Left the lights on

It was a long way back,
but there's nowhere else I'd rather be than
Home.

Hey stranger

Because you remind of the person I was, and everything I'm supposed to be. 

Breaking point

Ledge. Air. Wind.
I am so afraid of heights and yet, when I think of ways out I think of

Parapets, corners, bridges, too many levels up and the way I cannot hear my tears fall against the concrete floor.
If my body falls, will it make a sound?
And if it doesn't, does it mean it's actually fallen at all?

Did you know,
You can fall in love in so many ways.
And did you know? Even after, you can keep falling in love...
Over and over and over again.
But did you also know that you can keep Falling and you tell yourself it doesn't hurt but Jesus Christ it does and you wish you wouldn't hurt, wish you could outrun this bullshit
But then you're numb numb numb
And sitting on the couch with your coffee wishing for the first time that you had your tears and your sadness-
Do you know why?
Because it's all that's left of her.
And that matters.
It's almost like, all that sadness caused by that absence..
That absence of her...
That's all you have left.

That's all you've got left darling.

Pink Dot 2015

Today, I was part of the 28,000 people gathered at this amazing event. I've received looks of alarm when I admit I haven't been before. Perhaps because I've never been the sort to shove my flag in people's faces, and I kinda wondered if this would be doing that. But then today I realized it's really just a big happy party of families and children and grass and dogs and balloons and picnics and wine and love. Just an outpouring of so much love- it's so heartening to see heterosexual couples come, to see families and their children be there. Because their being there screams "you deserve all this love as much as we do". 

Also having chilled out picnics, good conversation, listening to good writers and speakers- that's really what we do. There isn't any gay agenda. If there was, that would probably be it: chill out, have awesome picnics and good conversations with people you love. And just, be. 

Secret

And then,
I can feel all these things
Such that if
You ask me if I feel sorry,
The answer is
No. I don't.

Because finally,
I can feel again.

Relativity.

So really, in relation to the big big bigggggggger picture of all of it-

What? What is this really?

I know you don't know. It's not fair. But okay, I've done my part in shielding you from things and today...

Today, this hurts. 

So much I can feel it. 

And baby,

That's really saying something. 

Godfuckingdammit,someonegivemeasmokenow

Wish you were here.
Wish it was you.
Wish I made more sense



Period

Grams and milligrams

Fact of the day: they don't tell you it won't fix the pain.

Pick it up, pick it all up. And start again.

You've got a warm heart,

you've got a beautiful brain.

But it's disintegrating,

from all the medicine.

from all the medicine.

from all the medicine.

Medicine.

You could still be,

what you want to be,

What you said you were,

when you met me.

When I met you. 

That's a fine looking high horse

It's not so much about the cards you have as much as it is how you play them

Beginnings of endings and endings of

How do you even begin to say goodbye,

When it feels like you haven't even finished your hellos yet?

Beginnings

This heaviness.
In the pit of my stomach. Weighing me down

Weighing me down.

I believe

You hold my world

In the palm of Your hand

Tell me

Where I went wrong
and how do I fix it?

Off days

Wish you were here
Wish we were honest
Wish we were okay
Wish there was more to us
Than this

Step 01

I am learning to get better,
To find balances, to breathe easier,
To drink my morning coffee without crying for half an hour
To sit on the empty couch without doing a double take realizing you're not there.

I am trying to get to know myself again;
Trying to listen to my body and what it needs and wants
Learning to respect it
Giving myself time to understand it better.


Mostly,
I am trying to learn to not be so sad.

"I'm gone"

But ma chérie,
What if I'm not?

Jukebox

Old songs on repeat,

Staring glassy-eyed, over the rim of my sixth glass, no, seventh,

And losing track of the beginning of my thoughts when I get to the end. 

There is hope, however little,

Of finding my footing

And happier days

And glimpses of light at the end if the tunnel

Lots of writing, dreaming

But mostly getting from one day to the next without accidentally tripping into oncoming traffic. 

Bouncing around between bad days and not-so-bad,

Somewhere between tragically sad and numb,

Looking for the next foothold to grab on to. 

But of course, in the meantime,

Before those glimpses of light come,

We find ourselves staring at the bottom of our sixth, no, seventh glass

And 

Hoping. 

Cue. 

Now playing: happy music 

Spinning in a teacup

And we're just going in circles aren't we?
Around and around and around and around
Sometimes it doesn't feel like we're going anywhere
We're just going around and around and around
Until you've spun away, I've lost your teacup
I'm in my own, alone,
Just going in circles.

Around and around and around and around

Here's a joke:

So one day you come to the conclusion that you've officially reached the maximum amount of hurt you can feel.
And that kinda sucks but it's also like,
No really, it can't get anymore painful than this.

And then
Something else comes around and you're like.
Oh wait, hey,
It can actually get more painful.


you're the joke.

I've stood on rooftops looking down,
afraid-
Not of what happens if I jump
But what will happen if I don't.

I'm only gonna

Break break
Break break
Your heart

But don't let me forget
All the songs I will write

Words from an ex lover

"I will not ask you to stay

If you must go, go
I don't need you
I will breathe (carefully) without you
I will smile (slowly) without you
I will go on (eventually) without you

I'd be much happier
If you chose to not leave,
But if you must let go, let go
And I will too

And hopefully one day
I will teach my heart to not break
Whenever everyday thoughts
Lead to you

I'm afraid I'm much too weak,
I'm afraid we'll always be
A book with the end pages ripped out,
I'm afraid I'll always wonder,
Always ache,
Always place everyone second to you

I'm afraid I'll always love you 

But I will not ask you to stay."

Fucking wreck

Driving away from the wreck of the day
And the light's always red in the rearview

Desperately close to a coffin of hope
I'd cheat destiny
Just to be near you

Far, far away

This girl,
She doesn't know where she's at anymore.








"It would've been illegal not to come over and talk to you"

But there is promise in the way he holds me.

I'm All Left Turns

So this is what I've been up to at work-

It's our final show tonight and tickets are still available. 

It has also been quite an experience teaching and working with the participants of  Miss C's Little Blackbox - with it all leading up to this!

In our devised piece

I'm All Left Turns (and I don't know which is right).

We explore how our parents got to being the people they are today, and summon the courage to tell them all the things we wish they knew.

Cast:

Stefi Ooi

Gopi Arivalakan

Ambry Nurhayati

Seah Bei Ying

Emil Ong

Directed by Charis Vera

Written & Conceptualised by Charis Vera & Marvin Wong, together with the actors of Ms C's Little Blackbox.

Tickets available on:

http://littleblackbox-all-left-turns.peatix.com

We'd love to see you there(:

Writing letters that I know won't reach you

My ghost

Where'd you go?

I can't find you in the body sleeping next to me

My ghost

Where'd you go?

What happened to the soul, that you used, to be?

Sitting with your demons and choosing not to fight

"Are you alright?"

However much time you've spent running away,
You'll never outrun yourself.

And when it feels like most of your time is spent fighting off everything else,
really, the last person you want to fight is yourself.

And then,
There is calm.
Just like you used to know.

yes,
I'm alright.
I thought I used to know how to get myself there
It's relief that I never forgot.

So,
"Yes, yes I am."

Shelter

I find shelter, in this way

Under cover, hide away

Can you hear, when I say?

I have never felt this way

Maybe I had said, something that was wrong

Can I make it better, with the lights turned on

Maybe I had said, something that was wrong

Can I make it better, with the lights turned on

Could I be, was I there?

It felt so crystal in the air

I still want to drown, whenever you leave

Please teach me gently, how to breathe

And I'll cross oceans, like never before

So you can feel the way I feel it too

And I'll mirror images back at you

So you can see the way I feel it too

Maybe I had said, something that was wrong

Can I make it better, with the lights turned on

Maybe I had said, something that was wrong

Can I make it better, with the lights turned on

Maybe I had said, something that was wrong

Can I make it better, with the lights turned on

still

Adventure is out there, it's heading our way
So grab your scarf and goggles, let's fly!
I've mapped out our journey, we're up here to stay.
A sunset is our home
A moonbeam we will own

My Spirit of Adventure is you!

And then this pain comes, searing into flesh and cutting through bone like it's cloth.

Unsteady and shaking, it is all she can do to hang on to these words.
But all she knows is this unfathomable, ineffable pain that's burning the inside of her veins, eating away at all the things that keep her together.

Forces a smile she knows you cannot see, managing a
"Nothing"
Because that, that's kinda what it is. It isn't anything until you make it something. And it isn't supposed to be anything to begin with anyway.



Nothing.
It's nothing,
It's nothing, it's nothing.

And if she says it enough,
maybe it'll dull all the razor sharp blades that feel like they're running patterns on the inside of her skin,
Maybe it'll stop the way she hates herself for feeling all the things she does,
Maybe it'll make her feel less like an idiot,
Like she is the biggest fool in a game she didn't ask to play.


It's nothing.
It's nothing.
It's nothing.

Sleeping with the lights on

On the days I miss you most,
I watch an endless stream of cooking shows, teary eyed and nursing too many glasses of gin and tonic.


And I wait.

Just because.

For you,
The answer will always be yes.

Waking to absence

And I hang on to whatever I have left,
Even as it falls to pieces in my hands.

Undercover, Under covers

Weave me into the threads of your stories, stitch me into your patchwork of adventures. Let me hold you together in the ways you unravel me.

If you want me

Are you really here?

Or am I dreaming

I can't tell dreams from truth

For it's been so long

Since I have seen you

I can hardly remember your face anymore 

Run

While I powder my nose,

He will powder his gums,

And if I try to get close,

He is already gone,

Don't know where he's going,

I don't know where he's been.

But he is restless at night,

Cause he has horrible dreams.

So we lay in the dark,

Cause we've got nothing to say.

Just the beating of hearts,

Like two drums in the grey.

I don't know what we're doing,

I don't know what we've done.

But the fire is coming,

So I think we should run.

I think we should 

Mismatch

You will never say all the right things, at just the right time.
Or sit beside me and breathe and tell me, just by being here, that it will be okay.
You cannot reach for me and have me lean into your touch,
Feeling for the one right thing in a world going wrong.

And that's not your fault.
It's not your fault that you cannot fit in all the ways another has before,
Or that you don't make my breath catch at the thought of you.
It's not your fault
That someone can be all the things you need them to be, for you,
But you can't be that for them.

And I'm sorry,
That as much as you want to be,
You can't.

Dull throb

The rope slipped from my hands so quick I was left with burns
And when they blistered I started to cry
Because that meant in time, it would hurt less, and eventually go away.
And I cannot say I'd know who I am without the pain.

Also,
Most days,
This ache is all I have left of you
And I don't want to lose that too.

The unclaimed

Sometimes
I wonder if you can spend so much time looking for something that's lost, that you forget what it was to begin with.

And then I wonder,
When you do find it, will you even recognize it?

Will that even matter by then?

Looking for a way out,
Or a way back in.
Depending on how you look at it.




And some boxes,
They're never meant for being opened. Ever.

Lying on the Moon

It's a dark and stormy place
But with you, my dear,
I'm safe and we're a million miles away.

If we just went with what felt nice all the time,
That would fuck things up for some people.

She always knew my name.

Her voice is cold, familiar, snaking itself around and pulling me to her. 

She was the echo off comforting bathroom floors, the constant gentle murmur that would find me when the flush of toilets drowned out all thought. 

There are so many days you have fooled yourself into thinking you've run far enough away,

Until she finds you. 

And oh, she always knows where to find you. 

All the girls wanna

One button at a time

Boy, don't you have fine designs 

You're working overtime 

Whipped

Couldn't hide it if I tried

And I start back at One

She's all commas and semi-colons, ellipses and periods
Tripping up on all the questions that play on the edge of her tongue and
Finding spaces between sentences for doubt to paint ugly pictures
Until
She wanders, eyes closed, back into places of safety.
Back to a place where she can find proper footing,
Back to where it is okay to take a breath
And
Start. again.

If you can't actually see the pain you're feeling,
Are you really feeling it at all?

She laughs way too loud, drinks way too much wine
Stumbling precariously along dirt roads in life
She holds your hand just a little too tight
But she smiles just a little bit when someone says "you're mine"

And there are stories she saves
For quiet midnight moons
Songs she sings when she's alone in her room

You don't have to be broken
To know how to break
Silences that echo, that echo with hate
Embedded so deep in the cracks of her bones
The ones she runs her fingers along
When she's all alone

And you don't have to say all the things you don't mean
You don't have to help her paint
such picturesque dreams

Because I'll bet she can unravel
All the prettiest lies
And still mean it when she says,
She'll stay through the night

Shelter

Can I make it better,
With the lights turned on?

Collectives

Groups.
Herds.

Crash.
A crash of rhinoceros.


Improbability.
An improbability of puffins.



An improbability.

Adventure is out there

And so it begins-
One who's packing his life into boxes,
Another who's doing so much work from behind a screen she hardly feels productive some days..

It is as mortifyingly scary as it is thrilling and exciting,
But here we are.

On the precipice of beginning something that holds so much promise,
So much wonder and anticipation of the stories waiting to be told.

I've always been in love with theatre and the process of drama-making.
And someone (wise, I'm sure) did say,
To spread the love.

Wintery nights in Osaka

"Haven't you ever felt like that?"
"Like...? I don't know?"
"Like that's all you'll ever need. Like this one person- and that's all."

Evenings spent by quiet waters

And time warps that worked their magic

"Couldn't it be me that you pick?"

Always the fool

I don't know what you're saying-
It's like your written words are a rush of white noise
While my voice
Has gone coarse
with things I have asked too many times

So remind her how to breathe
Go on, make her believe
What else is there to hold on to,
When we stand on such shaky ground?


I don't know what you're saying-
Your written words are a rush of white noise
And I know a girl, poised-
Waiting
To catch your truth in all its varying shades
Holding tight
With her cut up fingers and cut up hands
Hoping
to feel whole again.

The wanderer II

It's like I woke up,
And found myself at home
And right where I'm supposed to be

I don't know if I'm strong enough now

So I'm taking these pills for to fill up my soul

And I'm drinking them down, With cheap alcohol

And I'd be inclined to be yours for the taking

And part of this terrible mess that I'm making

And I,

I'm the catalyst. 

"She's right you know"
"That..?"
"Wintry nights get to you. All the time."
"Or you're being Sappy little bitch."

"And you're just pretending not to be."

Freeze your bones

So empty that it hurts

Winter

And we were in flames, I needed, I needed you

To run through my veins, like disease, disease

And now we are strange, strangers

Wait for me to degrade before

You go

Killing prey for

Waste of

Daylight

Speaks when

Slumber's keeping

Under the bed

Out of revenge

I'm derailing

My youth has stained our sheets

With some piece of me

With some piece of me

Oh, winter comes

Oh, winter crushed all of the things that I once loved

It's just medicine

How much sad can one person hold?
And what do you with all that sad?
Because whether you're warm and at home, surrounded by people you know actually love you,
Or far away, feeling cold in all senses of the word, and alone and emptied out-
It's still the same, isn't it?

And how can you love someone you don't know?

How can you know me,
When there are too many days where I realize,
I don't think i know myself?

Getting lost in big cities where no one knows your name

"It would've been illegal not to come over and talk to you."

Because I'm just a girl

Pick me
Choose me

Love
Me

--------------------

All this talk about laying claim..
When the strings I have, are only the ones I choose to keep.

Silly little girl, stupid little girl

Waking up far, far away and realizing that I can never outrun the sting of your words.

Ashes

Is there a chance

A fragment of light 

At the end of the tunnel

A reason to fight

Is there a chance

That you'll change your mind?

Or are we ashes and wine

Dear world

Stop asking me questions,
Or tell me I can "talk about it" when
There's nothing to talk about

There isn't.

I would go in endless circles and end up back in square one
There is nothing within my control, not anymore
And if I stopped for a half second long enough to place what I feel,
I am only reminded of how I cannot and shouldn't.

Dear world,
It isn't always black and white,
You know that full well.
But even grey has its shades
And sometimes things fall on such in-betweens of the colour spectrum that we cannot see but know is there

Dear world,
You don't have to stop for me,
Or pretend that you will
Because you won't.
Things keep spinning and I will step on and off every so often

Sure,
There are nights I feel like I'm the only one left spinning,
And on a completely different axis, at that.
Sometimes I wake up to better days than others
And sometimes I wonder why the night before didn't just take me with it.

But for one who has always encouraged an endless stream of talking until things make sense-
This is not something I feel i can ever make sense of, at least not right now.

So world,
Just don't right now okay?
Just don't.

C

You learn all the ways you can fall in love again

Honesty is a bottle of gin

Are you really here or am I dreaming
I can't tell dreams from truth
For it's been so long since I have seen you
I can hardly remember your face anymore
When I get really lonely and the distance causes only silence
I think of you smiling with pride in your eyes a lover that sighs

If you want me satisfy me
If you want me satisfy me

Are you really sure that you believe me
When others say I lie
I wonder if you could ever despise me
When you know I really tried
To be a better one to satisfy you for you're everything to me
And I'll do what you ask me
If you let me be free

If you want me satisfy me
If you want me satisfy me

It's a quarter after one

I'm a little drunk
And I need you now.

Love

Oh all the things that are wrong to feel
And all the things
That are not real

The end of my rapidly fraying rope

So jump,
Why don't you?
To reach all the places you think are too far to feel.

Come,
I dare you.

You can't lose,
It's true-
When you take on all the things
The voices say you cannot do.

Ears that ring with numbness

Trust me.
You can't hurt me anymore than this
And how it's broken me in more ways than I know how to count

Help me place this pain

It sits in all the places I didn't know existed
All these drinks and smokes do nothing to erase this
Knowing-
that I am not the one you choose. This Feeling
That I will always lose
This game I don't know how to play
These words, I'm not supposed to say, so..
Darling, teach me how to cope
Knowing I
Am not allowed to hope
Tell me what
To expect, that now
We need to choose the hats
That make us different persons
And
I'm standing, on grounds that shake
I question, where I am and then pick
only choices that make me
Fuzz out
All the things I'm reading
Cos baby,
You do such a job
Of keeping
Me numb and breaking
Along fault lines
I thought stopped existing

Because you taught me how to be still, and come

"So Can You" was a short that I came on board for just a little while ago.
Nicely written and beautifully shot, I cannot express how thrilled I was to be part of this production. Getting to work with the same horses I'd gotten so close to in the last few years was also a huge perk for me- It was new and exciting, to see two different bits of my life kinda come together the way it did.

It's funny how stuff works but being able to share what I have personally experienced and also watched unfold in children who have gone through the program is something that meant a whole lot to me.

I hope you enjoy it just as much as we did making this!

To the amazing people who were behind this- thank you and working with you guys was nothing short of fun and wonderful.

Special Thanks of course, must go to
Damiro, who is SUCH a handsome boy and steals the show. Thank you for being so patient and lovely
And Lili who always came out to cuddle right on cue and who is the prettiest girl in the film.


And to the one who first taught me to come as I am, in all my self-doubt and vulnerability, who helped me learn again what it meant to just, be..
Thank you,
for bringing me to where I am today.




So Can You - A Short Film from Warrior9 on Vimeo.

Here in these deep city lights

In a city that used to wow me because it made me feel so far away from everyday life,

I find myself looking up at starless skies looking for all the paths i used to know would lead me back to where I'd feel grounded. 

----------------------

I can do this-

Let me?

----------------------

Girl could get lost

Tonight 

Home

Embarking on journeys,
Looking..
When i already know just where I want and need to be.

And I know that in the morning, I'll have to let you go

But where are you my angel now?
Don't you see me crying?
And I know that you can't do it all
but you can't say I'm not trying.

Don't listen to a word I say

(The screams all sound the same)

You're gone, gone, gone away

I watched you disappear

All that's left is the ghost of you.

Now we're torn, torn, torn apart,

There's nothing we can do

Just let me go we'll meet again soon

Now wait, wait, wait for me

Please hang around

I'll see you when I fall asleep

-- monsters and men

If you want me

Are you really here or am I dreaming
I can't tell dreams from truth
For it's been so long since I have seen you
I can hardly remember your face anymore
When I get really lonely and the distance causes only silence
I think of you smiling with pride in your eyes

a lover that sighs

Fine, I'll be just fine.

Wandering empty streets
And looking into gardens
Trying not to see you in every single thing I pass.

How

How
Can I forget your love?
How can I never see you again?
How can I ever know
Why some stay, others go
When I don't
I don't want you to go?

There's not one moment
I'd erase.
You are a guest here now.

I have never known a trip more bittersweet, more full and yet filled with such aching emptiness at the same time. 

I have never laughed more than I have this week in the last three months, and I have never known I could feel so much like I am breaking apart at the same time. 

I hope you know,

I've left my heart with you. 

If this is giving up, then I'm giving up

Driving away from the wreck of the day and the light's always red in the rearview

-----------------------------

You know what Charis-

How about you just get your shit together okay?

Just get your shit together. 

"Seek and thou shalt find"

Ave Maria, gratia plena

Dominus tecum ave Maria

Benedicta es tu, Santa Maria

Santa Maria, Ora Ora pro nobis

-----------------------------

I've been looking,

So how long til we find some semblance of light?

When another

Ouch,

That really stings. 

------------------------------------

All these steps

To further away

------------------------------------

Calls you baby

In the spirit of honesty

So here's the thing about being sober and sad.
You can still feel everything, in all its realness, and there isn't anything nice warm and fuzzy to make you feel like you can take deal with it.

Teach me how to fix this

Pick it up, pick it all up.
And start again.
You've got a second chance,
you could go home.
Escape it all.
It's just irrelevant.

It's just medicine.
It's just medicine.

But some mornings.

Honest goodbyes

Sink with the tide

Rescue me, if you like

I'll be leaving it all up to you. 

--------------------------------

I took a misstep,

And now I don't know where I am. 

Concrete shores

She has danced along shorelines ten stories too high
Sung lullabies when she is up way past midnight
You've called her weak for all the stumbles she has made
And she knows,
She hasn't the courage to not be afraid.

Or

Hold me?

Come morning light

Sunlight catches the natural highlights in her hair as she looks up, wide-eyed.
She is in a world that is hers, in the middle of her mother's chatter and tinkling laughter over coffee.

The river behind her runs quiet, and around her a cacophony of clinking cutlery, deep hearty laughs that remind her of her father, clattering of children's toys she has no interest in.

She is in a world that is hers;
Right in the middle of her mother's chatter and tinkling laughter
over coffee.

Half moons

My mother always told me-
Don't let the sun set (or rise) on your anger.

In my veins

Oh you're in my veins and I cannot get you out

You're all I taste, at night, 

Inside of my mouth 

------------------------------

Stuck in her daydreams

It's too cold outside
For angels to fly


--------------------

Didn't they tell you?
Sleep comes in tiny little capsules that smell a bit strange.

Mockingbird

Hush little baby don't you cry

Everything's gonna be alright 

Stiffen that upper lip up, little lady, I told ya

Daddy's here to hold ya through the night 

I-love-Yous like band-aids trying to hold all the broken together. 

Anchor

There is hope in the promise of the cross
You gave everything to save the world You love
And this hope is an anchor for my soul

Where'd you go?

I think I've lost sense of time and space and days and weeks. 

I don't know where I am, half the time. What I'm thinking, what I want...

I don't. 

Maybe you can tell me-

You could say

"You look like you need some sleep."

Or

"You could use a nice long swim."

Or

"Here. Here's a hug."

I have conversations purely out of habit. So that I don't trip up on the mess of telephone wires in my head that are running conversations back and forth and all over the place like it's connecting people who are worlds apart. 

Not that I would know what any kind of connection feels like at the moment though. 

My words are cold and empty. They hang in the air and don't mean anything. 

My voice is hoarse from words that have scratched the insides of my throat trying to get out. 

I am tired out from trying to keep track of the world and its spinning and all the different directions it spins. At the same time. 

But mostly, I am numb. 

It's an okay place to be, I guess. 

So come now, courage

Teach me to be shy.


Cos it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannonball

It's not hard to fall

Stones,
Taught me to fly

Grace, what have you done?

Too much to make sense of it all

I know that Your love breaks my fall

The scandal of grace, You died in my place

So my soul will live

Oh to be like You

Give all I have just to know You

Jesus, there's no one besides You

Forever the hope in my heart

I wish you enough

"Let us know when you're home k?"

There are people in my life I am so grateful for.

Everyday.

So to my SOAKies,
Hey.
I don't know what I'd do without you.

Xoxo
C

Hit rewind.

Pause.
Play.
Pause.
Rewind.
Play.
Pause.
Rewind.


If there was one thing in my life I would change,
It'd be the day I chose to say goodbye.


So tell me that you're okay.
That you're happier now.
That if I went down a different rabbit hole,
You would come hurtling into my arms with a force fueled by happiness that knows no bounds, with a light inside you so bright,
You could burn a thousand suns.


Because angel,
You were all those things
And more.

The week of magic

I also figured...
well hey, it's already fucked with a stream of hard-to-deal-with-moments, what's saying yes to an event I know will certainly take the biscuit hmm?

Slipping under

Funny how one who writes can be emptied out of words.

Letters to far away

Dear Wallaby Joe,

For some reason, I missed you terribly today-

For the ages you left me standing there waiting, and all the cuddles you'd come with after. 

It was one of those days I needed my wallaby-time: To just, centre myself and feel the world fall away when you finally came nose to nose with me. 

So hey. I hope you're doing okay. That you're munching on carrots and sneaking bananas and being happy. 

I hope you're happy. 

In all the ways you made me happy too. 

Sent from my iPhone

Complainte de la butte

The stairways up to la butte 
can make the wretched sigh.

"To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die"

Hey remember that time...

I thought you had a smile that could floor me-
And it did.

Ps: I love you

And I get to kiss you baby, just because I can

"This song makes you feel all like, 'awww' cos it's like, you know, you have it."

And we're smiling to ourselves. 

In fact, I'm smiling so hard I'm already crying. 

How do you lose at a game you weren't even playing?

Crippled

Can you lose someone before they've left?

Oh, the better half of me.

Wandering souls who wander home

To weekends I get to start with you guys like this-
Yes, that includes Bird, behind the camera.

Sometimes, I don't know how I do with you not being around.

Baby Toufu

I'm going to miss lunches like this.

To getaways and cat naps

Really,
This was what I needed over the weekend.
Sun, pool, good conversations, space when I needed it, and a drink in my hand.

When they said "It gets better",
They weren't lying. (:

the lucky one

and it's like, when it feels like I know just which word to fill in your blanks with,
I think maybe, hey-
we're a step or two closer to getting the bits of us back

Because

I think you're beautiful.
The most beautiful girl in all the world
And your smile-
It still gets me.
Everytime.

Empty?

I'm not sad

I can't be sad

If I am numb, I can't be sad

Right?

But No, I'm not sad tonight after all actually

I got home, sober, although mortifyingly tired from my drinks..

Or dinner

Or actually my drinks which was my dinner..

And then I poured myself water, fried up chicken nuggets,

And sat down to finish writing one of my articles this week. 

I realized, that filled me a lot more than most of tonight. 

Close your eyes, count to ten

Maybe you'll be okay then

"You write from such a sad place."

I know, my love, I know. 

Some days that place is sadder than others. 

But I am okay. 

I am going to be okay. I will. 

The world

Baby,
There're so so many places I want to go.
But I want to go to all of them with you.

Shelter

Can you hear when I say 

I have never felt this way

Maybe I had something that was wrong

Can I make it better with the lights turned on

Maybe I had something that was wrong

Can I make it better

with the lights turned on

And so here's to one of the loveliest, most beautiful couples I know!

So yesterday was...
In short, really amazing.
Everything was well-organized, flowed smoothly. The crowd was good, no drama (as far as i could see anyway!), the food was really nice and just... Everything about it was beautiful.

I liked how they kept it really fuss-free. There wasn't things like the groom having to do a series of challenges to get his girl (I remember Cher talking about how it was very degrading and altogether quite contrived- I can't say I disagree at all!!), she didn't have like six hundred thousand outfits to change in and out of during the dinner, which allowed them to eat and all so that was good.
I thought they took on the day really calmly in a very non-frazzled manner.

I mean, at about six, when I pop by their room to help Lucas with his hair,
Cher's sitting with her legs crossed, in a large chair, getting her hair done- the picture of absolute calm and zen-likeness. And then she goes,
"Charis, they messed up the flowers."
"What! What do you mean?!" (And I sound more jumpy than her, mind you.)
"Yeah, we asked for all white and they gave us orange and blue. It looks really ugly- I'll show you pictures."
Except she said it all in this, "oh no"- sorta tone more than
"AHMAHGAAAADWHYWHYWHY".
The flowers and drapes were something that got fixed and it looked much better when the guests arrived, which was good. And maybe it's a lot to do with their personality but really, I thought they handled everything really well.
It was really nice being around them and pottering around too because they weren't highly strung at all.

Mostly it made me smile to see them so happy together. Erika did say something really true, that it's almost just a formality or making it all official because really, they're doing it all already- the way they support each other and make such a great team.

I've said it a couple times over in varying ways but-
I truly think these two balance bring a really nice balance to each other. It's lovely watching them together, and we've had many evenings where we've tried out new dishes together, tried each Other's food and sat around watching stuff on YouTube after. It's been a huge blessing getting to hang out with them, the times that I have.

I can't imagine how different it's going to be now...
But I'm sure there'll be very many new things to find fun and exciting.

SO.
Lucas and Cher, all the best on your new adventure together! ❤️❤️

Sunday brunches

Erika: you've still got one more country out of ten to go to. 

Jared: Erika country. 

Me: Erika country baby? You mean you need to come back to jiejie Erika after all that...?

Jared: jiejie Erika country!

Me: oh her own country, is that it?

Erika: well I hope you take a super long time travelling to all the other nine countries, including the Indian Ocean because Erika's country is still being made. I'm working on it. 

Of forevers

Every so often, there'll be an influx of engagement photos, wedding photos, baby bump photos and of course, all the saccharine-sweet words that make up promises and dreamy hopes and picturesque futures.

They scare me a little bit.
Not so much the pictures that flood my Facebook timeline but how easily it kicks one into a frenzy of
Amidoingenoughwithmylife-ness, whereamigoingwithmyself-ness and JAYSUSwhatificannotaffordcatlitterformy97cats.

I'm not where I wanted to be five years ago, seven years ago. I bought myself more time, I got more drawn into certain things I found I liked doing...
But I am not all the things I once thought I'd be by this time in my life.
I suppose there's nothing to be afraid of if I am at least taking steps in the right direction. And I do believe I am.
Sorta. Kinda.
It's just a little bit difficult to keep from feeling bummed when it seems like you're far away from where you want to be, and when it feels like you might be dreaming a little too big.

But I guess, we'll get there when we get there hey? And maybe it'll feel all sorts of wonderful because of how long its taken to get there.

----------------------------------

All that crippling self-doubt aside!
I must say that alongside a few others, there is a couple who is quite, quite ready to get married-
And I think that's pretty cool.

They're all set for this Saturday and I think it's quite lovely to see and to hear of their families rallying around and pulling out all the stops for them. It all sounds pretty exciting, I must say.
Not just the wedding- I mean their general forever-togetherness and stuff. I think they've been through a fair share of ups and downs and I'm thrilled to get to watch them take this next step together.
I truly hope that married life turns out to be all the things they have wanted and dreamt up and so much more- they certainly deserve it, and I'm really really happy for them.

You break me in all the places I thought were empty

Emily,

darling, please look at me-

this is not the ending. This could be the anthem you sing to yourself,

when you're slipping away,

into sleep,

when the lights are so low.

falling to pieces

breaking apart
at the thought of the shadows that come to you,
the words she cannot hear that you scream at in your sleep,
at all the things she wishes she could undo,
but can't.

Her voice is cold and warm against the nape of my neck, her words snaking themselves around me,
"One day, when you're beautiful"

Reach

Be patient with me,
Because I can be so very trying when I am in need. I ask questions to which I have heard the answers to, but want to hear, in your voice, over and over and over again.
Soften the blows of my day with the warmth of your laughter, the light in your eyes...
Sometimes I come home so cold and so empty that it feels like I cannot give anymore. You make me want to though, all the time. You make me save some of myself for you.
Hold me.
And when you can't, you can wrap me up in words because I will believe them.
I am a child like that-
Hanging on to every last whisper of a promise that you might have for me,
In the spaces between your I Love Yous, I Miss Yous.

Bear with me?
Because sometimes the words are too heavy on my tongue and I am too afraid to tell you all the things I want and miss and need.
And I don't want to ask so much of you and so...
Sometimes,
I just won't.
Instead, asking questions to which I have heard the answers to, but want to hear,
in your voice,
over and over and over again.

Tell me

What all the spaces between your words mean

Hopelessly taken

My skin has memorized the feel of your fingertips, and the brush of your lips against my collarbone.

Women of Asia

Soooo...

I'll be honest. I've spent the last few years doing way more directing in theatre than I have acting. And yes, sure, I've kept my wheels oiled with tv and film, but there's nothing like coming back to theatre. 

Nothing like it. 

For me, here is where everything falls into place. 

Now..

 I don't know if it'll be your cup of tea but Women Of Asia opens at the LaSalle Flexi Space tomorrow!

Directed by international playwright and director, Asa Gim Palomera, this 90minute show is a collection of stories about Asian women- some are of those in power, those who are bound to tradition, those who are sold into slavery...

I feel it brings to light a lot of issues/themes that are rarely talked about or are considered taboo. 

Women of Asia has been staged in other places that include New York, Edinburgh, Melbourne and Bangkok.

Come for a collection of stories that will make you laugh at some bits and cry at others. 

Our shows run Thursday - Saturday for two weekends. 

Evening shows are at 8pm,

Matinee shows (Saturday) are at 3pm. 

Tickets are available on

Www.Ticketmash.sg

Hope to see you there!(:

 

Where I am, waiting.

"I am standing upon that foreshore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white clouds just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says, "There! She's gone!"
"Gone where?"
"Gone from my sight, that's all". She is just as large in mast and spar and hull as ever she was when she left my side; just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of her destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at that moment when someone at my side says, "There! She's gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"
And that is dying."

Cœur de Pirate

You know what?
I give up. I just.. I give up.

Because anytime I feel a little bit like this, a tiny bit...off, even the slightest bit.
every time that I do-
Something just clicks back into place and makes me go,
Well sod it all, I'm really quite in love with this girl hey.

The conversationalist

Talk to me?
Talk to me like you want to hear what I have to say, like you're just as interested in all the words I'm not saying as much as the words I am.
Tell me what you think-
We don't have to have the same opinions, we don't even have to speak the same tongue...
But maybe we can engage in a conversation where parts of my body will understand the message you mean to convey and parts of your body will understand me.

Talk with me.
In all the ways we both know how;
with and without words,
With or without sound.
For there are spaces inside of me, empty and hollow and dead- waiting to resonate with a little bit more than this absence.

Being kept up by questions

I don't have the answers to

____________________________

Just within reach

But a little bit out of touch

____________________________

"What did you feel when you walked into the water?"

"The cool relieved the tiredness in my legs-"

"Emotions, I mean."

"Emotions! You doctors are so preoccupied with emotions. 

I had no emotions to emote."

-Women of Asia; Japanese housewife in San Francisco. An excerpt. 

A question:

I love seeing you happy and wouldn't want any less for you-
But is it selfish to want to be what makes you happy?


Will you tell me how I can?
But then, that's question number two though isn't it?

Falling asleep to I Love Yous

It's a day of breaking,
Of feeling like the wind is eating
Away at your bones
While stones
Run the course of your throat

You're chipping at corners,
While I'm wondering if lovers
Who're feeling alone
Come home
In time to say goodnight

We're cutting our teeth in
The ships that are sinking
And the boats we've turned around
Now that we've found-

Safety
You tuck my name so safely
In your mouth
Yet I am bouts
Of uncertainty and weariness

And somedays,
Somedays are days of breaking
Like the wind is gnawing
At your bones.
But I'll find my way back-

home
To letters on my skin
Your letters,
on my skin.

Drawing from an empty well

For someone who's (I think, at least) always had a healthy mix of optimism and being realistic when taking on great(er) endeavors,
I have never before felt so...
I don't even know what this is for crying out loud!

And it's harder when you say "I give up" but you know you can't wash your hands off it.
That some part of you won't.

Weak

Pick me, choose me

Love me. 

-------

When there are others who seem to make up just what you need. 

we're made of dreams

Every so often, I find myself here.
Here being this...wishful, wistful place filled with unbearable longing.

Being a collection of thoughts jumping sporadically from one picturesque idea to another isn't always the best thing. I am most often fuelled by the despair that comes from feeling like I haven't done enough. Or rather, that I've done an okay amount but that there is just... so much more that I would like to do.

I scare myself with this being in want.
And I wonder when it'll stop feeling like i'm chasing after things that are always going to be just a little bit out of reach.

For my favorite girl

I hope you never get too afraid of all the things you cannot see,
That you learn to trust yourself more,
And that you never forget what an amazing, beautiful person you are and how hard you've worked to get where you are today.

I love you. Like a fat kid loves cake.
Happy birthday, bubby.

We're lying on the moon, it's a perfect afternoon

It's a dark and stormy place,

But with you my dear

I'm safe

And we're a million miles away. 

And I'll stay up and hold you until you fall asleep 

Lucky ducky.

How did I find you?(:

Looking for some quiet

Just with you,
In this world that won't seem to stop.

Lifehack tip #101

When the question "How're you going?" comes up,
ALWAYS pick an answer that ranges from
"Nothing much" to "I'm okay".

Especially on days like this.



Honesty?
Pssh.

Conversations

That aren't

Not really. 

--------------------------------

Peekaboo!

I was playing hide and seek with you. 

Hide and seek with you, bubba. 

Hide and seek. 

Because writers don't get written about

There is so much weight in your words, especially those that are written.
Filled with feelings and secrets and time that you've spent mulling over which words to pick-

Sometimes I can hear the smile playing on your lips as your fingers speak. I think about how you take in so very many things, even when people think you aren't looking. I wonder about the effect things around you have, and how, in the snippets of time you get, you place how you feel.

There is so much weight in your words, especially those that are written.
It's like they're hand picked, filled with adoration and gratefulness and just, so much of you..



And then, sometimes,
Only sometimes,
I wonder if you'll have any words left for me

For the mothers who are and the mothers who will be

Making the decision to have a child is-

Forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. 

- Elizabeth Stone

Tucked in.

It's been a really nice few days, I must say. (Few days/ past week, I forget. My math. It's not great)

I've been left hazy eyed and fuzzy hearted, so it's a good thing that work has slowed for me right now I suppose. 

I am streams of unfinished sentences and four-word poems these days. 

Perhaps I need to learn how to write again. 

That might be useful. 

--------------------------------

My my,

Haven't you gotten me utterly enthralled?

"She is all States, and all princes- I"

Surely you must know,
That no one makes me happier
Than you

Puzzle piecing

Part I
It is the way my arms have ached with the absence of you
It is heavy. It is so, so heavy, this emptiness.

You pick up the breaking pieces of me with gentle, quiet fingers
And place them in my trembling hands

There are times I am seized by a fear so reckless it rips through me and leaves me paralyzed by the roadside. 

A gentle coaxing

I must admit, my darling, you know just what to say to make me feel a bit better. 

Dear you,

Yeah, there were times we were both half-in and half-out the door

But I never needed more than the stars on your skin to lead me back home. 

-- Andrea Gibson, I do. An excerpt. 

Contentment is

Semi-empty train rides,
Wandering empty food aisles,
Smelling rain Before it starts
And hearing the sound of my favorite girl smile over the phone the day the world gets turned on for her again.

It doesn't get much better than this, does it?

Gravity

Something always brings me back to you
It never takes too long

You hold me without touch
Keep me without chains
I've never wanted anything so much
To drown in your love
And not feel your rain

Falling slowly, eyes that know me.

Take this sinking boat, and point it home-

We've still got time. 

------------------------

Sometimes there is a question that plays on my lips-

And on days that I wonder if I have the courage to ask,

I wonder if I'll have the courage to hear the answer

On being a teacher

Once, in a conversation with a student from Hua Yi Secondary that lasted over an hour, I was asked,
"But if you've got so much going for you outside, why would you teach...us? I mean.. We're just a cca."

It was one of those moments I was reminded why I left acting school.

There are few things that have as great a hold on my heart as theatre does. The way it demands you to throw yourself in, full force and with little consideration to the possibility of any sort of life outside. But also the way it fills you and holds you together as much as it tears you apart, and the way it forces you to deal with things that run parallel in your own life; The way it offers you a process of catharsis and helps you breathe again.

But at some point I started thinking, what if I also got to use this to reach students? What if I got others to feel and understand and use theatre and take from it all the things that I have too?

This is why I teach-
Theatre can be a lot of things for you: An escape, a therapeutic process, a release, a discovery, an understanding of an issue or of a person.
But it also needs to be a safe space for all of that to happen. And I want to be able to provide that safe space to young actors who have decided to get their hands dirty with all this theatre-making.

And if just one student decides to take on acting and greater, deeper levels and falls as impossibly, overwhelmingly in love with theatre as I have been all these years, then I will be happy.
But also,
if just one student comes away from my classes a bigger person, a better person, a person who has learnt a little bit more about themselves, then I will be happy too.

Some days are a little bit harder

Couldn't we sit in a park, or by running water
And couldn't we have the same conversations without words that we used to-
Couldn't we just... Be?
Without worry of time limits and responsibilities and people on the fringes calling out to us
With our cell phones on silent, the grass beneath our skin and the sun in our eyes
Couldn't we just...?

Evenings spent

Calculating the distance between our fingers,
The inches between my left knee and your right,
And marveling at how I still skip when your eyes catch mine.

Time out.

I have had so many conversations today, that to chart my emotional progression since eight in the morning would prove slightly harder than counting all the bitch fights in an entire season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

Today has been a lot.


I could do with less.

Because

It always felt like something was missing,
Until you.

The only girl in the world

Want to make you feel like

Kiss it all better, I'm not ready to go

It's not your fault love, 

You didn't know 

Stay with me until I fall asleep

Stay with me until I fall asleep

Breaking down walls

"I hated it- that it kept us apart. But now that the wall's gone, he's not there."

-------------------------------

There are some hurts that I wish desperately I could save those I love from.

Because.

1.
Nothing can beat falling asleep to the evenness of your breathing.



2.
Or the way, in your last moments of semi consciousness, you tighten your hold on me for just a fraction of a second.
Just a fraction, of a second.


3.
I love you.

Sober

The wake up call.

Missed you all day

Your goodnights,
And the click of the button as you end the phone call-
Sometimes, it feels like it's the loudest part of our conversation.

If I could have one wish, if I could have some say

And when the world drowns you in the roars of its ocean, I want to be the crashing waves that tell you where the shoreline is.

Where home is. 

I want to promise you, that there is nothing you will miss when you listen with your eyes closed and your fingers laced with mine. 

I want to find the surest way for you to understand-

That you are magic. 

Because you hear all the words that some of us do not say, and you feel the tiniest inkling of a feeling before anyone gets a chance to bury it in their subconscious. 

That you are magic. 

In the quiet that you are amidst this city's senseless cacophony, and in the comfort that you bring when I've been spat back out at the end of an 18-hour day. 

And so,

when the world drowns you in the roars of its ocean; when it is difficult to hear above the din of fear, of frustration, of anger and exasperation-

I want to be the crashing waves that tell you where the shoreline is.

Where home is.