The words that whisper

Here I am again old friends
Whispering to myself and at my wits ends
Surrounded again by familiar faces
Of the numbness and hurt there are no traces

Here I am again
Looking for solace from the pain
A thousand ideas floating and floating
Whispering to me and begging writing

Here I am again alone
Feeling pieces of me slowly turn to stone
The words all slowly whisper to me
And I'm no longer conscious you see

Here I am again and nothing matters
And only to the inner voice I cater
No other thought resounds and I am free
As I go on my writing spree

Here I am ... jus a bit later
reading what I put to paper
So this is where its like to be a writer
I hate it... I hate being alone here

Decorating the christmas tree

Slemo challenged me to write this piece a while back... just that I hadn't been able to find the time... I still don't have the time... but I need to do something desperately to take my mind off things for a little while...

There was the scent of ash and brine stone that not so subtly lingered. The heat from the the room was intense and almost suffocating. It was so bright in the room that it seemed to glow bright red.

Then the lights went out.

He sighed. 'Power outage,' he thought to himself. 'Right on time too.' But he didn't need light to see what he was doing. It was an age old routine for him. Decorating his Christmas tree. He reached for the box at the floor and continued.

Christmas. What a wonderful time of the year.

Couples reunited over the holidays. Holding hands while walking down streets lit up with Christmas decorations. Kissing each other under the mistletoe. Making passionate love under the starlight. People randomly hooking up in the spirit of Christmas.

He placed the first of his decorations on the tree.

The food. Yes. How can one forget the food! Always plenty to eat! Turkey, mash potato, mac and cheese... The list of food just goes on and on. Banquets, tables filled to the brim with foods that tease and pleasure the palate endlessly. You could just eat and eat and then some more.

The second of the decorations went on the tree.

Sleeping in on Christmas morning. Lazing around; a comfort of doing something so obscenely simple; yet is denied to us on working days. Lying in bed daydreaming. Just doing nothing at all.

Smiling to himself, he placed the third decoration.

The shopping! Oh! The shopping! Every woman's dreams come true! Huge discounts! Malls opened till late. Buying things that you don't exactly need but get anyway because well... its Christmas. A small splurge won't hurt. We'll just tighten our belts later on. Okay, maybe a little bigger than a small splurge. But its all in the spirit of Christmas.

He rolled his eyes and placed the fourth decoration on the tree.

Then comes the showing off. My gift to my wife cost me 12,000 pounds. I bought my girlfriend a brand new diamond ring for Christmas. Ego masturbation via expensive gifts for your loved ones and the best part? Showing it off to everyone who can see it.

Smirking, he added the fifth decoration.

The poor people. Looking through windows at fancy restaurants where people feasted. Waiting in the cold desperately for any kind of hand out. Picking scraps from the rubbish bins. Their hearts full of bitterness and jealousy towards those who had everything they wanted and more for Christmas.

Yes. Yes. This is more like it. The sixth decoration took its place.

Traffic jams. Overcrowding. Hatred. Blinding hatred. Alcoholism. Robberies. Car accidents. People screaming their pain out for all their lacking during Christmas. People furious at themselves for not being able to get what they wanted for Christmas. Not being able to afford to. Angry at themselves for spending Christmas alone because they have no one else. Bitterness.

The final decoration took its place at the tree.

At that second, the lights came back on. The screams of the damned returned to the room. The heat burned a thousand times hotter than it has been a second ago.

'I guess the break's over. Even the damned deserve a small reprieve. Its Christmas after all. '

Lust, gluttony, sloth, greed, pride, envy and anger.

My seven favorite decorations for Christmas.

'You gotta love Christmas,' and what was once the most beautiful face in the world, lit up.

'Awesome for business.'

One of My favorite poems

DULCE ET DECORUM EST₁

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas!⁷ Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Compare it with this poem:

Charge of the Light Brigade

1.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

2.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

3.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

4.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

5.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

6.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

Like many things in life, the media glorifies things that shouldn't be glorified. War. Beauty. Living life in the fast lane. And yes; even love.

Look past the cliches. Look past the poster pictures of how things should be. Look at how they ACTUALLY are. Don't forget they are trying to sell you an image, a life style, and ideal. Their versions are basically version that are beyond your reach. They make you want something that you can't attain. They make you dream a little too hard. Put a little bit too much of yourself into it.

Then things crumble around you, when you realise... it was an impossible dream after all.

Confidence restored

Last night was a pretty scary thing for me... Since the debacle at S&S Malaysia last year.. I've not been very confident about my work at all... in terms of writing scripts and plays... yea... I know most of you said it wasn't the scripts fault... but I still feel that if it was a strong enough script it would have pulled through poor actors and a bad director... So I felt the blame was partly mine... if not mostly mine...

My latest script had pretty mixed reactions when I showed it to my friends. I guess the biggest thing to me was that old man and bro didn't like it. Cliched jokes. Cliched writing. And those were among the nicer things my old man and bro said about it!

Imagine how nervous I was when I was about to let a bunch of strangers at LiveShox read it out and then comment on it. People you've never met before, they don't have to pretend to like it. They don't have to mince words.

Wow. This sucks.

Wow. This is the worse crap I've ever read.

Wow. You what a waste of ten minutes of my life.

Yes. My imagination ran wild at the negative comments I would get for the script. Yes. I'm an eternal pessimist! Act surprised at that statement please! ACT LA!!!! =)

When it was almost my turn for my script to be read, I could feel my hands get clammy and sweaty. My stomach felt like it was going to twist itself out of my insides into my outsides! Thats when I text licia.... and she said everything would be ok... that it was a good script and I was worrying too much... I felt a little better... but still nervous as hell....

It was like a wine to my ears... hearing them laugh at the jokes I thought people would think were sick... or lame.... it was music to my ears when people who had a copy of the script were laughing before the readers read the lines... It was close to a multiple orgasm when they expressed shock at the twist at the end... and laughed all the harder....

Looking at the smiles around me... I found myself looking for the one smile.... that mattered most to me... which wasn't there.... and that tainted the moment for me... I wish you were there to watch my rebirth licia... to see my confidence about my writing go throught the ashes and burn brightly again...

Either way... I don't feel so useless anymore =)

To baby Jenhong ... love uncle bince

little feet and a little smile
how beautiful is our first born child
we promise to care for you
and as parents always be true
from small things to big things
from a toy ball to your own personal swing
we promise to provide for you
and more importantly to always love you too

V day~*

Not quite how I imagined how I would be spending it...

not gonna go into details... but jus wanna say thx to a few people who were of big help!

Eunice ~* thanks for all the help with the color scheme and finding little little pictures!
YY ~* thanks for helping me figure out how to move the boxes and finding the template!
B ~* thanks for fixing my script for the repeat for the gradient background
Ming Ming ~* for suggesting the gradient background idea

most of all.. I would like to thank:

GOOGLE!

w/o which nothing would have been possible = =;