Saturday, January 19, 2008

I can't live without you
Why don't you kill me?
Why can't you take me with you?
I can't sing anymore, no sound
My heart doesn't beat anymore, just scarred and buried not soarin'
I don't walk in the sun no more,
Only in darkness will my footsteps leave bloody prints from that of a wrenching heart, my lover's blood
I can't always just forget you but I can't always remember you either
Your name, your eyes and your voice...sometimes I forget
Why you had to die and why shouldn't I...
As you kind souls would know, I have been fucking up to here with school and I was depressed about it. Thoughts of quitting school has eventually surfaced, bubbling and all like a bad brew. AND I was the least surprised when it did. Funny thing, isn't it? This was the first time that I felt so; that I can't handle it, that I can't pull rabbits out of hats. As the orange cloud loomed overhead and often I waked flustered and guilty, life remains on the orbit. I always knew obligations and responsibilites are fucking truckloads of scary heavy stuff but it is only when they started burying me that I know how heavy life can be, homework-wise anyway.
Let's do the math.
  1. 8 proposals and essays, polytechnic & university (- western australia wine essay)
  2. 4 class tests
  3. 23 short article, 1 done (that is if they like what I do and would continue using me for the next 22)
  4. 100,000 cover letters for the internship program that's due end of January
  5. 4 end-of-year examinations
  6. Liesl Tara Oppenheim
  7. Life

To be complaining about 1 - 5 is like complaining about the color of day and night, why's one's clear and the other's dark...so I won't.

Let's talk about Tara and life then. I've made a tiny discovery today, that I could actually go by a day or rather weeks without thinking about Tara. But if I'm not thinking about her, it is only because I'm so stressed up about writing the 100,000,000,000th business proposal or essay. And I hated that. I mean, on any given day, I would so wanna cut myself up with thinking about Tara than to be so stressed about homework I can't sleep. You know what I mean? And yesterday I had a little downtime and I wanted to kinda revert to my old life and it came right back, like bees to honey. The tears came back, and some of that leftover anger and stuff...I was so happy. That's when I know I'm me again. That's when I know I'm alone too. And it doesn't matter.

Eva, wow, I'm so gonna hand it to her and her oblivion. It's exactly what I wanted though, to avoid an argument. 我从不相信自己会在世界的另一端找到她。更不能相信她所能带给我的一切希望、快乐和痛苦。她曾经让我相信信念的存在, 却也把它残酷地带走。And she told me nothing has changed. I don't know what has gone into me but I guess it's just a defense mechanism, a way to avoid more pain. And I think I am doing the right thing. I can't get close to her no more. I can't put myself out there in the bull's eye. I can't let her in again. I used to believe in her for everything, especially regarding our future. I have never knew how a truthful promise can became air when subjected to different circumstances of a person's will. At the rate I'm taking her promises at face value, the sooner I might go completely insane. Guess I had to learn everything the hard way. What's stupid is how I would go back to her every single time she has hurt me when it always hurts so bad.

Ever since Tara, I have never let anyone else in. I couldn't. And I was right, cause' whenever I do, I get hurt, someone else's get hurt and I hated that. I used to have my life all planned out, but all was lost and dashed when Tara died. And I have been a living corpse ever since, trying to grasp of the direction and meaning in life. I was born alone, and I would die alone too...

I have blood but it's so cold. I have a brain but I can't remember nor forget. I have a pair of eyes but they are only meant to cry. I have a mouth but I speak with doubt. I have a pair of ears but I could only hear slience. I have a good pair of hands but they are only writing words of angst.

<<在人与人来回试探眼神的言语
在爱与不爱等待与放弃的煎熬里。。。
在心与心破撞后开始保护自己
在放与不放沉淀与寂寞日子里。。。>>

Sunday, January 13, 2008

I Wanna See You Twice My Life

"Here I am everyday
Since you said you'd come again
But it's not fair, cause' you're not here
I wait in vain, but nothing has changed
I'm a flower, soaking in the rain
If I could wish one thing, I'd hear you call my name
So when will I see your face again?
When will you touch my life again?
When will I breathe you in again?
I think I Love You...Will I see your face again?
Little things, like the rain coming
She Looked At Me A Certain Kind Of Way
Tell me girl, where are you now?
Cause' I don't know how much longer I can wait
I'm a dreamer waiting for the sun
When you're coming in, I know my life's begun
Tell me girl...
When will I see your face again?
When will you touch my life again?
When will I breathe you in again?
I Think I Love You...Will I see your face again
You know that all my life I've been waiting,
Waiting for some, someone like you to love me
You can't come by like an angel into my life and then fly away"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLZ5P2Ph2-Y


Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night and be looking around, to see if everything was the same as when I've fallen asleep, if my life remains broken and if she remains absent. I don't know how long I've been doing so and how many nights I've laid simply like a frustrated corpse, wide-eyed and rapid breathing.

Right now, I'm standing along a cliff and if I jump, it would probably mark the end of it all. And if I don't, well, nobody has to know.


The semester commenced almost a month ago and I do not like where it is going. There will be a lot of good after everything is over, I'm sure but right now's not that time. I have not felt stress this heavy for a long time. I have absolutely zero idea about what is going on around me. All I'm aware is that I have a lot on my hands; I have a lot of business proposals to write, like 5 essays and 23 little articles to write and within fuckingly pressing deadlines. I have obligations to seemingly everyone. And I don't have time to stop in my track for a bit and to look around, to see what I've lost, to cherish what I've and later gained. I don't even have time to miss her. I don't quite sleep anymore and I am angry about stuff, like lockers and a rather irresponsible character who happens to be my group mate.

A friend told me that one of my greatest weaknesses lies in my inability to say no. That would largely explain why I have 26 more essays to write than anyone else does. Maybe it's just the way it is.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

It's all words meant just so I would keep quiet but never gone

How lovingly patronizing bull shit she has weaved

I couldn't even cry nor speak

I can't say how long I'll stand, how much I'll take

Perhaps I'll wake one fine day and realize, hey, it's all in good game

You would ask how I was doing and I'll lie between my clenched teeth

You would ask if it was all right if you could just put a knife through my heart and you do, everyday

And I'll let you.

Why, I'd ask my demons but they will never tell...

Monday, December 31, 2007

Twenty08 for Real

Dear Quiet World and Beloved Love,
It's 10 to 1am when I started this entry. Everyone's out there having fun, being with the people they love, just coming down from a high of embracing a new year. It's actually twenty08, can anyone like believe that? I mean, I've been here on this Earth, a part of this mortality coil for 22 wicked years. Why do you think that is?

I'm not celebrating or doing any of the countdown thing, obviously, even if I had a television. I'm not like that. I don't like crowds; I specially enjoy the comfort of my chair and sitting in front of the computer burning my eye sockets and brain away, working on some proposals that I have been procrastinating. The only major countdown that I was remotely a part of was for Millenium and that is like what, 8 years ago?

Everything I do, I do alone, so the fun's all burnt out. It's no more life when it's without Tara. I will say that even if you would point a gun at me. I might even actually for a spilt second welcome it. Everyone around me just wants me to move on, to liking guys, to being heterosexual, to getting married and giving birth the right way. I appreciate it, truly but it's not going to happen anytime soon, guys.

Lord J was supposed to be this ever-forgiving sunshine guy, as long as the child showed true repentence for whatever wrongs he/she did and possessed a desire to spread good. My brother and a couple of good friends think I will burn in hell, maybe I'll make that my new year resolution - note to self: stray from hell. Well, if I am going to burn in hell, make it a quick one.

May the Good in This World Spread like Wild Fire...Happy New Year, Kids

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Chef/Chair?

I hate this, this whole getting stuck at a crossroad that is your life and with a whole shitload of baggages, mental and physical and without a fucking clue what to do to move on. I had a 2 weeks holiday from school and I took that opportunity to working in the kitchen at my first hotel, the Four Seasons Hotel, Singapore. Initially I was excitied and anticipative, the way I always seemed to start off by but by the end of the stint, which was officially today at 6pm, I'm left with questions that I do not have any fucking answers for.

I always know how inadequate I am, in terms of competencies, knowledge and skills about the culinary world. I am just playing whatever hands I'm dealt with by J himself. I know that if I wanna get a headstart, now's a good time for I have an endless stretch of road to be embarking on. During one of my Wine and Beverage tutorials, the tutor was shooting questions regarding the previous chapters and with most of us not having the answers for, you could see how despondent he was. And quickly with a rebut that I pretty much just shoot off from my mouth, I told him we'll be armed with whatever vital knowledge by the time we're his age. And as quickly, he found hope and I saw it reflected in his eyes. It's amazing what I can do.

I don't know if I'm on the right track, I don't know if i'm a chef by career and by life. I like to cook, I just don't like being told to cook, the way I don't write for competitions. I am still lacking in my fundamentals and I really need the whole 'practice makes perfect' biblical crap. I am willing to do it, I just need space. I didn't have a good time there at the hotel because I am still so new and well, incompetent. I kept getting into people's way and I can't get myself in the usual rthym for things to naturally happen and progress like I could in school. And that is one of those things that I couldn't get around and it haunts me. I wanted to be happy with what I do so I have to be good. Right now I am not happy nor in any way good. And that's when the thought of quitting culinary and getting into psychology came in majorly. It's almost as if a ram has ran into me and not by accident. I've been thinking about it for days and I am still looking at the cons and not weighing the pros as yet. My school is offering a Diploma in Pyschology and I took the fundamentals of pyschology at the end of my first year and I have loved it like a second nature. I was kinda mad when I realized the school was offering a new dipolma and by some wicked twist of fate, I would have been otherwise eligible and I could be doing what I really like. It's no longer 'I'm doing this because I have to', you know? And the cons weigh heavily on my frail heart.

Taking on a new semester meant retaking every bloody module I've so narrowly passed in my freshman years and I'm not looking forward to doing Economics, Marketing, and Fundamentals of Whatnots again. Right now where I stand, I'm left with until March where I would start my 5 month attachment and then be graduating in 2009. And I would be officially working then. I would then earn whatever I have to pay for my degree course in whatever it would be, or if that doesn't happen, I would working in a restaurant that is privately owned by some risk-taking individual who happened to have some dough to spare. I don't like dealing with corporate politics and degressions in ranks at international hotels or restaurants i've just worked at. If I am cooking, I am only cooking for pleasure, in monetary units and spiritual. And then I'll travel, take off into a new world I know nothing about.

On the other hand, I think I like pyschology and a lot. I'll get all researchy-mode to remember and understand all the theories and hypothesises and such. I'll talk to a person whose life's temporarily or permanently derailed in a chair. I really don't know. I hate to think I'm just feeling these shit because of a temporary setback...that I know I can overcome with time and
practice.

It shook me up badly when people would call me Chef Ashley, because I wouldn't have a clue if they are calling me.

Lots to Get Off Of

"When I was young and knew everything
And she a punk who rarely ever took advice
Now I'm guilt stricken, sobbing with my head on the floor
Stop a baby's breath and a shoe full of rice now
I can't be held responsible
Cause she was touching her face
I won't be held responsible
She fell in love in the first place
For the life of me I cannot remember
What made us think that we were wise and
We'd never compromise
For the life of me I cannot believe
We'd ever die for these sins
We were merely freshmen
My best friend took a week's vacation to forget her
His girl took a week's worth of Valium and slept
Now he's guilt stricken sobbing with his head on the floor
Thinks about her now and how he never really wept he says
We've tried to wash our hands of all of this
We never talk of our lacking relationships
And how we're guilt stricken, sobbing with our heads on the floor
We fell through the ice when we tried not to slip, we'd say"

"因为还是会
窗前站好一会儿
月色明媚所以舍不得睡
不久前她还在我周围
寂寞的气味不去
在空气里头流动
这个房间闹哄哄一些时候
回忆有她多(就)生动
有时候觉得没什么不同
可能从来没忘过
那快乐生活
拥有比遗憾的事件来得多
有时候想放手向现实低头
以后就重新来过
却没有把握
因为还是会
有想她的一股冲动"

I once told a person that things, relationships between people do not break; they are merely changed. Everyone has been through break-ups, boyfriends/girlfriends/partners/group mates etc and some has been through what I would call the ultimate break up, a loved one separated by death and only kept alive through memories. And the two song lyrics kinda symbolized that and how I feel with what I feel and how I could deal with it. And I wish I am writing this with a heart that has felt calm.


I've got tons in my head that I needed to get out from so it is going to be long update. You don't have to read if you don't want to. I know nobody who reads about me.

The world lost Tara when I was like almost 16, now I'm 21. It has been only been 5 years or rather, it has ALREADY been 5 years, whichever way it's up to you to decide and who you ask. I was in my last year in high school obviously and I was a darn bad grader. I couldn't do any of my 9 subjects except for languages which I didn't have to put in effort for. Now I wish I have taken like Japanese or French or Italian then, since it looked like I've a knack for languages or something. Anyway, I couldn't tell you how I even got through those 4 years in school being so horribly inadequate. My self-confidence was at its lowest, and personally I looked nothing short of crap. And I didn't even know the term 'homosexual'. I was that ignorant but somehow happy with odd reasons. Some say their time in high school were their happiest, I can't say I felt the same. It's a never-ending nightmare that is still rearing its head once in a while.

Her name was Liesl Tara Oppenheim and it took me a while to remember and to spell. (I'm glad I finally got it :P) She's, obviously of some quite complicated heritage which I can never imagine and never got figured out but I think it's cool and pleasantly wonderful. Liesl's an Austrian name, that I learnt from watching the musical 'Sound of Music' and I can't decide if Oppenheim's a German last name but it is the name of a German city. But you know what, the name doesn't matter. I called her Tara because nobody knows exactly how to pronounce her other names correctly at first glance and that nobody being me, decided on the easiest one. Her friends called her Lis. The Britons would called her TA-RA while me being more of an American influence called her "TEAR-RA", which I think I loved more. She's born 16 October 1984 in Germany so she would have been 24 by now. She had a older brother with a goatee called so very uncharacteristically Donny which I think was short for Donald. It's so weird and darn comical. Who could live with the name Donald, I know I couldn't. Her mom passed away when she was 17 from brain cancer and life has been shit then on, what with her abusive father and crazy brother and a crazier clan of relatives. Tara was brought up brainwashed by her bastard of a father that all women in the family would be submissive and be at their absolute beck and call and that anything else like education was just plain redundant. And Tara bought the whole work indeed. The girl has got so much talent and good in her that that shit her men would feed her couldn't even dream to be on par.

Anyway, after her mother passed, by the way the only good soul in the entire tree, Tara applied for scholarship to leave Germany, or rather, to leave her family. I couldn't remember the details of the scholarship but it brought her to me or Singapore. She took Greek Art, Literature, Sociology, Psychology, Maths, a whole shitload lessons of English, and I didn't think she could ever succeed in Sciences but she was incredibly naturally talented when it came to remembering names of strange herbs and stuff which always seemed to be in ancient Latin. God knows where she found those information but she did, all right. She had this collection of jars and bottles filled with the most exotic plants and powders and whatnot. And she could never get me to remember their names and what they could do. But they were meant to do good, I don't know.

I would normally just tell people that I met Tara in school and that she's my senior and such because I didn't wanna have to explain the why and how and whatever. That how we met, of course doesn't matter. I can't quite frankly remember and that is my wrong. The part where she and I were still alive is fading away, and I have said umpteen times how frightening that is for me. I don't wanna forget but I can't remember either and it made me feel like a selfish person. If ever comes a day where I would forget about Tara, I would really just die.

There are times where I thought 'ok, she's died, I should move on because that's what normal people do' and many a time I would say to myself 'ok, we've talked this out, you've promised, there is no way you could ever go on without her and you know that in your very core.' I used to be really furious about finding out the why and how, about getting resolutions. Why she died was due simply to human means, which to me is as ironic as it can get but absolutely sense-ful as well. I don't know how to move on without light, without love, without guide, without feeling so much of the warmth of Tara at night. Her voice, the color of her intense blue eyes, her long honey blond hair which she inherited from her mother no doubt and her flawless pale skin and savory lips. I don't know how to deal with it. I am just this stupid. That deadly reliance is still in play today, and it is still hurting me badly, cutting me up like a loaf of bread and while I absolutely adore baguettes. All these years, I still don't know how to shake it away, to find my own direction and light to follow. I must have been born blind.

I can't sleep quite right at night, I stop smiling but I'm always happy for someone else, and I cry a shitload, (I don't anymore) and half the time, I don't know what I'm looking at. I wanted to escape, to break away but I was often just abandoned and left behind once people are done with me. I'm only left out to lick my own bleeding wounds and to find some way to stand and walk again...

I am born gay and would go on to die tattooed and still gay. A week ago, it struck me that I might be getting tattooed because it's a way to deal with insecurities and stuff that is life. It's always great to feel nice about yourself, to feel happy with choices you have made and crazy things you've said. It's not always nice when I don't feel that. I wanted to get tattoos when I was like 12 and way before and after that. I've always been seen with Ash-made masterpieces on my left hand because I'm a right-hander. And I only use this particular Pilot brand black ink pen. I think it's great. Getting tattoos isn't an impulsive thing for me. I believed in the various properties of tattoos as much as I know I'm gay. Tattoos help to deal, to heal, to move on, to remember things/people, to forget some other not so good things/people, an open statement that life can and should be darn well better and that you rock. There are of course people who are drunk and decided on a bad tattoo on a bad night out but I'm not like those people. I would never get myself drunk, much less get a horrible horrible tattoo. Walking on the streets with tattoos made me a walking exhibition and dartboard. People look and stare, people make remarks and ask silly questions just so they could make more remarks and it's so human. I enjoy being lavished with that kind of attention, even if the word seems such a big word, I think most tattooed people do. But sometimes, I'm tired of that kind of awkward attention and I would go out all covered up and just blend in with other non-tattooed people. It's less exhausting that way and since most of the time, I'm by myself on the streets.

Coming back to insecurities, I think having tattooed imbued me with some kind of superiority and that I'm different. And that actually compensated for some degree, my rock-bottom self-confidence. People might diss me for it, some people may think that it's great and whatever it is, I'm special. No one is going to take that away from me.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Perhaps

Been up the entire nightWondering if I would better off without you Just stay here with me, won't you? Lie to me just so I could feel the morning light beaming downStay the night just so I would sleep sound Restless days and nights I've walked aimlesslyTears in my eyes, without lightAnd I'm so tired, to my bones, I'm down on my broken knees, strippedAnd I don't know where else to go, what else to do anymoreStay here with me, darling just so I could breathe and singSpin me a story just so I would dance till the lights go outTake me along a bloody rideI can't be left behind
Maybe there is another life out thereMaybe we were together then and you not deadMaybe I've stopped living my life
It's like I can't breathe, It's like I'm blindI'm addicted to you, to your eyes, to your smile(I'm hooked on you I need a fix I can't take it Just one more hit I promise I can deal with it I'll handle it, quit it Just one more time, then that's it Just a little bit more to get me through this) And I've given up on this lifeWith no glory, with no beliefs
Perhaps another soul like you's out therePerhaps it's meant that I remained so lostPerhaps fate just wannna pull a fast one Perhaps, it wouldn't be so cold
I've been thinking if there is a reason for thisA rhyme to make good senseIf I've done something bad, if I'm never good enoughIf I should just vanish into thin air
Am I supposed to just get over this shit?Am I supposed to just forget and get it out of my head?I am just me...and you made me