Jaan has been trying to cross the road for some time now. The other side looks like roses and beckons her with promises of a happy life that she will get to share with more people like herself. 

One candle lit for your beautiful spirit.
Another for the faith we have put in you.
One more in the hope that you will not disappoint us.
Last to complete the row.

I was writing you a love ballad
But then
Four sets of hands (or were there five?)
Grabbed me by the throat
Shouting for their share

Adulthood

Walking down the street, she doesn’t realise that she has a hint of mustard on her cheek. Or that pieces of her hair are attempting to kiss the sky this morning. 

Love is large and looming and these are matters of little importance.

Back in her single room flat, when love breathes in her neck and slides in her mouth, her eyes dart to the crack on the wall.

And she is reminded that the (now) insignificant will seep, ooze and dribble hot on her cheek instead, unless she pays attention to it. 

The sea is silent
To hear my sighs,
A few gasps,
And a rising disappointment. 

This Post Is Not About Me

"A kong-an is like a finger pointing at the moon. If you are attached to the finger, you don’t understand the direction, so you cannot see the moon. If you are not attached to any kong-an, then you will understand the direction. The direction is the complete don’t-know mind.
[…]
You must keep only don’t-know, always and everywhere. Then you will soon get enlightenment. But be very careful not to want enlightenment. Only keep don’t-know mind. Your situation, your condition, your opinions — throw them all away."

Though I'm not sure I interpreted it the right way, these words struck a chord with me. Especially now as I notice that most of my sentences are centered around "I". Everything around me is about me. 

I also wind up writing a lot about my limitations, which in turn brings limitations to my writing. Constant self-analysis causes paralysis.

One of the best things about fiction is that it can be made from scratch. I've never used the power to make something on my own - the freedom is as unnerving as it is inviting. Time to begin.

Dare

In her dream she is dragging a chair into the corner of a park with bald patches of green. This is just the kind of ground she used to play on while growing up. She finds a spot for the chair and picks up a stick to draw a circle around her. She is stark naked and the dark, wild cloud on her head stands against her pale, exposed breasts which don't seem to weigh her down like most days. She sits on the chair with legs spread. She senses some shuffling around her but it is too dark to see anything. She waits with baited breath. This is how it should be.

Spirit has decided to take flight early in the morning. (This is her first time)
The night before, she calls up Body and Mind and discusses her plan at length
They bring in Doubt for consultation
So she packs all necessary items including a jet-pack
For one must always look at the possibility of failure
Then preens her feathers for a couple of hours
And mumbles prayers till dawn cracks
She wakes up late next morning
Spirit has now decided to put the plan away for next day.


Spirit takes flight. She flies. 

I have said it before and I’ll say it again, growing up sucks. Most grownups complicate things. And my insistence on simplicity is mistaken for denial, or worse, innocence. Every few days someone announces that I lower my expectations from life. Balls to you, I say. 

"Be careful, you are not in Wonderland. I've heard the strange madness long growing in your soul. But you are fortunate in your ignorance, in your isolation. You who have suffered, find where love hides. Give, share, lose - lest we die unbloomed."

-Kill Your Darlings

Notes From the Art Gallery

What I see

 Mind

Canvas looks ripped in places. These gashes open up to show a lot of life. The other parts are barren looking. Amputated limbs are strewn in places. A mad goat with shades on and a boner sits somewhere in the middle.

Trip

A face. Road-like tongue leads to the inside of the mouth. Some liquid laid out in front of him that looks inviting. Tongue points at it. Earrings are wheels, so we must be on a journey. I see a brain too, which has a body of its own. A red and yellow eye on the top is encased in a triangle. There are many colours. The artist must be on an inside journey. Still there are shadows of people lingering about him, for who is ever really alone?

 Cardboard Box

Man is bringing a box to a group of people. The box contains a group of people. He is carrying stories. He may be the town gossip. Another painting by the same artist shows a room that opens to a crowd outside. People outside the room look like they’re doing the same things as people inside the room. I don't see the point of rooms.

 A Rain of Blows  

3D artwork in a case with threads of blue and green hues. Gets more attention than its neighbours. Everyone’s flocking around it so it must be special.

Vermilion

The most expensive one is of a temple priest. Life size. Eyes alive. He looks like a frighteningly powerful man. Inspires hate.

Moonlight

Painted pieces of shit. I’m not kidding. These really look like four pieces of shit laid out in the moonlight. I’m beginning to feel some artists here can get away with anything. They need only put a lovely title. Better still, call it ‘Untitled’

Untitled

First Hussain painting I ever saw. Could I tell if it was his work by just looking at it? No. Do I like it? Kinda. He is fearless with his colours.

Place of Worship

But I only see chaos. Parents will appreciate this one I suppose. They love nothing more than a big temple and everything that comes with it. I like this better than Hussain’s.

Sinners Divine

Newly wedded couple that looks high. I found my favorite.

Other notes:

• Red Hibiscus flower = Vajayjay
• Is there a time when an artist has not been completely honest with his painting? Can I see it if I look very closely? Can I see something the artist himself didn’t see?
• The most exceptional paintings are either unbelievably life-like or ridiculously simple. Or both.

You Talk in Quotes

I hate your quotes. I hate them because you throw them in conversations to back your frail argument. I hate them because you use them as a statement to put an end to all statements and then, smugly, fall back to stretch in your chair.

I hate them because you haven’t read the book, you haven’t seen the movie and you don’t know the context. You haven't even been listening. You don’t remember what came before the quote and what came after.

And now you’re crowing again on social media late at night like a drugged man on Santa Cruz station flashing what remains of him.

There's a young man sitting on a park bench, reading a newspaper. Or at least that is what it looks like to people who pass him by. When you sit next to him you note that he steals quick glances at you from the corner of his eye as he fidgets with the ring on his pinkie.  With each round the ring takes, the paper he is reading slides down a little bit from his fingers.

Jaan takes notice of things like these.

There's an old man who has come to sit in the ladies' compartment of the train this afternoon. He sounds worn out so the women haven't harassed him yet. She cannot see him, only hear him for the train is full. She hears his low laments about life and it's dirty game. She plugs one earphone back in as he grunts about his children and grandchildren. Paying too much could make her tear up.

Women's derrieres make way and introduce her, at once, to his face which has two slits for eyes. Blind and clad in a hand-me-down Opeth T-shirt, he is wiping some of his nose goop on the glass next to his seat. She wonder if his tale has welled him up like it has had her and if it is even possible for tears to escape the lids that look like they're glued together. He gets up shakily and feels his way to the exit door of the now half-empty metro. He nearly falls but one girl with a brown satchel flies from her seat to help him. 

There is a world of difference between that girl. She does something about what she sees while Jaan only take notice things like these.

At the table next to mine, mother and son are sitting together and chatting over warm drinks. It's not polite to overhear conversations like this still they're sitting right here and I can't help it. The child must be around twelve years old and has a Richard Harris like wise look about him. He is discussing his day with his mother with such serious intent, you can see how she could have slipped him a secret or two to him, the kind she would have told her girlfriends, had she still been in touch with them.

He speaks, with certain ease, about how he was unable to sleep the previous night so he got up and decided to get himself a glass of water. He spends a few extra seconds describing how cold the water was and how much he enjoyed drinking it and she is listening, both her hands cupping her chin, amused as though he were talking of his plans of flying to the moon.

I hope that when I have one of my own kids, I can have a relationship like this with them.

"I was watching this episode of House of Cards in which Kevin Spacey was fucking a journalist."

"I'm not really a journalist anymore."

Here are flowers in place of all my gruesome parts I cannot show you.

I look at lost art on walls
And see that
It is made of all the things
That make me

When your job requires you to smile at strangers all day, you go back home and be mean to the people you love.

Though I hardly know you, I think I can tell. These are the reasons I think that we’re ill

Have you seen The Piano? I think I am obsessed with the idea of drowning. Septimus Warren Smith dreamed of drowning too, a few days before he took the plunge out of the window. I suppose once you give up the struggle it would be as easy as crossing a bridge. He’s an explorer, like Darwin, the champion of humans. He simply passes through a green mist. He’s tossed onto the shore, where he lies for the whole world - the battered soldier of death.

In turn I let my head fall in a tub of water for I want to feel what he felt. He’s able to describe his dreams to Lucrezia. She loves him but she’s horrified. Even more so because he isn't when he should be. His naked eye is looking at the emptiness she cannot see. She cannot understand the madman’s ludicrous fancy, that Violet could for Virginia.

I want to be able to have that knack, you know. For saying the right thing. To save him from drowning. I want him to put his head on my knee, so that I can stroke it and kiss it. But for that I must save myself first. 

About the Boss

Sometimes when he talks, I think he gets so turned on by the brilliance of his idea that he goes home and jacks off to it.

I’ve never been so intimately involved with myself before. It feels like I am slowly strangling me. I count to ten, sometimes twenty, and then let go, coming up for big gulps of air. Then start the cycle again. I am Ouroboros. Self destructive, self nourishing. Better to do this to myself than to some poor fellow, no?