I hate what I see in the mirror
Cuz it’s her staring back at me
I don’t see me, no, I don’t see me
It’s she that I see, that I want to be
She is, the dark lady of my dreams
The queen of masquerades
Who blazes the skies apart
In her quest for immortality
New York, I am coming for you.
I asked Art what do I need to give to be together with him.
Over the years as a writer, I had wrote under different pen names. Some, I refuse to take credit for, some, that I had decided to take credit for. It is like having a bunch of children and choosing which kids you want to acknowledge, although you have full knowledge that it is your kid, but in a moment of passion, you did something foolish, and you hated yourself for it.
But eventually, those creations that I did not take credit for will eventually come to haunt me. They creep into my dreams at night, knocking and banging my doors down. They run and tear my clothes off. They want me tell them, I am their creator. I am their mother. Their originator. I am the monster that created these little monsterous beings that have taken a life of their own.
“You may think that I am an elderly woman but when I was a young woman, I used to dance and go out late at night. Men would wait outside my office in big flashy cars to have meals with me. I received countless of marriage proposals. But I declined every single one of them. If I got married, I would have to give up my job and raise kids. Instead, I chose to remain single and ensure my siblings could finish university.
By choosing the option to remain single, I applied for my own flat and prepared to enter an old folks home. I knew no one will look after me in my old age but that was the choice I chose to support my family.
My found my happiness and fortune when I met your grandfather. I married your grandfather when I was 50 years old. Young love comes and goes like the changing songs on the radio. When you find someone you want to spend the remaining years of your life with, it’s a companionship love that grows with time.
Love is like a garden. When you plant a seed and water it daily, the tree grows and bears fruit. Children is a natural by product of blossoming love. When the tree of love no longer bears fruit, it stands through the changing seasons. When love from a relationship magnifies outwards, the world will enjoy its radiance.
My dear granddaughter, my hope is that you will find a companion in your life to experience love, happiness and fulfillment.”
Hi Purple Python, I am officially sick of you. I see you every day and you haunt me so much in my dreams to complete you that I had taken on some characteristics of the person I am not by losing myself completely in you. I detest you, and when you scream for my attention I want to slap the living daylights out of you. You are the marathon race I ran for nine months that soon, to be birthed into a monster for the world. As much as I had tried to tear you apart from me, you had penetrated into my pores like the sun. I hate you. Be gone. Get out of my body. For I will publish you and ensure you will be apart from me so I will never ever together with you again.
Every now and then when my thoughts are still and quiet.
Before I sleep, and the moment I wake up.
I will visualise the aroma of my grandmother’s homemade coffee.
She brewed a fresh metal flask of coffee every morning.
She will scoop five tablespoons of freshly grounded malaysian coffee beans into a sock.
Pick up the handle of a kettle, and pour boiling hot water into the sock filter.
She would pour out the brewed coffee into a metal container before pouring it back to the sock about three times,
then she would cover it and leave it on the countertop for five minutes.
All this time, I would be sitting on wooden chair by a circular marble table in the kitchen, watching from the distance.
She walked with a slight limp on her left leg towards me and open a tin of biscuits and put some biscuits onto my plate.
Then she would pour a two full mugs of coffee. But she would serve my coffee while she left her mug covered on the countertop.
I would dip the large squarish yellow biscuit into the coffee to soften it before chomping it down. The coffee was sweetened with condensed milk and had a bitter aftertaste like dark chocolate. I would savour each bite slowly as my grandmother washed the dishes. After I finished my meal, I would run to watch television for the usual 10am cartoon show. Then, my grandmother would sit by the marble table with her coffee and biscuits while watching me from afar.
…
Years later, she is still with me in my thoughts and memories, and everytime I feel down or upset, I would go to a malaysian coffee store and purchase a cup of coffee. But no coffee tasted like the one my grandmother made, they made me think of her, but nothing in the world could replace the love and care and dedication she made to serving my meals every morning before herself. She made sure I was taken care of at every step of the way, and placed herself second in everything she did in relation to me.
I never saw or realised this when I was younger. I used to think she was annoying when she called seven times a day to ask if I would be visiting her, and she would be dead soon. I never understood she had dementia and could not remember if she had called just before. I never understood her love, nor did I see that I was her favourite grandchild and I was female, she didn’t care if I could not carry on the family surname for my dad only had one descendant.
Sometimes I want to write her a letter to express my gratitude, and I am lost for words as I could not speak or write in hokkien as fluently as I could in english. I wonder if she could read my heart, or hear my song as I write these words. That I miss her so much. I miss her coffee, her touch, her expression of love towards me. There are only so few people in the word that I would ever meet in my lifetime that would show unconditional love. She was my grandmother, and my one and only grandmother. If anything at all, she saved me from the blink of disaster during my dysfunctional teenage years, for her love was constant like the waves of the sea.
Slowly, she lost her mind. She would stare blankly into space while she lied in bed from day to night. She could no longer recognise my cousins, me or my relatives. She only recognised her caretaker and my uncle. She would call for help like a child to be fed and bathed. She jerked her body when she was cold. It was painful to see her deterotiation over the years as she became frail and skinny. We lost her to dementia.
When her coffin entered the furnace, it struck me that the very person I was running away from was now the person I wanted most in the world. I wanted her hug and to see her jovial smile once more. I wanted to hear her laughter and her voice as she spoke loudly to my relatives. I wanted her to call out my name. It’s been three years since she had passed on, but my heart longs and pangs for her love. Although I could not understand a word she said, all her actions communicated her love for me.
I miss her coffee, and no other coffee could ever replace the one she made.
I was narcissistic, self absorbed and I spent long hours looking at myself in the mirror dancing and touching my body while imagining it is someone else’s hands doing so. I was exhibitionistic and had a few million views on YouTube. I took photos of myself everyday with precise selfie angles. I loved showing off my dance moves and displaying myself publicly uninhibitedly in a way that is empowering to the world who watch the way I move. However I had transcended my artistry from serving my need for validation to the disappearance of my ego by being the mirror of what the world has created me to be. I had chosen to pursue happiness by disappearing my ego into the universe, to find myself in the eyes of others. From the eyes of the universe, I see myself dancing in the cosmos – that is true happiness and bliss – my soul lives forever in the cyber galaxy.
Too famous, too young
Hated myself in the mirror
Became socially awkward
Almost mute, dysfunctional
Was used as a replacement
“Toy” was my name
Objectification
Destroyed my free spirit
I ran too fast, too far
Till I lost myself in the desert
Plunged into an oasis
I saw shadows of the demons
In my nightmares that haunted me
daily, I wasn’t dead but half asleep
How I wished a knight would save me
From the monsters chewing on my flesh
In my half conscious state, I summoned
the last remaining will to untie the rock
on my ankle that was sinking me down into
the abyss. No one could save me but myself.
I swam up to shore and rose up as the goddess of love,
Venus, to humanity – to fill the world with love and beauty in my song and dance.
In my rebirth, I had chosen dedicate my life to art and serving the community
like a Vestal Virgin tending to the sacred flame in the temple.
This is my ultimate expression of love for the world.
