about to blush for some reason I forget that you had emotions and style and hobbies friends your life did not revolve around my needs you existed for nobody but yourself it’s so obvious

your arms are around me in this photo of us at Chamonix the year 2000, apparently I can’t remember how that felt I see what would be seen as love but I don’t feel it Do I miss you? I miss the idea of you or maybe I just feel guilty that I’m not in tears right now seeing you holding me in your arms, smiling What creates this rift? the “trauma”? the loss or just the literal, physical distance because here I am looking at a digitalized image of a moment already lost we’ve reached a new and different kind of space between the intangible memory of you and my recreation of your identity through seeing you on a computer screen can you have an identity when you’re not here anymore? your identity seems to exist in my mind’s eye, but what’s keeping you there except for this fact that you were my mother and that you died other than that I remember only vaguely your face your tone of voice, maybe you were cranky with me you always told me to take showers and I would listen only after the 4th time you asked I always forgot to switch off the lights you lost your temper with me I hated you sometimes but only in the same way most teenagers do it lasts for a few moments I remember making promises to myself that I wouldn’t give in and say sorry first you never did but you would make it up to me somehow these feelings of guilt wash over me now because you’re gone I’m sure I would feel the same if you were here now that I should have appreciated your patience you raising me you devoting your life to me you telling Dad that the proudest thing you ever did was raise me and my sister all of this from one photograph so nostalgia and memory however illusory matter time matters you matter but I still don’t remember your voice and I never really will no matter how many times I look at your face and imagine the words come out of your mouth and even as I watch our home videos and hear your cackling laugh and the way you look at me you will never really be here i will never remember you as you but that’s also assuming we are just this one thing at one given time

but lets take a few steps back why did I take out this photo of you I wanted to feel a connection I wanted to miss you and I do, even if I think it’s not for the right reasons I at least felt that you were real at some point I don’t want to lose you more than just physically I need the intangible, unreal part of you to exist I need the impermanent aspect of life to stay somewhat real even for a brief moment even if it’s just a memory contained on a nostalgic piece of paper when we say we captured a moment, of reality we really capture nothing that moment we describe as once existing can never exist again even as we think of it it will forever be in flux every iteration and reimagination false and that’s not a loss that’s beautiful it’s preserved

what will I gain from remembering if remembering worked will I suddenly feel better about your death? about the fact that we had a relationship that we loved each other that I can finally suffer the loss that I’ve been preparing myself for all these years I waited for the pain and it arrived from time to time but never enough to satisfy my guilt or supposed trauma I suffered but not really maybe it’s coming maybe it’s not what is the use of remembering you? what is the use of articulating this? through words image it’s expression for a specific end that will never be met????? how am i meant to find the subtext to this

I can search for you indefinitely but there is no possibility that I’ll ever find what I’m looking for but I can enjoy the search I can enjoy these feelings of ‘connectedness’, however false or rationalized or intellectualized or romanticized I do know that you existed I know because of the smile on my face when you point the camera at me I don’t need to see you to remember you

I think the reason I’m confused is because what I’m searching for is not necessarily lost I don’t think I ever believed that you never loved me it was fact and that’s the biggest proof you never gave me reason to believe that you left for that reason you left because you were in pain and I’m sorry for not recognizing that before I’m sorry for not considering you as your own person with your own goals desires dreams disappointments happiness sadness anger who fell in love with Dad and got married at 26 had me my sister raised them loved them and watched them grow a little before it was all over

[yournicknamewassnowflake]

absence, presence

I found you when I wasn’t looking Dad sent me the tapes  out of instinct chance he either knew or just felt like it was time I was ready to finally watch them at a time I wanted to feel It took a while to actually want to feel sad, angry, guilty about you for a while I felt ashamed that I had nothing to say about your death, or to say about my feelings I doubted my love for you and your love for me as a result but I was silly I found love almost immediately as soon as I met your gaze in seeing my eyes through yours that intimate hold you had of the camcorder following me staying with me you were there this whole time and I smirked at you because I knew that I knew that so well

I miss you

And with that profound feeling of presence of you there with your camera I wanted to look into your gaze and discover how you see the world I look at you looking at yourself and can feel your presence  so fully in that one instant and it’s gone I replay it  over and over again that’s you, holding your camera capturing loving feeling and I can’t even return that gaze onto you but enough about what I cannot do in your absence absence is presence presence is absence I can imagine what I lost but what I can gain back  I cannot possess you

I can only hold you as an image that can be replayed paused rewinded resumed as though things could be restored recorded again

but that’s just silly