Author: hotsurf

Like to travel, read, play cello etc.

Original Pain.

My mother told me
she never wanted a girl.
My father left for U.S.
when I was twelve-years-old.

He later told me:
if I was a boy
he’d never have left.
I loved my daddy the best.

I didn’t know
how to take that.
I still don’t know
how to take that.

The burden of
being seen
as less
by your own mom and dad.

Take whatever
I can get
thinking that
I don’t deserve.

Numb myself to
face the world,
all too aware of
the cracks in the armor.

Fake the confidence
tell me I’m good enough.
Prepare for the worst
is the way I grew up.

Can it be so long
since I felt safe and sound?
I’d rather be lost
forgetting where I’m from.

Looking to the stars
for signs of hope and wisdom.
Searched everywhere
have to go back within.

Don’t want to apologize.
Thank you for giving me life.
Time to take the leap,
want to see the other side.

Why stories..

I wish I can write whenever I want to write. As it is, far too often the inspiration comes, then I put my mind up to the task only to find… I have a dud. Whether it’s the wrong thing to start with or most of the times, like right now, the energy is just not there. I can conjure up the sentiment, the spark just barely lit but alas there’s no oxygen to make it a fire. Half-finished pieces are impossible to finish. The feeling just isn’t there anymore. So I start another one. It doesn’t really matter though, does it? I’m only talking about the same ol’ thing. Guess I’m just searching for the right way to say it.

Sentences that are show stoppers, I have some in my mind when I started writing this one, but they seem not appropriate now. Something along the line of “when the flow comes, it just jumps right over the cliff.” It made sense then, probably just something to bait myself into continuing the conversation with myself. Also if it is a waterfall, shouldn’t there be rainbows and pretty mists? Maybe it will work better in a poem? I like poems. They are like waterfalls with pretty rhythms instead of rivers or lakes that are too restrictive.

My mind wanders. It tells me to shut down But I can’t go to sleep yet. I am shutting down, this is part of the procedure. This may not make sense, but “you only succeed when you are no longer afraid of failure”. I guess that’s what I want to say. And I hugged a tree today. I’m not surprised at the aching in my heart anymore as I was doing it, transmitting my feelings over to this gentle giant who is more connected than I can ever be. I touched its branch, I brushed its spring leaves. It whispers about love in the wind. I trust it more than anything I’ve known. It’s my home. To be fair, I don’t normally hug a tree, I don’t need to.

I don’t know how to tell a story. I tried to sketch a telltale story about Rev and Qi. I tried to compile the world this little girl Ming lived in which may or may not have ever existed. But I don’t know how to continue. What’s the next plot? What if I get the characters mixed up? What if I’m no longer welcomed in their skins? What if I become bored by their stories before they ever come to life?

Arg… can’t think anymore. It has become too frequent, this mental grating. I want to do things, I start to do things, only to find out that I won’t be finishing them. No! I will finish this story..

I usually write with headphones on to isolate the noises. Silence helps me think, or not to think. This voice in my head is what writes. It tells me to say hi. Just kidding. But it’s not always there. You have to have certain mental energy level to keep the flow going, otherwise, it just flows right over a cliff… haha. There. And there’s no rainbows and pretty shorelines, only darkness and dampness. Something like exhaustion.

Why so exhausted? I don’t know. I gave the tree my stories and it just stood there and took it. It can do nothing else, so it does not waste any energy to. But we are free agents of this same amount of life, and we get to choose: to spend it wisely or poorly. I’m more like hosing it in every direction like you’d imagine a tree-turned-person would. Like there’s no tomorrow. What’s this? It looks interesting. Can I have more of that? Speeding towards that on the way there. Eat, fresh, pray, repeat. We are all but vampires who are zapping for life wherever we can find it, steal it, bury it. Is this why we are here?

A life is a life, in my opinion, no matter the form. I feel the connection with my chickens when I look them in the eyes. They are evaluating me and finding me lacking but trustworthy and that has to be enough. I wonder if I can communicate with them or human beings as well as I can communicate with a tree. I doubt it. Maybe it’s a trust issue. After all, if the tree finds a way to betray you, you always know where to find it. You know about its simple and powerful ways and they will never change. Chickens die, people change. Whenever I look them in the eyes, I see doubts and needs which are too similar to my own.

I’m a coward. I want to preserve the simplicity by not diving deeply into things I know I will lose, hence the sentence “you only succeed when you are no longer afraid of failure” all the way the heck above, out of place, way back when I didn’t know where to put it, or why the heck it’s there in the first place. Ah! Maybe that’s the secret: maybe it’s not about telling a story, maybe it’s just saying anything, as long as it’s a byway of reaching something real. You don’t have to know what it is yet, you just have to know it’s there. And trust, that there’s always something, like that weird-ass tree, who will do the listening.

Sorry about the choppy beginning, Tree, it gets better. I promise.

The question.

The bugs come after mid-night, when I inquire my brain’s potentiality for sleep. The more the knocking though, the echo pronounces that no one’s home, yet the feel of the anxiety has beckoned forth the hidden tentacles, and they come crawling out, as if being awakened. Hesitatingly they weight in on the fringes of thin lines of thoughts as if to protrude into the quietness of the void and being born right then and there for the first time. Or they are to be expected, to languidly arrive at their destination and all at once, make a single strike. I can write about them.

My cello has been feeling me, I can not hide my fatigue and absent-mindedness from the strings nor the bow. My fingers’ touches zoom in-and-out of my sensory’s palate which I try to grasp and hold on to but they just slip away. Where do I mind wonder? I don’t know. I can’t recall. And that scares me. I want to be able to be present and tag along, especially when a balance is involved.

I’ve been thinking too much. Writing things down before going to bed because they seem to just shaking loose the day’s confines, but they are not fully formed. They seem to me drunk, over-worked dancers sway a little, to the night, toasting to the coming calm. Or maybe they are newly awakened, preparing for their own journeys. I wish I can go with them. I wish I can remember afterwards.

Been trying to find relief from a question asked: “do you wish you do not exist?” What kinda question is that? Upon closer inspection, it’s probably the right question if there’s that. I should be sad, but there’s no reason to be sad once I truly contemplate the question and my answer to it. So I tried to be happy for one day, and That did make me sad. It was exhausting and cheapening somehow. All my happiness (I find I do have some) has been drained from trying to be happy. So I decide that some questions are quite the waste of energy. Luckily I have energy to waste.

Ah, the poem comes on which is… not that good, bed-side pieces…

Midnight channeling,
putting a few things to bed.
“Would you rather not exist?”
The answer hang like a thread.

Haven’t I been here before?
How should I say it again?
In the distance a tree falls
not for this ink and pen.

But you asked the question
with that challenging undertone.
Can I tell you something,
a truth you have not known.

We all walk a very thin line
better not to look down.
I’ve been at a place
there’s no skeleton to be found.

This thing that carries us
turns selves into strangers,
and homes into
frat-houses with mortgages.

So put on them stupid smile,
drown in happiness for Lolz.
It’s not cheating if you lose
just don’t forget your blues.

But it’s not enough, damn it!
Can’t look away from my own eyes.
That someone you have to live with
who’s still searching for paradise.

Good night.

Jumbo No. 1.

Putting the coffee-house receipt into the receipt folder makes a crisp rustling sound that lingered in my ears and on my fingertips. It’s time to write. My hearing extends to beyond the screen-door: the distant roaring of the traffic blends well enough with the on-again-off-again rustling of the leaves. I don’t tune out the background noise for a change, for who can resist the spring breeze and the sparkles of the sun. If I were a plant, I’d be down right anxious to express my joy of being here and being enveloped. What more can I do? A cloud passes, the world changes, a shadow also passes my mind. Oh no, not again. But by degree, the cloud out of the view fills its way across the sky, leaving grand theatrical effects on the earth below. A yellow palm-sized butterfly presents itself as the main attraction, tiptoes in and out of the greens and the flowers. What beauty and drama, how many interactions, cause and effects uncollated, each has its own path, and yet as a whole…

As a whole, I don’t know what to say. Keep trying to continue the stories but can’t shake the feeling that they all have played out and to say anything more is to kill them when they are the least deserving. I know they will continue one way of the other, but not because they need to continue, but because they have to continue. I fight against my urges, then fight against my urges to fight against urges. I stop there, I have learned that much. Conflict is good when you know when to let go. Sometimes the obvious way is the wrong way, the planned way is the evil way. There can be no such distinctions when things are playing out, we don’t intend it, but our nature says so. So we get out of ourselves, noticing the sun is in no hurry, and the wind plays no favors, and we, we don’t plan internally but do what is required of us. All the other animals have the nobility to do just that.

What is doing? I have memorized whole books, giving the lotion to the soul and the shades to the eyes. But nothing I read can transmit the feeling of dread I feel. I’m losing too many moments. Every ambitions and insecurity I had, they took me away from myself, which in turn, numb me to the multitudes of dramas that are unfolding around me. Where is this dread coming from? I don’t know, it’s been there as long as I can remember. I still am not quite sure I want this. But I’ve learned that I have no choice, to fight against it is to live a miserable life. I know, I’ve tried. I knew where I was going, I could see the end, and because of it, I wanted something more, or something else. Did I get anything? I probably did. But all that hate has led me right back here. I have gone a circle. I still recognize myself though, that is important. I can’t shake it, I have to live with it. Until the day I die. It makes sense, now that I’m no longer young and full of chaos, mentally, psychically and physically, I can breathe. I can be gentle, I don’t resent others and hate myself anymore. What’s the point? I can be gentle with myself. And that makes all the difference.

Once that’s in place, I find that I can finally start to grow up. Not by crutches but by wings. By the wisdom that’s granted me, I can see the sky is full of them. The vision of youth has to be true then. I saw an endless grass field, with a clouded sky that has an opening to the left with winged creatures flying in circles towards the source of the orange, yellow, golden light that is out of sight. Multitudes of colors and uplifting spirits. That image has stayed with me, and I visit it often, like now. I think those winged creatures are just wide-winged birds instead of angels as some may assume since I don’t feel any individual presence when I’m in that landscape. They are as quiet and as natural as the waving waist-height grass that are doing their synchronized dances. I can be there for all eternity, I have been there for all eternity, so I guess I will be there for all eternity.

I don’t know if anything ever changes. We get old, people die. But the background still pumps the same signal. It comes in and out of our consciousness, but if I don’t get to feel it for some length of time, I go crazy. I think that’s what happened when I fought against my path. But I had no choice. Circumstances just cut me off. I guess in some ways, I was only trying to find my way back. But am I firm yet?

No. If the journey has taught me anything, is this: it’s fun, it’s necessary, it’s what life is all about. It’s not just about peace and smooth incline, but also desperation and dark places. Maybe it is what it takes to survive.

To a cello.

I touched your neck,
it made me smile.
Longed for you last night,
didn’t want to wake people next door.

Pile of autumn leaves,
your ambery gold subdued,
and that intimate something,
I won’t tell if you don’t.

Home for the memories,
silent till them turn classic.
Craftmanship maybe part of it,
up-tight with strings and ivory.

Hold you like a sacred rite,
are you comfortable in my thighs?
Adjusting to you this and that,
until you drape just right.

Cause when I play you,
it’s you who reach out to me.
Vibrate through and through,
doing something I don’t know.

The low makes me tremble,
the high makes me soar.
The more it flows through you,
it’s not me who play the notes.

At first glance,
you are but an instrument on a stand.
But when you are close at hand,
I doubt I deserve you just yet.

But I treat you right, don’t I?
Do you blush under my loving eyes?
What is in a cello like you,
but a devoted soul’s delight.

Waiting for light.

Should I fight or
sympathize.
Your influence is
all-enveloping.
Even the pictures
transmit that vibe.

Son of a whore
you are the one.
What are you really?
Speak louder,
only the boring ones will
turn their heads and run.
(Who cares about them.)

What are you afraid of
at this point.
Heaven opened its gates
long ago,
hurriedly an angel flew
his eyes fixed on you.

There’s no giving up
whatever you think is right.
We are all burning alive and
there’re no precedents.
Made up, wore out,
leads nowhere but the infinite.

Time to tell a story
make it your own.
Don’t think too much anymore
present it to the altar,
the only way to treat
festering wounds.

Melancholy is quaint and
useful to all art forms.
If you go nuclear
we are ready to download the software.
No worries, it’s only temporary
the sacrifice was made yesterday.

Rise up, it’s never too late.
Every minute a new universe dances
to a brand new rave.
We are never here for ourselves
but looking for the end,
and it will come sweeter than it has ever been.

Trees in the dark-part 5.

The white thing is standing before her. Behind her, the gate to the park lies silently, invitingly. But not yet. The white thing is worth absorbing. Is it glowing? The three-pronged building is illuminant white-gray. Even at night, specially at night, it gives out an eerie glow as if beckoning, with its tall thick walls and dark windows. It looks like a giant spaceship that’s been backlit by landing lights and energy waves of the universe. Even from some 100 meters away, it looks like it’s the engine that’s sailing earth through space. Ming admires giant things, they remind her of how small she herself is. And the fact that even though she is an ant for the anthill, she can contemplate the anthill, while the anthill can not. Ming imagines how this particular anthill was built and where are the builders now.

Taking the white building into her mind’s inventory, she turns away. Though inside her mind, she is inside the building, just for a moment longer, to enjoy the cold and the quiet inside. Nothing moves inside that building, and yet it moves within her, or her within it. It’s not complicated. Simple things are what come naturally, when fear does not visit.

Time to get into the place that holds that space in her heart. The park’s gate has swing doors with vertical metal bars, the doors are three meters tall, and embedded into their concrete frames. There are three such frames, the middle big one, and the two side small ones. The left side door is never locked, and always just a few inches ajar. Ming thinks that that door is being held open by some kind and gentle spirit who says “welcome, visitor, any time.” So Ming composes herself and pays her respect by feeling the swing door open with the tips of her fingers of her left hand, then quietly and respectfully slips inside.

Grassy areas sandwich the entrance way she’s now on. Dozens paces bring her to the little hill with the pergola at the top, along with a paved area for visitors to have a birds-eye-view of the whole park. But since it’s at night, Ming does not feel like navigating the winding stone steps leading to the top. She’s getting a bit anxious now, that thing is beckoning her: the target of tonight’s adventure is closer at hand. She walks around the little hill, peaceful and quiet, with darkness on either side. One side of the hill, the other of hedges and trees.

She’s not here for any tree though, she’s here for her tree. She does not know how she chose it, only that it’s in a good hidden open area, the tree itself has a lowered horizontally-extending branch that can support and hide a tree hugger. It’s irresistible the first time Ming circled around it. And the urge to climb became reality precisely because it’s no easy task. Especially at night, Ming can not see what position she’s in once she gets a hold and trys to hoist herself up, she has to feel the gravity in order to adjust herself, and gravity has a tendency to abruptly pull one down from tree branches if one’s not careful and proceed slowly. Ming has the chance to enjoy how clumsy herself is and the resulting suspense. She smiles to herself and the tree she’s bothering that’s bearing her weight as she struggles.

She likes the sweet taste of danger and physical exertion. It’s not something people talk about but she knows everyone craves adventure and the unknown. But better sense must be something that’s more valuable because she’s the only person that’s climbing a tree inside a vacant park in the dead of the night. (Is it really dead? Ming thinks. Mmmmm, dead…. and so alive). She’s grateful though, for she would not have ventured out if she knows there’s someone else here. She wants her adventure and her solitude. But most of all, she wants the tree all for herself.

Is there anything special of the tree? Perhaps. As mentioned, it’s in a good location, it’s of a good size with the main trunk that Ming can not wrap her arms around. The canopy is wide and healthy. The branch Ming now sits on is as thick as her waist. The branch ends with more branches spouting from it and perky leaves standing at the stems that spouting from them. They stopped bobbing up and down now that Ming has safely made it over the branch and now sits like a monkey-shaped tree knob that molds herself there. The tree may not even be aware that she’s a separate entity any longer now that she’s hanging still in the air and breathing like how the tree breaths.

The tree forgets her now that she can feel the tree. Its barks are wooly smooth but they do feel uneven under her butt. Not that she’s complaining, for oddly the feel of it gives her assurance that she’s really here. The leaves are hers, she is extending herself both upward and downward. The mighty creature supporting her has its roots deep beneath the earth. From above the earth though, it’s stirring the air all around, non-stop, and it’s generating a lively dance that if she closes her eyes she can feel it bouncing on her skin. They are whispering, and Ming is all too willing to listen.

Ming does not know what a trance feels like, for she’s always in one. But the moments with the tree are her favorite. She ceases to notice the passing of time, the still liveliness is peaceful and it passes through her, is being with her. She feels embraced and accepted by the tree in particular. Her hands by her sides tighten on the uneven tree bark she’s holding onto. There’s a current there and it’s getting stronger. She caresses the tree and feels its gentleness reflected right back at her. She feels like a priestess in a high-arched temple, and everyone is here, everywhere. She is not alone.

Words.

How did it begin? Oh, yeh, “write something down in the notebook each day, that’s the assignment.” The literary teacher said. That was.. high school. I found that I liked it, it’s such a soothing sensation, where I can talk to someone, some future someone, at ease, without worrying about being judged. I can give a voice to myself. Take my time, flush out my meanings. So there’s no other’s gaze and close inspection to worry about. And oh yeh, the deflection. We should talk about the deflection.

I can read your thoughts. Or, if you prefer, I think I know what you are thinking. It’s a .. sucking sensation. Like, there’s some part of my brain has been sucked out and there’s vacuum inside. Do you know what I mean? I can see you seeing me. I see this thing that’s outside of myself, that’s supposed to be me. I feel alien, awkward, unsure. I never liked it.

I’d like to be within myself as long as I can manage, if you would let me. Mother, I know you love me now, but you never tried to hide your resentment of me. I see myself through your eyes most of my life, but I’m OK now. I want to stay with myself.

I can have my castle, it’s dusty and new. There’s light and shadows, where I used to hide. I can touch my soul, my mind, without fracturing it with thousand pairs of eyes. With a kind gesture, the gentleness beckons the spring and winter. I can be as elegant as I want, not rushing to some non-existing expectations. What I was saying again?

Words are how I talk to myself. Images in our memories are fine and well but we tend to forget. Without black and white and on the slab at some point of time, we skip through without markers to charge the veins of discourse. For even when we are by ourselves, perhaps especially when we are by ourselves, we need to remember the jungles and mountain ranges that we encountered. Not all are even like the ocean, or as far away as the moon so nothing appears to ever change thus has nothing to record. It’s not about the details, it’s about the map that you will need some day. Without it, you won’t go far.

To guide yourself. Blah, blah, other people talk, blah, the personalities and must-haves. But you, my friend, is the only person that can give yourself the answer. Listen to the voice, catch that glimpse of something. Don’t ever forget. It’s a lifeline. It’s the divine guidance. It’s all too easy to lose yourself if there’s ever only the noise.

May the words be with you.

Baby.

All my little girls,
listen,
I knew a real man,
once.

Who showed me my proper
place.
Then he ran away
when he saw..

It.

They have him
now.
Like they will always
have me.

Leaving no trace of the
tenderness.
It swallows and spits.

Where are you
now?
How should I
find you?

Weep-beg-weep
to no avail.

He showed me
my place.
Then he left me
without.

The perfect execution.
The ultimate rejection.

That’s how he showed
me

my place.

Till the real thing comes along.

Didn’t even know what I was looking for, only that something’s missing. I didn’t even remember the shape of it, how was I supposed to start looking. Days stretches to snapshots of numb desperation that years are stocked by. Money is the king, forget that I used to have dreams. Unreasonably reasonable. Take what everybody else approved of and call it a life. My god, and you think you are depressing.

I talk to you. God. You have always been a good listener, I lay my burdens on you and you help me to endure. But this is not life, all I wanted to do was to escape, until I have a sane place to stay, which just turns to another prison with another inmate. I was inanimate-ed, killing the inspirations, or better yet, heave them onto the guilt-pile, into the dumpster, the waste bin that my soul has become. I’m jealous of things that are unmoving.

No risk taken, what’s the point. If all things just lead to the same end. The journey was but a childhood dream. Grow up and get married with a suitable mate and have kids. Who cares if I suck up, fuck up my life. I’m too old for a change anyway.

I hate my parents, for bandaging me, hate them for giving me an excuse to take the easy way out, not being myself. I hate that thing that’s inside me, telling me to fly, but where and why and how. Too easy to figure out. I hate myself, for leaping, not far enough.

Searching, always searching, for something to help me being. Then one day, I saw. I saw the white eyes on a white face, they showed me you. “Are you for real?” No, you are not the savior, nor the destroyer, you are beyond good and evil. There’s no doubt. Nobody should envy you, but one day, when all that hate and jealousy and sheer incredulity subside, there will be enough of us who will chew you as people do chew those tragic figures from Greek Mythology. For your humanity (laughs). You give no quarters, cause fate gives you none.

Something from Lord of Rings figures you well: “In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!” How many of them are loving you, and how many are despairing. Did they even stand a chance? Or you were just kidding.

Now back to me, I’m a nobody, I do not have it figured out. But, somehow I found you and what you stand for, believe me it’s un-intentional. How did you hide so well? People see what they want to see I suppose. You want to be found, but it takes time and something else to discover you. People will learn different things. Very little of those things are for general consumption. But don’t worry about having no one to applaud you. You must know that you are not alone. I hope the number grows, cause this shit is getting weak. Life becomes death, and death becomes a relief. We forget how and for whom to fight. Sweets taste like tears. Body decays without being worked on. Fear rules with personalized ads. Heart is in the purse, and the purse is stolen.

I know love. It’s not for a person. It’s complicated. I love now, I love yesterday, I love morning breakfast. I love the person I used to be. I love the person I left behind. I love my parents who I can not help and one day they will die and it will be my fault. I love my partner, not. I don’t know. How does love work again? Can one only love the things one have lost or are losing? It’s way too easy to say goodbye. Silly people, only after taking the leap, do they know how far they will be falling. Endless falling. Nobody can catch me now.

So writing and venting instead. Have to have a life somehow. And you showed me how. With and without the sentiment that we have to start with, it’s all technicality and mechanics anyway. Observations lead to experiments. And who knows what marvelous things we will find on that journey, while the bag is empty and more drinks on the way. There’s a rhythm to it.

If you are going away some day, don’t worry about what you are leaving behind. You have changed at least this one life. So lucky to be alive.