“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look into the reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or our family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.” — Thich Nhat Hanh 

Captured Stars

I)

I once read about fireflies when I was younger in a magazine at a café nearby Victoria Street. Mom was with her friends conveying mundane information about her latest beauty products to her potential customers from another town. I was usually situated at the corner of the shop eating countless pastries by myself. Frankly speaking, I was a fat kid back then until one day, my father decided that enough is enough. Dad was in the army so he treated me like a soldier from the next day onwards. One time, he threw a bucket of ice cold water on me because I was stubborn enough to play dead on the bed. Well, not literally but you get what I mean.

That day I remembered flipping through the pages of the magazine as swiftly as possible to think that I could read faster than anyone in the coffee shop. As I was catching up to the speed of sound, something mesmerizing caught my attention. I stopped at that specific page and took a long glance at a beautiful picture of a lightning bug. One of the passage mentioned that light was radiated by the firefly’s abdomen called the ‘lantern’. I was amazed about how beautiful it was because these tiny little creatures exist like floating lanterns moving around aimlessly in the garden at our backyard.

From that day onwards, I would routinely sneak out from my room past midnight and try to catch them using just a small torchlight and an empty strawberry jam jar. I'll be running around at night with the intention that I was catching stars in the garden. The night used to be like a fairytale dream and I wished that every night will be longer than the mornings we all have everyday. When I was tired of chasing these so called stars, I would sit on the wooden staircase leading up to my dwelling. Subsequently, I would form a circle using all my fingers on my right hand to portray it as the lens of a camera where my right eye could see through the hollow area clearly. My left thumb, positioned as high as my shoulders will then move up and down while the rest of the fingers fold inwards of the palm. The notion was to pretend that I was taking multiple snapshots of the harmless fireflies with an imaginary camera. Till today, I wonder where did it all go. I miss my eyes turning into diamonds when I see fireflies. I miss the nights where it will be so quiet till you could hear the harmonic sound of nature. I miss the sound of the wind howling and hidden species behind the bushes and trees. I miss the fantasy I had visioned when I was younger. Maybe that was it. I went past a different cycle in life.

II)

A good remembrance into the past was all I needed while having a smoke as I sat on the same exact spot on the staircase. Without anyone looking, I tried to snap photograph memories again through my green eyes but the spark within me was long gone. I even did the exact same gestures like I used to when I was much smaller but nothing felt the same anymore. So I went back daydreaming till another set of memories flood through the gates of my present sight. I was suddenly back to the same place but in a different time.

Nights during that period were a little bit chilly because it was already close to winter. I reminisced that the lights around the whole neighbourhood suddenly went out leaving us in total darkness. It was because of a power shortage. The situation had been occurring consistently nowadays due to the poor management of the local council in town. My dad and mom went out to help the homeless people on the streets by giving them warm clothes to sleep in. Once they left, my young brother and I, both lit a cigarette each so that we would be able to occupy sufficient 'oxygen' in our body system. After that, we went to check on Mr. Davidson. He was a 72 year old man who lived by himself in his cottage behind our house. He was a kind and generous man who always gave us vintage cigars imported from Italy when we visited him. He used to always say ‘You boys oughta stop smoking now’. But eventually, a standard small box of 8 cigars would appear in my hands. 

At most, my brother and I would stay approximately 15 minutes talking to him until he starts shooing us away. When we returned to our house, we immediately tried the brown covered aromatic cigars that would replenish my whole body with something extra special. We then will pretend we were fireflies at night and would usually walk in circles or dance in a made-up tribal way in the garden with other fireflies around us under a thick blanket of faded grey clouds. Some times, I wonder whether the fireflies believed that the ignited cigars were one of them because it seems that the glowing orange colour were kind of similar to the lights emitted by them.

III)

It is publicly known that my brother and I were not the talkative kind compared to other siblings in town. We never fought since young and had always showed respect towards each other. There was always a mutual understanding amongst us but mostly people assumed we hated each other. No we do not hate each other. How could you say something like that. I love my brother. I still remember that night visibly because that was the night everything changed. I recalled telling him just one sentence that made him happy and sad at the same time.

‘Tonight, we are gonna be the youngest we’ll ever be....but tomorrow, we grow up okay?’. He couldn't help but cried and nodded his head.

Memories like these burn like hell in me but I still keep it anyway. Once I regained my consciousness, I walked out slowly from the dwelling and promised to never sell the house to anyone.

"Well, let’s say that since you were little, you always dreamed of getting a lion. And you wait, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait but the lion doesn’t come. And along comes a giraffe. You can be alone, or you can be with the giraffe."
“I’d wait for the lion.”
“That’s why I worry about you.” - Beginners, 2010 

"Hush, my sweet. These tornadoes are for you." - Richard Siken 

"Meanwhile in my head I’m undergoing open-heart surgery." - Anne Sexton 

Resolution

When we were young, we always thought that life was simple and equitable just as plucking the yellow petals from a sunflower at a secret garden without permission and getting away with it or playing hide and seek with a companion at a simple maze for hours. What I mean by simple in actuality? Go to school, have some good laughs with your friends, do a bit of your hobbies, maybe study and that's that.

We were blinded by our youth, our childish acts, our false realism of how life should be. Back then, our parents were sacrificing on how they could make ours and theirs meaningful, spiritual, bliss. They had a bag full of weights on their shoulders and the problems were handled consistently and persistently with obvious complaints shown only amongst themselves.

While our acknowledgement of theirs were somewhere else, we took everything for granted and embellish ourselves with selfishness, volatile sentiments and aggressive words. These unimportant foolishness, it can start a forest fire, climate change or civil wars. Well, you may question me and say it is metaphorically untrue that my perception is just because of my awful current state. My answer is Yes and No.

Having that said, yes because I don't think I can do it at all. I worry because I am only human. It is natural to feel fear or anxiety to grow up and welcome what the world has to offer. Maybe it is the after 2am thoughts which are untangling and dwindling my consciousness and self-esteem. I don't know. It is a shaky post. Next, no because it is not the magnificent now that has brought me here. I have been kept silent on my thoughts for far too long but that doesn't mean I don't recycle it in my head. It is on-going. It is a cycle. 

In the end, fairness and comfort are both a lost ghost, nowhere to be found; like coins at the bottom of a marble stone fountain; the unseen true love stuck as a notion but not a feeling; petty thoughts about a political change in Syria that were never said; a baby never born.

One.

You see her for the first time and she’ll walk right past you like you are a crack in the wall and she is a skyscraper with her head so high in the air and when you can’t sleep you’ll think about the way her eyes strayed into yours for a moment too long before breaking away and disappearing into the crowd of people.

Two.

She’ll look both ways before telling you she loves you under her breath and when she hugs you her eyes scan the empty room as if the walls had eyes and ears and mouths that could give you away.

Three.

When she’s curled up on your lap shaking with mismatched breaths you’ll wonder how someone who looked like she carried mountains on her shoulders could crumble so easily in your arms like the tornado in her mind finally hit her and knocked her off her feet.

Four.

In half-light she’ll run her fingers over your arms like she is reading words carved into your skin, binding them together into the perfect metaphor and you’ll hear it playback in your head at 4am when your head runs wild with thoughts of her.

Five.

You’ll find a safe haven on rooftops and abandoned rooms where she’ll set fire to your insides with hushed breaths between kisses planted perfectly on your lips and make you wonder how dangerous it is to play with wild flames while your body is made of paper.

Six.

You’ll stare God right in the eye and tell him that if loving her was a sin then you want no place in heaven with him because the way her lips fit perfectly on your neck is a type of paradise you’ll never forget.

The six stages of falling in love with her. // by rb 

Why do I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention? - Joel Barish, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.