126: NaPoWriMo Day 4: Still I Survive

Day 4's prompt, re: Maya Angelou's Still I Rise.
 #pckl #day4 #napowrimo #npwm

---

My emotions twist and turn from troposphere heights to oceanbed lows;
sometimes I ✈ through and over ☁s and between 🌈s
other times I'm ⚓ed and suffocating with nowhere to go.
Barely alive, but still I survive.

My mind is a circus with a one-way admission;
the 🎡 keeps me grounded,  🎢 pumps my adrenaline
but I keep getting lost in 👻 mazes of inhibitions.
Barely alive, but still I survive.

My 💓 is an organ everbeating and overbattered;
keep being insisted that sticks and stones may only break bones but i doubt
there's sense in leaving verbal wounds untended, as blood keeps oozing out.
Barely alive, but still I survive.

My chest is "endowed" which oft-translates to "My D wants your D";
because the chances of being cupped by 👹 on the street
are ridiculously higher than finding a cup with the right fit.
Barely alive, but still I survive.

My legs are my vehicle to escape with an expiring key
they allow me to 🏃 and jump and 💃 and get down and dirty
but Doc said I'll have messed up knees by the time I hit thirty.
Barely alive, but still I survive.

---

Sorry for the late post! I had the idea yesterday but it took a while for the words to materialise in my head.

86: Prey

The old priest, perhaps curious after watching me stare at the church walls for so long, finally tapped on my shoulder and asked warmly, "Time to pray?"

 I flashed him a smile as I slipped my hand into my inner breast pocket,

"Yes father, time to prey."

What is the best horror story you can come up with in two sentences?

80: The real currency?

I was on a plane en route to perform my Umrah last year when I had one of the most profound experiences in my life.

I knew I was supposed to do some last-minute reading on the things I needed to know and do and say when I reached my destination; to prep up for my obligations as a Muslim in one of The holiest sites on earth, but... [*excuse erased*]

Yes, I have read through the small, thick spiralled Umrah guidebook given to me by the week before tourgroup - from cover to cover countless times, in fact - but I feel guilty if I put it down or kept it in my bag.  After much contemplation I decided to wear the string attached to the book around my neck and just let it hang there, resting against my chest, just in case I felt like reading it again later.

I turned to my right talk to Mom, but she had already dozed off. In fact, I was one of the few who wasn't already blissfully in dream land. I wish I could join them, but I couldn't, for some reason.

After checking my watch for the nth time, I began to hear some kids asking the adults around them "Lambat lagi ke?" ("Are we there yet?") like a broken record.

I yawned as my eyes travelled around the cabin, trying to find something or someone to look at, and they finally landed on the entertainment screen at the back of the headrest in front of me. When I saw my reflection in the dark, imageless screen, I subconsciously held onto the umrah guidebook hanging from my neck.

"Maybe just for a while."
... is what I thought to myself.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I switched on the entertainment set. Maybe I just wanted something to do that didn't involve reading while waiting for the stewards and stewardesses to give us our refreshments. That's what I kept telling myself as I was pressing the buttons, hoping to land of something worthwhile.

The music selection wasn't very interesting (I'm not much of a fan of Middle Eastern music), so I browsed through the other things offered. As I scrolled down the movies selection, a guy with a familiar face caught my eye.

The guy was Justin Timberlake, and the movie poster had a white bolded 'IN TIME' written right at the top of the poster. I couldn't help but laugh at how corny the title was.

I mean, seriously.

The movie had already started playing for a few minutes, but I watched it anyway. Out of curiosity, and partly because, well, it's Justin, one of my ultimate celeb crushes as I was growing up.

... and the smile I had plastered on my face disappeared as soon as I started watching the movie.

The story is set in a world where 'time is money'. Literally. Every business transaction uses not bills or notes or even magnetised plastic cards, but time. Time is the mode of currency, no matter where you are in the world.

What does this mean? It means that you pay for anything and everything with the time you have left in your body. The seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, years in your life.

In such a world, those who are rich are those with a long life. They are, in theory, immortal.

Those who are poor are those who have little time left in or for themselves.

Those who are bankrupt are, well, dead.

And all that is well and good and profound and everything, but that's not what the reason why the movie affected me. What affected me throughout the movie was that I couldn't help but think of surah al-Asr.

“By Time! Indeed Man is in Loss.  Except those who have faith and do good works, 

and exhort one another to truth and exhort one another to patience.” (Q.103:1-3)

The surah kept playing again and again and again in my head throughout the movie. It made the story much more intense. It made all the characters' business transactions and conversations and decisions seem questionable. It was frightening.

When the credits started rolling in I realised that my eyes were wet. I kept trying to dry them with the sleeves of my abaya, but they continued to well up again. It just wouldn't stop.

After I took off my headset, I started to contemplate on a lot of things.
In no time, I was drowning in my thoughts, just as my eyes were drowning in my tears.

I thought about my past. My present. My future.

I began to wonder about my career path, about what I had for dinner the last night, about why of all the movies in the world, that was the one I had watched.

I began to think of all those years I wasted idolising a celebrity and memorising his shoe size, favourite pizza topping and his biggest pet peeve. (I'm relieved to say that I've completely forgotten all three -- I have better things to do with my memory).

I began to think of how right before Mom and I left for the airport with this morning, we ended up arguing - godknowswhy, over godknowswhat.

I began to think of what is going to happen to me when the people and things I have around me are no longer there.

What have I been doing all my life? What am I doing right now? What will I do when it all ends?

Justin had always had an 'effect' on me back when I was 13 - his golden curls and cheeky grins always made my heart skip a beat, but now, the only effect he left on me from the movie wasn't his boyish charms.

It was all about the message he was trying to convey, the idea that the story is trying to unfold.

The movie, in a way, carries a truth that many of us tend to forget, or perhaps one that many of us choose to ignore: "We talk of killing time, while time slowly kills us".

74: Moga Bisa

seorang

yang biasa

tapi luar biasa 

kerana bisa

melangkau jauh bila mengadap gaung

melompat tinggi biar di jambatan tali

berazam besar untuk dijadikan realiti

yang bisa

melawan arus di aliran yang deras

tersungkur jatuh terus bangun kembali

meminta maaf sekiranya menyakiti,

yang

mukanya tidak masam

lidahnya tidak menghirisi

tangannya tidak berduri, 

yang bisa

belajar 

dari kebaikan

dan kesilapan

dari kesenangan

dan kesusahan,

yang bisa

menasihat

dan merawati

mengawal

dan memerhati,

berkali kali,

tanpa keluh,

tanpa henti,

dari hadirnya ke bumi,

hingga saat dikebumi. 

ini

manusia

yang aku mahu 

jadi. 

5/3/13 3.42pm

I've been extra careless with my words and actions lately. :(

53: Disabled

Sure, she can't see, but

she can read, hear and feel words
from the Beloved.

We can't understand
God's words with our fingertips,
so who's handicapped?

inspired by a blind girl at a tafseer class i sometimes attend. she was sitting in front of me, and was intently listening to the ustaz explaining about the surah we were learning during the session while running her fingers around a seemingly blank page of a thick book. upon closer look, i realised it was a braille quran. 
i have been blessed with the gift of sight, and i can read quranic words anywhere if i wanted to; what's my excuse not to? :(

47: eargasm

driving mecrazy,
i'mslippin under;

ilove whatyou do

don'tyou know that
you'retoxic?

27/10/12 10.59pm

43; We are all experiments

Eureka!
I now have the solvent I've been waiting for,
the last element to support my hypothesis;
this mysterious concoction has now been dissolved!

Finally
I have found the key compound
which crystalises the fact that
you think of me as
Something
who can withstand your methods
who can be moulded as you wish
who will willingly trickle or ooze or solidify or crack or vaporise
as you determine the variables and set the standards,
as you manipulate the conditions,
as you dictate the process.

It's all crystal clear now, because
the pH of what you said is too low, and
the pH of what you mean is too high.

Since my own test has been proven positive, let's move on to yours:
I have identified a few assumptions of yours that need to be corrected.
(Although I am a mixture of things)
I am not your solution.
(Although I can be filled with substances)
I am not an apparatus.
(Although I do like to make people feel fulfilled)
I don't appreciate being part of a disposable experiment kit.

Objectively,
from one scientist to another:
better luck next time.


19/10/12 9am

"it doesn't matter", he says, "if we don't get to talk to each other that often".
since we are both busy.

31: Still beats

my Heart is so filled
by thoughts of you that i fear
it would Burst: be still!

---

for a certain teacher i kinda had a crush on during camp.

29: Sweet cookie

   this
'chocolate sandwich marshmallow cake'
                    (as it says on the strange-looking package)
which,
     i have to admit,
 has been in my bag
      for the past 3 weeks
        -- at least
               (i'm sure) --
was a gift from a girl of about eight
  because she saw
       my face
          (darken)
when i had just realised
that i
       just missed
           a trip
              that i had been looking forward to
                for the past 2 weeks.

it's all squished up inside,
  but it still tastes sweet.

My cousin's son gave me choc. It was very sweet of her, especially considering how she's quite a cheeky one. She reminds me of Dora the explorer :)

26: Balance (Public Transport People #1)

of all the passengers
on the lrt, he stood out
like a quiet moth
against social butterflies.

wearing
an oversized security guard uniform,
a funny-looking hat,
a slightly faded backpack,
a pair of dusty black loafs and
a sullen expression,

his clumsy hands
held onto the railing as
his frail body
swayed along with the movement of the train.

yet
this dispirited man,
confused or drowning or lost or stuck
in his own world,
still managed to keep his balance
no matter how abruptly the lrt stops.

i wonder what kept him going.

3.08pm

---

i love people-watching, especially on public transports.

9: The sound of music

A storm brews outside
like an ominous nightmare;
my music plays on.

(Not even gonna try translating this, lol)

I was listening to Joanna Newsom's '81 at the time of writing. Beautiful song.

Last night there was a 4.5 magnitude earthquake in my city, and not too long after raging winds continued to bellow through the whole night. It was like a ridiculously overdramatic omen scene you'd see in telenovelas/Shakespearean plays.


Hopefully nothing bad will come this way. And that the strong winds will cease to be scary.