B.A.R.C.E.L.O.N.A.

Barcelona, I miss you right now.

if i die young, bury me in satin

i don't want to die young. i want to live, long, and keep learning. I realised on my one month holiday in europe that the world is huge out there, and everywhere is so different. i want to go everywhere and do everything and just, live and breathe and be amazed. my life is so precious, and what i feel inside matters. i matter. when the light shines on me, i wont shy away. i wont waste my time away anymore. i want to read, and watch, do and speak and just, learn. you know? that yearning. to feel everything i can, because i know i can. to absorb everything around me and to make a difference where i can.

in barcelona i watched a flamenco show and i was amazed at the energy and the showmanship. in girona i watched a seagull systematically attack another seagull. it was a prolonged attack that we watched in silent wonder. the seagull eventually got away although there were times i thought it was definitely a goner and that the other seagull was determined to kill it. i dont understand what i watched at all, but i feel lucky to have seen it. in paris i met a man who had the painfully brilliant eyes, and who kept trying to strike up a conversation with others. he is also crippled, and muslim. i dont understand why he wants to keep talking to strangers. his friend with a kind smile helped me with my curl up my laptop charger. in rome everyone looked at me with suspicion while in london a guy told me "alright, i'll trust you. you look trustworthy."

these are the events i rmb most on my travels. what's the point i'm trying to make in recounting them? i dont rightly know myself. is there value in these events? there is certainly value to me, which is perhaps why im writing them down, in case i forget. other people write down itineraries. which places to visit, where to get the best bargains.

i feel like singapore is just not enough for me anymore. i want to go, i have to. in three years time i'll go again, on my own. on my own this time just to see whether it will be any different, whether i'll feel any different.

Memories become shrines. Altars I visit to mourn, worship and remember. Well-preserved, adorned with black and white photos. Some are visited more often than others, some have more photos, some are older and dustier, with cobwebs strewn across, but if it's a shrine, you will always remember the photos and the lives that lie there. It's always silent at these shrines. The quietness turns to feelings, and feelings turn to thought. But what is dead is dead. No amount of silent reflecting will return them to me.

Everyone forgets that there is so much sadness and inequality in this world. Some people live in luxury, with more than they know what to do with, and it is inevitable that they waste it. Some people don't have enough money to buy their next meal or have parents who can't afford to pay their school fees, and barely enough to buy school books and uniforms. They live in countries where the government don't pay enough to attract good teachers, or provide good jobs and housing and clean water you can drink out of the tap, or to keep the streets and air clean so you can have a healthy living environment. We are given different abilities to learn and work, some just learn slower than others, or cannot learn at all. Some people are born without four limbs or lose them in an accident.

Everything I have comes from God. My intelligence, my abiilty to learn, my adequate and healthy body, the family I was born into, with parents that make me never have to worry about money or love. Sometimes all I need to do is remember to give thanks, and give to others whenever I can, whatever I can.

she's waiting like an iceberg, waiting to change

I want to be a paragon of
1. Virtue
2. Thrift
3. Diligence
4. Meticulousness
5. Self-reliance
6. Adaptability and courage
7. Stability
8. Perseverence
9. Patience

Catch a Body | Ilse Bendorf

"Catch a Body"
Ilse Bendorf

Salinger, I’m sorry, but “Don’t ever tell
anybody anything” is a string of words
I would like to wrap up in canvas and sink
to the bottom of the Hudson, or extract
by laser from the ribcage of all of us
who ever believed it, who felt afraid
to miss someone, to be the last one
standing. “Tell everyone everything” is
not exactly right, but I do believe that if
your mother looks radiant in violet
you should tell her, or when a juvenile
sparrow thrashes its wings in dustpiles
and reminds you of a lover’s eyelashes,
you should say so. We are islands all of us,
but we are also boats, our secrets flares,
pyrotechnic devices by which we signal
there’s someone in here we’re still alive!
So maybe it’s, “don’t be afraid.” We can
rewrite Icarus, flame-resistant feathers,
wax that won’t melt, I mean it, I’ll draw up
a prototype right now, that burning ball
of orange won’t stop us, it’ll be everything
we dream the morning after, even if we fall
into the sea—we are boats, remember?
We are pirates. We move in nautical miles.
Each other’s anchors, each other’s buoys,
the rocket’s red, already the world entire.

Does wanting someone have to go hand in hand with liking them?




I really don't think so.