cutting onions does not make me cry. wish it did. but coating the chicken strips with batter brings tears...remembering how once i cooked it up for you....years ago...and you said i was a pretty good cook.

you used to praise my cooking. we used to travel on a bus to the province together. i'd always wear a dress with pockets because you would always buy me m&m's at the station. when we'd ride the calesa, i would be so terrified...but you always told me to be brave...i always swallowed my fear. you moulded me to be strong, to be a fighter. not this time....not now..

you raised me up like a boy..using the hammer, taping electrical wires, repairing light switches, i had to be the tough one. but you gave in to a child's whims...gave me not one popeye mask but dozens...made me decide which shoes i wanted...helped me complete a car collection...

rememberings are not easy. i have to stop now...

but you have to hang on... 

you cannot begin to imagine how disastrous yesterday was...even today. it was dark again even before the sun had even had a chance to rise an inch off the horizon.  it is so tedious to try and make everything go well, a balancing act on a thin sheet of water. most times, after a step, the glass cracks...but more than glass creating branching veins...the heart tears, the emotions go berserk and the day is shattered.

what matters to me now is not me. i have learned that life is not about me but the people and things that make me...ME! and when that circle snaps...it can be so destructive...it can be mended but you can see the seam, feel it with eyes closed...giving me a stabbing feeling that i was part of creating that seam, that ugliness.

and so the sun rises and sets...and so life goes on...all these will fade.

alas, all the scars remain.

after the noon's fiery heatwave -

it's raining again. the wind is howling and blowing the leaves off the trees.

this thunderstorm is torturing my tiny garden space...lopping off the purple flowers and  slashing the horses' tail"s tails and the cacti are drowning...and i can only 'tsk...tsk'  through the rivulets of rain...running vertically like crystal curtains on the glass panes.

i love rain...it brings a kind of washed newness to everything...(wish it washes the soul...)

i hate rain...the dampness and the rampage it brings...(mud that makes you mad)

i like laughter...it eases pain. i like mismatched ideas...like spoons and forks that don't match...like lost pairs of socks. it's fun to be fun crazy..not mad crazy.

yes. i like laughter. it stops tears before they fall...it is the only sound louder than  r a i n.

january 2009

another year. another time. another space of an "another life".

last year i was sucked into a whirlpool that spiralled so endlessly. i could not tell where it began or ended...or if it has ended. there was no room to breathe, no millisecond to blink, no time at all to find out what happened.

"like a circle in a spiral...like a wheel within a wheel...never ending nor beginning..." how apt the song. i am in another trap...and there is no time to cry or have i become too numb?

why?

i know i can do this...still walk tall...and find  sunny patches of life in this otherwise dark limbo. like a child i will brave every adventure...that "child" will see me through. 

and though i have said my piece to god...i know he walks beside me still...and comforts me...and lets me be in my times of insanity. and all i ask from him is to understand and keep me strong. (and yes, not to cry...that will break me...)

may the new year still make us dream and wish and hope....and laugh.

like a butterfly                                          
sunning its wings to dry
a vision about to take flight
i have to still my raging heart
it is not for you - these fears...
these slowly creeping emptiness
it is MINE.

i turn aside
when we speak
and laugh...
i have to pause
to catch every moment
knowing it will not come again.

and i will miss you.
and i will ache.
and i will be lonely...
and i will be afraid
what if i forget
more painful still-

what if you do?