the post that never was

it is
one of those mornings when you wake up, and
everything is empty, the frenetic whirl of the past two weeks
hollow
clutchings onto what was temporary, coming to an end
restless epicurean ramblings talking to those who forget
tomorrow and another tomorrow without that which lasts
without that sense of security born of being first somewhere
everyone is in denial
why not i?
always a foot wrong somewhere
always falling before the start
perhaps one day there will be a morning
of waking, and a remembering smile.

quarantine: le soir deuxieme

12.39, say the white figures on the lower right-hand side of the screen. i haven’t been awake and alone with my thoughts for...years, it seems. how it brings me back to those late nights at my desk in front of the open window. clear cold air outside. the moon stalking her solitary way through the dark grey jagged clouds. glasgow of my heart all around. mika’s falsetto keeping the night’s high still fresh. most often drops of damp on my lashes and hair. mirror me staring back at her outside self. which of us is the most real, i wonder; that girl with the slightly smudged eye make-up and pale skin, i don’t feel the way a girl like that should feel at all.

emerald green wool coat and black scarf tossed carelessly on the bed. earrings in a disco jumble on bedside table and the soft lamplight to cast forgiving shadows over them all. were you happier then than you are now, or was it just a hurried riot of snatched emotion, everything to be tasted and left in a few quick months because you always had the end in mind.

so you confuse me all the time, but perhaps there is no reason to be confused, perhaps again i am the victim of my own illusions. i seem to have been standing on the brink of life for years, shivering on the edge. but i want to fall off this cliff. i just need someone to hold my hand.

there was so much potential in our first meeting. where has it all gone, that flame barely kindled, flickering on the beach where we watched the sun go down together. did you come to the same conclusion as i did, that there could be nothing lasting in this, that our beliefs and convictions were too strong to be reconciled. or were you just…not interested enough. or not at all. that doubt haunts me.

and thoughts of you are always with me, i say your name quietly to myself in crowded rooms, in bustling passageways, alone in the dark spaces of the night, and strangely, embarrassingly, it is a comfort. a guilty pleasure, and also a self-deluding one.

but would you have wanted to be my friend if i had been less than what i am? the selves we are now were attracted to each other for the intrinsic value of each. i trust your ability to discriminate, if not mine. and if i knew for sure that you had valued me, appreciated my worth, i might be able to move on.

think well of me. remember me, as i am now, and remember the time we had together. that island summer will always be ours, and i. don’t think i will walk those beaches again.

there will be today to pass, and then tomorrow for nostalgia and the distant sound of bagpipes, and the feel of familiar streets beneath my feet. it was the beginning of summer sun and smirr in the air, daisies starring the green and all this imprinted upon innocence, to last a lifetime.

i have ideals, and I will always be a prisoner of my dreams, in thrall to what may never be.

i will never fit in because i know too well the difference between right and wrong.

the tan lines are fading into september, and the sharp salt taste of east coast wind on your lips is just a memory.

am i just that random beach holiday girl?

you were different, you know, and je ne peut pas tu oublie.

discontinuity

so it has been over a year, and so much has happened. the 5th of june was walking around nursing heartache and wanting to cry silent hopeless tears in the arms of someone who knew glasgow and loved it with me. and i am too tired to pretend that being alone didn't hurt. i wonder if i will ever find my way home. still i dream of walking those streets again and looking up at walter scott's column and city hall silhouetted against the moon. and pansies in their baskets twining their frivolous selves around the prim black lamp posts. and, and ... i can't bear to say more. voices, footsteps, the faded hopes and happinesses of a bygone time haunt those paths for me.

now enforcement and forced inactivity. it's always siesta time here it seems. i brought snow to read but the white noise in the background of fellow prps gets into my head. this place is full of exploration potential i think. trees trees everywhere and there is an ikan bakar man down the road. imagine curling up on the spiky malaysian grass, in bright baju kurung with a book under the extended arms of an ancient rain tree . and the leaves would whisper their secrets to me. lovers must have met here, don't you think, in long-past kl days. before the ministry and before enforcement. or even perhaps after. and roasting fish smoke drifting down the road to tantalise.

in the afternoon, it is all quiet and slight malay men walk the corridors, quick-smiling if you do, and it is like so many other places you have seen before. inch square floor to wall mottled tiles on the stairs greyish green with age and dark wood railings and carpets peeling off at the sides and that musty smell you get in air-conditioned offices where the windows are never opened. the aircond doesn't work too well. there is the faint sweet smell of cigarette smoke from dafi's shirt and on the table shiny tabbed copies of the poisons act lie. we are in a maze of white board partitions behind which lie the dens of the u41s.

june was my summer. but i can't write about that, not yet. still too fresh in my mind, still too bittersweet and i am swept away all over again.