Spongebob: What do you usually do when I’m gone?
Patrick: Wait for you to come back.

When they found your body
Giant X’s on your eyes
With your half of the ransom
You bought some sweet, sweet, sweet
Sweet sunflowers
And gave them to the night
Underneath the star of David
A hundred years behind behind my eyes
And with my half of the ransom
I bought some sweet, sweet, sweet
Sweet sunflowers
And gave them to the night

Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet sunflowers
And gave them to the nighf

I’ll say I love you,
which will lead, of course,
to disappointment,
but those words unsaid
poison every next moment.
—

What reckless young lives we lead, careless in our summer clothes and telling people you’re 14 just so you can get into a bouncy castle that’s for kids under 12. It is this very mindlessness you’ve been waiting for all these months, and now you sit patiently for all the things you said will happen after the exams just as you have sat patiently for the abyss that is after the exams.

In school it was always easy. After prelims things will be different, after the As I will put aside all this history and lit and econs and the laboratory in my heart will open like Glasnost and the walls of cold formality will crumble like Berlin. But now what? What happens when you realise Santa isn’t coming this Christmas, and the New Year is merely a numerical symbol? Will you please be there for me. I struggled with the last sentence for awhile. It would grammatically end in a question mark but this is not an open question. When articulated, it should come out more as a plea.

Once more, with feeling.

Prom + post prom >>

Write me a letter,
Or drop me a line,
Just let me know that your still doing fine,
There was a time,
When I always knew,
Now I;m just guessing and dreaming of you.

I know that it had not been,
All that it could be,
But now that you’re gone it’s just the wine and me.

Pick up the phone,
The numbers not changed,
The feelings the same as when you laid by my side,
This was the place,
Where you let me love you first,
We danced to Van Morrison and shut out the world.
—

Sometimes songs creep into you so melodically and warmly, getting going like the flight of kite or the falling of the mercury in a thermometer, just letting the words sweetly swim through the currents, bumping and riding as they can, making a dreamy blend of a sky full of stars and a frightening walk through the dark. I’ve not had a good acoustic sad song in months, and this finally cuts it. Free download here.

This was the place,
Where you let me love you first,

delayed, cos wordpress won’t publish this yesterday.

There are so many parts of Frightened Rabbit that we hear, aching to see a bare thigh or shin and getting so involved with the thought that it starts to feel real and you understand completely when they sing, “I need human heat.” It’s exactly the way you feel most nights. Not many people could deny that, nor would they want to.
—

Now what? In the interim that calls out for you to get a job everything seems to move in stasis. The clock follows another time zone altogether and the nights merge into sweaty encounters under strobe lights or snuggled under the duvet with episodes of CSI you’ve starved yourself from this last two months.

After prom my class cycled 34km from East Coast to Changi and back instead of Supperclub, and I’m off to Helipad in an hour. The time it takes for my class to upload photos it’s more likely that our ruling party will change (heh). I’ve still got LNAT to take, confirm my internship with M S Subra TT, next year’s debate training curriculum to plan and RI’s history syllabus to read up. But at least, I’ve hardly any obligations to fill this December, or what’s left of it.

I need human heat.

It’s the night, I can be who you like
And I’ll quietly leave before it gets light

Something physically hurts inside me, I’m just not quite sure what.

Once upon a mid-day sunny, while I savored Nuts ‘N Honey,
With my Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 gal, 128 fl. oz., I swore
As I went on with my lapping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at the icebox door.
‘Bad condensor, that,’ I muttered, ‘vibrating the icebox door -
Only this, and nothing more.’

Not to sound like a complainer, but, in an inept half-gainer,
I provoked my bowl to tip and spill its contents on the floor.
Stupefied, I came to muddle over that increasing puddle,
Burgeoning deluge of that which I at present do adore -
Snowy Tuscan wholesomeness exclusively produced offshore -
Purg’ed here for evermore.

And the pool so white and silky, filled me with a sense of milky
Ardor of the type fantastic of a loss not known before,
So that now, to still the throbbing of my heart, while gently sobbing,
I retreated, heading straightway for the tempting icebox door -
Heedless of that pitter-patter tapping at the icebox door -
I resolved to have some more.

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
‘This,’ said I, ‘requires an extra dram of milk, my favorite pour.’
To the icebox I aspired, motivated to admire
How its avocado pigment complemented my decor.
Then I grasped its woodgrain handle – here I opened wide the door; -
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams of Tuscans I had known before
But the light inside was broken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only words there spoken were my whispered words, ‘No more!’
Coke and beer, some ketchup I set eyes on, and an apple core -
Merely this and nothing more.

Back toward the table turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
‘Surely,’ said I, ’surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -
‘Tis the wind and nothing more!’

From the window came a stirring, then, with an incessant purring,
Inside stepped a kitten; mannerlessly did she me ignore.
Not the least obeisance made she; not a minute stopped or stayed she;
But, with mien of lord or lady, withdrew to my dining floor -
Pounced upon the pool of Tuscan spreading o’er my dining floor -
Licked, and lapped, and supped some more.

Then this tiny cat beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grand enthusiasm of the countenance she wore,
Toward the mess she showed no pity, ’til I said, ‘Well, hello, kitty!’
Sought she me with pretty eyes that seemed to open some rapport.
So I pleaded, ‘Tell me, tell me what it is that you implore!’
Quoth the kitten, ‘Get some more.’

From here. Lit Paper 4 soon and I haven’t done any studying. LAST PAPER.

Don’t say you didn’t see this coming, Jason.

Don’t say you didn’t realize this would be my reaction
and that you never intended for me to get all worked up,
because if that were true, then you are dumber
than Lenny from Mice and Men, blinder than Oedipus
and Tierus put together and can feel less
than a Dalton Trumbo character.

You put the Dick in Dickens and the Boo in kowski
and are more Coward-ly then Noël.

But you don’t understand any of these references,
Do you, Jason? Because you ‘don’t read’.
You are a geology major and you once told me
That, ‘Scientists don’t read popular literature,
Cristin, we have more important things to do’.

Well, fuck you.

Be glad you don’t read, Jason,
because maybe you won’t understand this
as I scream it to you on your front lawn,
on Christmas Day, brandishing three hypodermic needles,
a ginsu knife and a letter of permission
from Bret Easton Ellis.

Jason, you are more absurd than Ionesco.
You are more abstract than Joyce,
more inconsistent than Agatha Christie
and more Satanic than Rushdie’s verses.

I can’t believe I used to want to Sappho you, Jason.
I used to want to Pablo Neruda you,
to Anais Nin And Henry Miller you. I used to want
to be O for you, to blow for you in ways
that even Odysseus’ sails couldn’t handle.
But self-imposed illiteracy isn’t a turn-on.

You used to make fun of me being a writer,
saying ‘Scientists cure diseases,
what do writers do?’

But of course, you wouldn’t understand, Jason.
I mean, have you ever gotten an inner thirsting
for Zora Neale Hurston?
Or heard angels herald for you
to read F Scott Fitzgerald?
Have you ever had a beat attack for Jack Kerouac?
The only Morrison you know is Jim, and you think
you’re the noble one?

Go Plath yourself.

Your heart is so dark, that even Joseph Conrad
couldn’t see it, and it is so buried under bullshit
that even Poe’s cops couldn’t hear it.

Your mind is as empty as the libraries in Fahrenheit 451.
Your mind is as empty as Silas Marner’s coffers.
Your mind is as empty as Huckleberry Finn’s wallet.

And some people might say that this poem
is just a pretentious exercise
in seeing how many literary references
I can come up with.

And some people might complain that this poem is,
at its core, shallow, expressing the same emotion again,
and again, and again. (I mean, there are only so many times
you can articulate your contempt for Jason,
before people get bored.)

But you know what, Jason? Those people would be wrong.

Because this is not the poem I am writing to express
my hatred for you.

This poem is the poem I am writing because we aren’t speaking,
and it is making my heart hurt so bad, it is all I
can do just to get up off the floor sometimes.

And this is the poem I am writing instead of writing
the ‘I miss having breakfast with you’ poem, instead of
writing the ‘Let’s walk dogs in our old schoolyard
again’ poem.

Instead of the ‘How are you doing?’ poem, the ‘I miss you’ poem,
the ‘I wish I was making fun of how much you like Garth
Brooks while sitting in front of your parents’ house
in your jeep’ poem, instead of the ‘Holidays are coming around
and you know what that means: SUICIDE!’ poem.

I am writing this so that I can stop wanting to write
the ‘I could fall in love with you again so quickly
if only you would say one more word to me’ poem.

But I am tired of loving you, Jason
cause you don’t love me right.

And if some pretentious-ass poem can stop me
From thinking about the way your laugh sounds,
about the way your skin feels in the rain,
about how I would rather be miserable with you,
then happy with anyone else in the world.

If some pretentious-ass poem can do all that?
Then I am gone with the wind, I am on the road,
I have flown over the fucking cuckoo’s nest,
I am gone, I am gone, I am gone.

I am.

Your name
a proper noun,
a charm.
Three consonants that
ends on a long vowel with my mouth
when words cannot be articulated and I muster,
at best, an exclamation.
Aspirated in the morning,
a fricative by noon- but always iambic.
Falling.
Paean to biblical heroes who brought you your name,
your name is your name
and anadiplosis can never
make it mine.

One of Pixar’s best!