A Tribute To Mr Cat

He is true and wonderful, and never one to lie
If he did, it was behind my back
Not strong enough to turn around as a muscled lie
To choke me with disbelief and despair

He has rubbery ears
Stretched beyond mortal endurance
A snug fit to embrace my fears

No matter how many times I repeat the same offense
Being walloped by disappointments
He continues the generous act of listening
He doesn't care for fancy clothes or the latest hair
But he cares for my affairs where no one else does

Mystery and style puzzle him because
He prefers to sip coffee with me
Let my stories jiggle his sides
And surrender an inverted half-moon on his lips
That's what I like

He has rubbery legs too
Never seem to tire from walking too long a distance
Or a beat faster than me
To get my beloved oatmeal raisin cookie
The corner coffee shop before closing time

I can be a bully sometimes
Yet he can see past my shortcomings
Thinks I'm someone with a fiercer voice
And too many battles of conquering her disloyal hair.


**I wanted to write a tribute for you the other night but you pissed me off. It doesn't really matter now because by the time you read this, I will be forgiven. Meow.

Almost Like Magic

It pricks like electricity trickling down your skin, and even when you are both a continent apart, it doesn't matter because the spaces in between is the only thing that is tactile; you could almost touch it. Nothing is so important as compared to the words spoken: it gets bigger, fatter and more delicious, you can taste the taste, and smell the spirit behind every word, it's intoxicating and quite bizarre – a stranger passes you a pack of cocaine as you take a walk in the park. An auditory high and it treats you right and kind when you least expect it, and because you least expect it that's why.

The Voice is the purest sound you've ever heard; it will haunt you like a half remembered song. A song you want to lock it but there was never a keyhole to possess it and let in safety, only your memory. It belongs to you; no one else gets to hear it.

Because you have been let in to this privilege, this little magic, this let's fade into the sunset nonsense, that you slowly and tamely accept it. Let it tame you until you no longer want to resist it. Chemistry, like an unborn baby is fluid, pure, innocent, it just happens. To abort it is no sin here, you won't go to hell. You would only end up searching but never finding that something to fill the eternal void. It comes and passes you by like sweet breath; you know you should inhale it and not hold your breath, even if it lasts only for one moment, because that’s all it takes for magic to be born. Or, take another cue: when lightning strikes.

Talking about you, baby.

*You said it has been a while since the word Magic is used, so.

Rebelling Romanticism: Dawn Is Queen But Not To Me

I feel my eyes gone overweight spontaneously, at a beautiful hour aptly named, Dawn. Dawn has been crowned beauty queen since time immemorial, I have been convicted of turning my back on her, and looking in her eye with brazen arrogance on most days, when she breaks and awakes. I'm her least of favourites because I refuse to worship her beauty, and trade instead for eye bags and lethargy. She has punished me with an unwavering hold, lending her majestic gaze upon me, so I can never sleep in peace.

Her favourites are always there to greet and bow at her misty feet; fresh-faced, and just a little sleepy but awake. To be ignored or defied is unacceptable. Someone subversive like me is deemed fit for her abhorrence. Dawn is fond of contriving her presence on the periphery of the horizon lazily, and gloriously; spreading her endless bosom for everyone to succumb to but I will not yield. I have no reason to except by my permission.

Dawn is cruel in the tradition of beauty queens. She upholds that useless piece of trait and tradition like her personal vendetta account squarely aimed at me.

Dawn, is slowly fading into oblivion like, Daphne, the river nymph who fled from the Sun god, Apollo's ardent pursuit. Dawn is Queen to lovers before they part after the kiss. Dawn is also fleeting because she lives on a diet consisting of nothing, that's why she's weightless and hard to capture except by mirrors. But the moment she looks away from her mirrored image, she's lost until the next daybreak.

I loathe Dawn for her unfaithfulness and disregard for her mourners when she's gone too soon and returns like it never happened.

Bad Fruit

This sentiment which I bore is one of unease. Being critical of others' works is a very dangerous thing, one of responsibility to yourself as a critic, and it is also an act of faith. A conscientious remark, opinion, thought and impression is often an ideal few of us could achieve. It is always tempting to draw from subjectivity and it's easy too.

The indulgence of tearing apart an original piece of work, especially a creative one, is always ripe for the picking, and suffering when the fruit is gnawed by teeth and lashed by tongues, all in the name of Taste. It has to be this way before a piece of work - the fruit - is deemed good or bad, fresh or unripe, unique or common. Some fruits have a slight requirement like, Time, for it is a nurturing and impartial judge; it has always stay constant and unwavering, so Time is a trustworthy ally. Fruits which require Time before an impression or Taste is acquired are generally helpless; there is nothing to lean on except patience and endurance without rest but a constant effort to stay resilient.

But a trained eye, like that of a Fruit Grower, is able to perceive and analyse the potential of a fruit during harvesting; through the dexterity of the grower's hand and visual astuteness. When a fruit bears a mark of weakness - uncharacteristic colour and softness - which is lame for survival and consumption, elimination without second thought is inevitable. No matter how little is left to be salvaged, is useless. Only a simple truth remains: A bad fruit. The problem is, who is the Fruit Grower, and how can we identify such a person?

I came across a piece of work, and I couldn't shake it off my mind. It was hard not to think it contrived, accompanied with a sense of dread. It left me with a bitter taste like a rotten fruit, and because I chose to taste it due to the fact that I'm no expert to judge a fruit just by appearance alone, so the experimental way it was for me. Like a novice, who is still impaired with experience and proper training, I picked the fruit, despite its sallowness on the outside and limpness to the touch, cut it, took a bite... and I met the Fruit Grower that day.

Palecock

I say no doubt you are crowned cocker-lula-baboo
And you say I may have been withdrawn and in gloom
To whom but you, you say, my queen noncho-lalu-babloom
Prancing in your (pale)cock feathers you expect me to swoon
To you I see none other than a pompous goon

Gaily I consider handing back your backward pomp with clever songs
Your head gone swelling in funny angles
Perhaps I may lend a hand for the shape gone horribly wrong
Adjusting your thick clumsy brows for I'm kind and gentle
But not too long for you to think I may be your Song.


**Inspired by the pompous goon. I'm not your Song, not now not ever.

You Know I'm in Love with You

You know I'm in love with you but I can't say it in your face so, I'll say it here, post-pulp style - it will become a classic thing decades from now. You know I'm in love with you, and only you, and only now while it lasts. When the night warms my lonely neck which prompts me to stare at the black ceiling, wishing you could hear the urgent thud-dup-thud-dup-thud-dup behind my ribcage. However, don't just listen but steal my heart like a thief comes in the night, not by ripping apart my ribcage to get it because that's not stealing but beastly thing to perform.

When I hear my favourite song, and it sings about our love story, only it hasn't happen yet but I will make sure it does. For I will dance like Abigail from Salem, Massachusetts in the forest back in the sixteenth century, and I will also dance like an infant without the belly in perfect beat. I no longer want to sleep and I want to forget all my favourite poems and trade it for your every line and laughter. And when you ask me to recite my favourite poem, and instead I say nothing, you know I'm in love with you.

So, I think I'm in love with you, and I'm done for because I haven't got over loving myself yet. Can you wait for me?

An Effectual Attempt to Die

What would your last song be? Did happiness rob you from the way you should live, and prevent you from feeling the throbbing of earth's proverbial pain? When the unwelcome pause visits, do you take it in like sipping Darjeeling tea or a bitter cup of memories?

Many lines inside us travel in different momentum, and there at the base of the neck stands the gatekeeper, and every gatekeeper is unrelated to the other. They come from a different time, sometimes ancient or even from a time we have not yet known. Each gatekeeper has a favourite author, politician, thus the things they deem permissible into the neuro-highway is vital to the way you absorb pain or pleasure.

Pain, is comparable to the coldest region in the world and its job is to lead an expedition to the Antarctica, and then leave an ugly mark on the less than virginal ice-land before trying to navigate their way out alive, if not they would be honoured in print but be forgotten soon.

Pleasure, is hard to talk about because pleasure could be a life-saving bowl of donated hot soup for the homeless but reduced to diluted flavoured liquid unfit to be eaten for the i-centric generation. Pleasure is listening to your favourite songs, having breakfast by yourself and the quiet sun hanging around like an old friend, and hearing the words 'I miss you today' from the person you are missing. Pleasure is ever changing and demanding. Sometimes, it turns greater than it should be by manipulating your state of gratification, and if the gatekeeper adheres to its hedonistic request, you are probably done for.

Who is your gatekeeper? No one knows for sure but there will always be a diaphanous form teasing you and tricking your reliable senses when you think you know who it is. An effectual way to die today is to try and locate the gatekeeper's neck, twist it and conquer its fortress, your fortress, so you may live again.

*PS. Cobain, (the one who nicknamed me Courtney with no similarities to begin with except for the sake of pop culture) - another induced failure to write something upbeat.

Love, Courtney

An Ineffectual Attempt to Feel Sad

There is nothing to talk about except sadness. This night, with thoughts hanging like fruits on a branch, from a tree along some road is just like any other night: Common and cool, bland and empty, noiseless and sad. Sadness from the world wearied world, as it turn, things cruel and faceless continue their acrobatic acts without a trap to call it a day, too much alcohol and morphine to sow from one new vein to another's liquid passage. Heavy steps sagged the unmoving cement, and cribs left in a dangerous playground. Women losing their last breath, and men losing their sense.

Sadness has breathed an eternal breath, like ashes cast across a body of water; a pillow of feathered lies flown freely, and audaciously into untrained ears. The lax hold of a lover's hand, and resistance from a mother's embrace. Perils abound, and arrests no one's attention except by time and ignorance.

Women lose their faith over womanhood, and traces for samples of leftovers to emulate, marching to the beat of a counterfeit drummer. Sadness overtakes them, and reverts back in time, to a patriarchal ideal: To surrender self-expression for servitude, to please and seduce, and finally, a dream product of the reductionist. Docile, sweet, gentle, pleasing, and bland like water is neither complementing nor useful to self-expression, reason, courage and self-belief - faux individuality has nothing to do with these qualities.

Digging into the histories of your neighbours and friends is exciting, as long as it isn't yours to be exposed, which usually presents a sadder version. However, it is effectively concealed, like a stretch on a panty hose, which is still potentially attractive to rip apart without much loss except general embarrassment by today’s social standards. Sadness is almost beautiful when it is pellucid like dew drops or a misty-eyed lover.

I lied many times, and sadly ineffectually.