The Gilded Pen

	Sign In Sign-Up

My Simple Home
Me
Kenny and Me
Liling and Me
My Community
Memories 1 (till Early 2002)
Memories 2 (2002)
Memories 3 (2002-03)
NYGals Galore
A Mish Mash
The Gilded Pen
A Tribute to My Teachers
Guestbook
Links

The Gilded Pen The Gilded pen... or the Jaded pen? Sometimes I like to write. I often let inspiration take me. And I can't figure where I end up.
	Why do I even begin writing? Writing draws the memories out and you slowly chew on them again, until it is akin to the strawberry puree drenching McDonald's sundaes. People say they think therefore they are. I think therefore I am? No. I think because I am. Hung up, that is. Forgetting the past is as difficult as doing cartwheels. You put in so much effort to balance your weight, and you end up losing balance. I want to forget but I refuse to do so. In retrospect, it sounds rather perverse when I say I enjoy that little skip in my heart as I go past his house. Maybe, just maybe, he will be walking out. Or perhaps, the family car will be there. Or, or... or nothing. Those indescribable pangs that make my heart feel like it is being stretched, prodded and wringed. Feeling those pangs afresh makes me secretly delighted that I am a person with feelings. Yes! I can feel! Yes, I can feel! Like a fool indeed. But that was (and probably still is) his charm. That first time he sat me down across the colourful tacky plastic tables at the bowling alley was the first time I understood magic. His steady eyes, focused on me. Me! Me, the plain June who was really just accustomed to uninterested eye contact with Mr. Wrongs. As I rattled on about myself, he sat there with his eyes twinkling, eyes which were inviting themselves into my innermost world and dancing themselves into my heart. The grin was the sunshine that opened the doors into my life. Until today, his grin never left my memory. Every time I mentally play his image in my mind, the grin seems to travel from my head... to my heart... to my lips... and I smile. At us. And it goes back through the same route it came from, waiting for my next bidding. These eyes did not stop twinkling. Not till I stopped seeing him. That one fateful call. You shouldn't have. You were the gentlest person I had ever known till then. The one I allowed and welcomed into my world. The first time I ever felt like I actually possessed a sixth sense was 12 hours before he called. It was a Friday night. It was the night he had passed out from his military training and made his parents proud and me, afraid. I never encountered that cold voice before. Not when I talked to him softly when he called me once at 2 a.m. telling me he could not sleep. I could not sleep that Friday night. My tears flowed freely that night. I sat on the couch at my best friend's house and started crying softly. I was ripped inside and I teared outside.

	? Did this essay inspire any thoughts in you? Email me at joyeux_26@pacific.net.sg and let me know. :)

	Release A few days ago, I was watching a television show where a kite broke off from its string. It was a cliched scene right out of most movies. Cancer patient takes a piggyback ride on loved one's back, flying a flimsy paper kite. Flimsy paper kite breaks off at opportune time when cancer patient takes her last breath. (It's always a girl who wants to fly the kite, not guys. Guys sit in rocking chairs.) That signified release. For both the kite and the dying character. Release from pain, from struggle, from a lifetime of burden and from being controlled. My question is: What exactly is so sad about this release? For those of you, those of us, who have lost a loved one to an illness, it is sudden, shocking, numbing even to lose a person so dear to us. But if we think about it, we would never know the magnitude of fear, and the magnitude of pain that could be felt. We say, "Bear with it." They feel, "Bone-penetrating, intense painnnnnnn." We think, "Stay with us." They cry out, "Let me go." Do you hear their cries? For selfish reasons, we have selective deafness. We want to know all is fine and dandy, mummy's not dying. But reality screams at us at every corner we turn. My world's upside down. For some reason, I just want to ramble tonight. Release is not such a bad thing after all. Let it go. Get over it. If it becomes too much to bear: He's able, He's able, I know He's able I know He's able to carry me through. He healed the broken hearted and set the captive free... Can you hear my cries? Release. Such a many-splendoured thing. ---------------- Note: This is substandard. But I knew you didn't try to judge me.