all the places you don't belong

the brooklyn bridge has always 

been good to me.
i heard a woman calling for her son.

Boast not against the branches. 
But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, 
but the root thee.
the cathedrals were all empty;
only shadows, only echoes remained
yet the woman kept calling
calling out her son's name

s a y o n a r a

the word 'goodbye', when you look at it closely, seems like a perfectly harmless word. No sharp edges or harsh sounds - they're all soft consonants - Guh- duh- buh- simple, rudimentary utterances - the innocent cooings of an infant, before a betrayal of cruel R- sounds, sharp T- sounds and harsh S- sounds crowd them out. Examine the vowels. An extra O so you aren't surprised by the D, giving you extra time to prepare yourself, to pat your pockets and clear your throat before the final syllable hits. And then the ending sound, which is of course important, as it is the part that lasts the longest, the final impression, the part that's left echoing in the caverns of your heart as the train departs, as the image fades, as the car pulls away. The 'ah' sound unlocks your jaw and the 'ee' wrestles it into the skeleton of a smile, your mouth compelled to play along in a show of grim joviality. Indeed, everything about this word seems to have been designed to let you down gently.

I don't think there's any one correct way of saying goodbye, but I do think that there are an almost infinite number of ways to screw one up. The word is sometimes shortened to 'bye' in an attempt to hasten the affair, like ripping off a band aid quickly or cauterising an open wound, but this seems to accomplish nothing - apart from introducing a sense of curt abruptness to the ordeal. Some have suspended their use of the word entirely, opting for more pleasant alternatives; 'see you,' 'cya,' 'laters', 'ttyl,' only resorting to the word when all other valedictory remarks have been exhausted. However, there are certain unfortunate occasions where no other word can take its place, where the sting is undeniable, the terrible salt and bite.

It's not the pronunciation or spelling that makes it hard to say. it's not the word itself that's hard to hear - it's what it stands for, what it represents. It's not the taste that's hard to stomach - it's knowing what you've killed to make it. No point sugarcoating a pill if its contents are poison. It is not the sound that is troubling, but the deafening silence that follows.

perfect blue

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.” 

---

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.

homeless man falls in love

time to grow up, i guess

誰の姫

this is no time to be dreaming

---

I awoke to the sound of muffled voices from another room, and for a second had no idea where I was. I was utterly lost in time and space. I imagined myself 13 years old again in my childhood bedroom, a million miles away, parents sleeping soundly in the next room, but then where were the voices coming from? Memory kicked in and told me: 'no, that was the past. This was somewhere else.' So where? Was I in the bedroom of my 6th floor apartment, which sprouted like a weed amid the numerous other nearly identical high-rise apartments in a highly developed and still rapidly developing area of prime real estate, down the road from two international schools and an office building cum apartment complex cum shopping mall where a mass of cars would convene everyday and cause a comforting roar of smoke and congestion. But no, that couldn't be it. I had left that behind as well. So then perhaps I had spent the night in my temporary student accommodation, paid for by the university for the duration of my clinical placement. A small but cosy shared flat about a 5 minute walk away from the district hospital. Functional, furbished and terribly well kept - it resembled my halls of residence during my first year at university, minus the camaraderie and fire alarms. But no. The bed was wrong, the air was off. I had to be somewhere else. Finally, my mind returned to my body, stumbling back into the present, which for me was the top floor of a 3 bedroom privately owned student let accommodation. I come back every weekend and recognise it less and less. Having solved the mystery of my current location, I was now ready to open my eyes. Upon doing so, I was simultaneously reassured and disappointed by the cheap reality of my surroundings, drab and dreary, half furbished and full of emptiness. The cold gray light that streamed in through the paper-thin curtains failed to encourage, aroused no delight, promised no warmth. The burning in my throat had subsided and the aching in my head had left. Surveying the lifeless milieu of my room, it seemed only to make me tired again. Just when I get used to this place, it's time to leave. I looked at the clock. 11am. Dylan wouldn't be coming until after 3. There was still time. I set my alarm for 12, pulled the covers over my head and went back to sleep.