Sup3rnality

14/6 - Just realised how this might be interpreted. It's not what you may think it means, but I wrote in this way to not say what I mean. 

The way he looks when...
The calm
The crease of inquisition
Etching trenches on his forehead
The quite murmurs
The soft exhales
Silence but a breath catching
The way he looks when...
Makes me wonder if in
That place only he knows
If he knows
That he fills
the spaces between
Heartbeats
If he knows that
Sometimes I find solace
Staring into the Fire
To melt the coldness I fear
Are building fortresses
around my heart
The way he looks when...
He may not know, but I do
This moment that is mine
I use to memorise
the character of his face

(c) Hazlin Aminudin, 2013

On. Off. On. Off. On. Off.
Flickering lights giving
shadows but a moment of life.
On. Off. On. Off. On. Off.
Teasing, a fleeting glimpse
then the darkness once again.
On. Off. On. Off. On. Off.
Strike a match in my heart
Let the fire burn and give it light.

(c) Hazlin Aminudin, 2012

Softly tread
Let no one hear you
Pass by silently
Trying to fade softly
Into the unforgiving
Background where
All dreams stand still
Waiting to move
Ahead of feet
Dragging on these
Rocky surfaces
Heartstrings catching
On shards of broken
Promises and words
Forgotten with whispers
In the night-time
Silently searching
Blindly for the fire
To light up this darkening day.


(c) Hazlin Aminudin, 2012

To you;
I whisper in the dark of night
Lying on my side,
This stranger I know so well
A Hope in the absence of light,
I ask you;
When will you be me, 
And I you?
I answer myself;
Not tomorrow I know, 
But not soon enough to soothe
This growing ache that echoes
in the silence of this hollow cave,
I think I hear you say;
Come a day, soon, Time will tell
When heartbeats share in the 
rhythm of the dark of night
And when you lie on your side
There is Hope and there is light.
When this stranger fills the empty spaces
and bridges the distance in between . * This is not a reflection of my relationship :)

As a child, I never once dreamt of being someone else. Living a life of adventure like my favourite cartoon characters (ie, Teddy Ruxpin and  TMNT), yes, but I never wanted to be somebody else.

Perhaps you could say I was happy as I was. Content. And my family, for all that it is, have always taught me to love myself and to never want for something that wasn't mine. I am told that He gives us what we need, not what we want. And He gives us only what He knows we can handle with our own two hands, and no more.

I believe that. I still do. And yet, at this age, now, past childhood naivete and teenage angst, only now I feel the want to be not me at times. Sometimes I ungratefully wonder how it would be if He gave me a different life, if not an easier one.

I mentally slap myself when I think like that. Because...in spite of all the stumbling blocks placed before me, He has also put in my path someone who will walk with me even if I stumble, He has given me a family who always cheers me on from the sidelines and He has given me much to be grateful for in terms of income, security and many other earthly possessions.

But in the split second of stumbling over a rock in my path, the flashes of thoughts that dash across my mind, tossed in with a bundled of confused emotions before the painful impact with the hard ground, I cannot help but think: What if my path was different?

Answers come to me readily: Then you wouldn't be you, my Common Sense chides me. I would not have the people I love in my life now by my side, it adds. And who says another path would be any better than mine, if not worse?

Many a time it has crossed my mind that I do not have peace because I am not wholly grateful for all He has given me. Well, that isn't far from the truth. But the thought that follows is, if that is the case, then why do others I love suffer as well? Why can't I alone bear the burden? Because I cannot see the people I love in pain while I can only watch from the outside.

But who am I to question God's plan? I can only hope He lets people I love find peace within themselves if not in the lives they have been given or chosen. I hope that He too grants me peace, if I may so undeservingly ask.

I know I am far from perfect, or good enough, even, but I hope I am worthy enough for His attention.

I hope that I can one day look in the mirror and not see someone too tired to be recognised as myself, with grey hairs aplenty at barely 30, dark circles under my eyes with hints of worry lines etched into my skin.

I may have never wished to be someone else.

But now I wish that this someone else would be me again.

I admit, my headlines are not as interesting as this one.

Thought: To become a sub-editor, is a formal education on the English language necessary?

That was a topic of discussion, or rather, argument between Ash and me a few minutes ago before he dropped me off at work. Yes, we are both hard-headed and will keep on arguing to prove a point :-P Don't worry, it's my favourite part of being in the car with him, we always have some kinda something to talk or argue about.

Now I'm not trying to prove a point, but just using myself as a case study to explain why I think the education itself is not necessary. Instead, I think it all boils down to talent.

Big headed kan? But hear me out.

I've spoken English all my life. It's my first language, as in the first language I started speaking and the language I prefer and choose to converse in. I only started speaking Malay later around the age of seven or so. Until now, I have not been able to master it.

I read a lot. Not so much now as before I started working, but I definitely read more than the average Malaysian. And yes, I read almost only books written in English. I started reading at a young age, and spent a large amount of my time burying my head in a book while growing up.

On top of that, I love literature and pop culture. References and allusions don't go by me unnoticed.

I grew up being entertained by tv shows and movies. I was the only child and my father did not encourage me to go out, so besides books, tv was a constant companion.

Mix those key ingredients together and you have my brain, a non-stop pot of words boiling and mixing and absorbing each other. Granted, I'm not very creative, but my lifetime love affair with words and how they work has brought me right here at this desk at Setar.

Words have a certain flavour, you can tell when they don't mix or have been placed in the wrong order or combination. Sometimes I make mistakes, yes, no one is free from mistakes, okay? But the point is, I know if I'm wrong and know how to correct it. And in the face of my job, I know when words don't flow right or have a better way to be worded. I can switch them around and put them together again. And to top it off, I'll try to give it an extra punch with a catchy headline. It's not always possible due to space, but when the occasion calls for it, I can provide a noticeable punch.


Now, my argument with my significant other was somewhere along the lines of whether or not education enables a person to have my job or do my job.


For me, the answer is 'no'.

My job: Read. Edit. Layout. Write headline.

Reason? For one, I think I got this on talent. I may not be the best they've seen, but I'm one of the best they've got.

(Yeah yeah, perasannye)

Well, I'm not great at this, maybe not yet, but I can do this. I think this kind of work takes years of experience to get those creative juices on tap.

Two - At the end of the day, my degree is really just a piece of paper. Yes, I have a degree in English Language and Literature. I took it because that is what I have dreamt of studying since I was 12. I wanted to learn more, be among people who appreciated the English language and its literature (well, not quite), I wanted to soak in the ambience and discuss theories and lines out of poetry and research the history from when the words were written. Tough luck, my expectations were not entirely met, but in any case, I enjoyed IIUM. But...

In terms of learning about language and literature that I would later use in my career, that didn't happen -- much.

No, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying IIUM did not play a role in making me the sub-editor I am today. My literature classes and  sociolinguistics etc helped a lot in understanding the role of language in attracting readers. I learned quite a bit from Discourse Analysis about making words sound good but I hardly absorbed much from all that pure linguistics and have never applied anything I learned in my work (applied linguistics, however, I enjoyed).

Truthfully, at the end of the day, I just wanted that piece of paper saying I graduated so that I could get out and get a decent job to earn a living. I learned a lot in IIUM, but not really of the academic variety. More in the experience sense, I would think.

But...in spite of that, I do believe that I am here for what I already was before I started my degree. It was part of my personality, not education.

I mean, if that were the case, all my colleagues would be from an English degree background. Really, it's not just English majors who are in this line of duty. We have lawyers, engineers, scientists....all who, despite what they studied, found their calling in words.

And, if I were to ask any of my fellow undergrads from my course to join me in my sub-editor-ness, I can hardly even provide you a handful of names who would be interested.

So there you have it. That is why I feel I was not chosen for my qualifications, nor did I choose this job because of it. I was all in my innate nature.

My writing poetry by the age of 7, keeping a journal since I was 8, collecting newspaper articles to read over and over at about the same age, and correcting grammar, even my own teachers', as soon as I entered school..It was all part of my tightly-wound nature of wanting things to be in order.

Yes, I admit it, I'm anal like that. But that's just what I am.

You know that kind of book? I think you do. The kind we hear mixed reviews about. Some say it's good. Some say don't bother.

Your interest is piqued, and you know you need to read it for yourself to decide whether it really is worth the hype. The little voice in your head tells you that you shouldn't be part of a passing fad, and yet, another voice asks you "What if it isn't?".

So you search for it in bookstores, URL and IRL. Bookstores and Amazon. Under every possible category, you look for this coveted title. Everytime you think you've found it, it turns out it's a similar book but not what you were looking for. Or, it is a mere rip-off masquerading as the real deal.

Disappointment fills you. You wonder how others have found this book but somehow not you. Perhaps you should have latched onto the bandwagon when you first heard the whispers about it among friends? Perhaps now that it is so popular, it makes it all the more unattainable.

At this point, you either settle for a wannabe version of this book, just to get an idea of what the real one might be like, or, you forget it altogether, popping by bookshops every now and again hoping to catch a glimpse of what you would really prefer. Or, for some, you give up altogether.

But then you find it. I don't know, perhaps at the bookstore where it was waiting all along. But there are those who find it hidden in the nook of a hole-in-the-wall shop, or a second-hand book at the back of a car, or someone's forgotten copy left on the train. It could be anywhere. But when you find it, it's likely that you feel like meeting an old friend, like someone you've been waiting to meet, and yet never had the chance to until now.

The thing is with this book, the way some books are, you can't find the synopsis in the back. Nor within the sleeves. Not even in the preface. You don't know what it is about. All you know is that many people have good things to say about it. But every person is different. How do you know whether you will like it or hate it?

So, do you read it?

Perhaps you will dare to venture onto the first page, and maybe you won't.

Whether or not you regret it, that is up to interpretation.

Love...is like that book.

People talk about it all the time. From the moment you are old enough to have the stirrings of emotions for the opposite sex, you've heard the stories, how wonderful it is. But then some tell you it's all not worth your time, sometimes they say it's just a ploy to get into your pants.

And despite all the horror stories, the cliches, the glorified tales...you want it for yourself. An understandable decision with an almost impossible solution.

Now you have to look for it.

Sometimes you find it, and sometimes it finds you. But what you find can sometimes be what you need and want, or it could also sometimes spell heartbreak.

But when you do hold the promise of Love in your hands, the synopsis is not written on the back. You don't know what you're getting. Will you be happy at the very end, or will you be left crying? Sometimes you do cry along the way, but it doesn't mean it will end badly. Sometimes it'll be happy all the way through, and sometimes you won't. It's how you read it, how you live it.

Love and me, we've had our ups and downs.

Once someone found their book in me, or he only thought he did. Because I could not give love in return, not in the way he wanted at least. We have always been good friends, but I to me he was always just that, and could not see him as anything more. I closed his book for him.

And when I thought I found my book, and he his, in each other, we found that while we shared common themes, we never really complemented one another. And in the end, we ended up drifting apart until he found another book to read and left me to find mine.

He was the way some books are. Not a bad book, but not entirely easy to read either. And at the end, he was the moral of the story, a lesson to be learnt. And while it took me about many years to realise that, I never did hold it against him. 

And then I found a book. My Book. He was sitting in the backseat with me. He was sitting across the small metal table from me at the Karak highway McDonald's early one morning. He had his arms tentatively testing the waters, slowly wrapping around me underneath my brown jacket that covered us one cold morning while out with friends. And he gave me my first kiss.

Try as I could, I could not find the synopsis to our story. I was scared I would not find what I wanted. I was scared of just reading for the sake of having the book. I was afraid of being hurt yet again. I was afraid I would find happiness, then have it change to sadness instead. I was afraid of a good many things.

But I would never know what was in store unless I smoothened out the pages and read the story with my voice, tasted the words on my tongue. And so I read on. We read on.

This is our story. And I never want it to end.

My thoughts don't run as wild or as well as they used to. No time? Heck, I think these are just excuses. But a sliver of truth rings true; the lack of opportunities to sit down and put pen to paper - so to speak - has left my mind idle, with no fan for the flames to burn.

I refuse to say that I am consumed by work. My work is not me, I am my work - or so I believe. Perhaps I really have become my work, letting it define me. But no, I am still me, just that in my pursuit for a better life, I have not yet been able to find that gap in time to smell the roses.

But these thoughts, these words are a dying art. Perhaps not dying. They are still there. But swimming in this sea of news words - politics, murder, rape, corruption, death - I have lost the words of abstraction that lets loose the intangible thoughts.

If there's a time that you should return, it is now, Words of Mine. I miss you. I miss putting you down on these slabs of blank stone.

Someday we'll know.

Freedom

#25

Sometimes, words are not needed. The look in your eyes says more than words ever can.

#26

These spaces feel
like open oceans
Waiting
Just waiting for
the ship to sail in
the waves to break
my heart to un-ache
to reignite this flame.
The wind whispers
your name, a teasing
tickle at the edge
of my seeping
drowning
conciousness.
Anchor me with
the weight of you
And never leave
me drifting again.

(c) Hazlin Aminudin, 2011

Hush Self, you are much too proud. Too battered and beaten over the years by strongly-worded letters, rejection and battle scars. These walls are high up way to far. These walls you built with your own two hands. And your many a time wounded heart.

Hush Self, suck it up, bite your tongue. Let the doors stay closed but easily opened. Let not indignation guard the door. I promise we won't hurt like before. Those days are long gone, take those defenses from the fore. Leave, just leave the your lashing tongue, steel heart and dagger eyes at the door.

Hush Self, calm yourself down. Life is long, and yet too short for a frown. It's a long way up, and the fall is too far down.

Hush now. Self, hush. Let it wash over you, feel the rush.

Bobbing to nobody's beat
A solitary island
Standing still
Waiting
Waiting
Waiting
For the ship to sail in
And remind it again
That these spaces between
Is for the rush
When the tide comes in.

(c) Hazlin Aminudin, 2010

Baby, come close this space between us. I miss you.
Disclaimer: Beautiful photo of a lone boat, titled "Lone shark" is by a.kay47 from Flickr.

I've got my own, my mirror in hand. And what's glass but only sand?

What's sand but the infinite time? Little pebbles of moments never quantified. Only a fleeting glance of a breaking wave. Washes up to shore then back again.

Mine is the infinity of time. The reflection from the sea. The strength of the crashing waves.

I don't need your facade, your fickle heart.
My footsteps are in the sand, and with it I make art.

Come rest your
Tired limbs
Weary eyes
Ragged heart
Let's sleep off tonight
Take a break from the fight
First light is another 'morrow
Let me take your
Battle scars
Aches and breaks
Your worries at the gate
And cast all the world 
To outside our door
I'll rush them to the fore
These only hands will
Mend breaks
Soothe aches
Smooth dregs
And bring you to your rest
Reining in the beast
For a sweet release
As the gathering dawn breaks
And another battle awakes.

(c) Hazlin Aminudin, 2010

A sleepless night watching the peace of the slumbering dawn, breathing in the seconds til it rises.

Disclaimer: Picture taken from "The Shape of Things..."

Two years ago, my Asdil -- the other half of me -- and myself discovered a mutual spark between us that would bring us to where we are now. And we've stoked that spark to a flame that burns bright independently and surely.

My thoughts run dry as I search for the words to describe the feelings that I feel for him, to say how thankful and relieved I am for that one special day that we just found that spark in the dark. Those words, as much as I would like to think that I have a hold on them, merely dance along the edges of my heart, and could never dream to fall deep enough to drown and  test these deep waters.

And this day, this anniversary of ours, is just a day. It could be any other day, and I will still love you, I will still be thankful for this very same day, two years ago. I will thank whatever urge, whatever instinct, whatever voice that told me to turn to you that day and fall into the unknown with you. It can be any other day, cos I'm not counting, as those days will count on and on until we can't count no more. And it can be any other day, and yet we remember it because without it, who knows whether we would have ever done the same thing at another time, or that we would even feel that spark again.

So, because of that Sayang, I will not try to put this love into words, it'll only put my love to shame. But to commemorate this day, let me just say, I love you. You know how much, because I try everyday to tell and show you but never seem to feel justified. But I know you know. And that's what matters most.

So again, I love you Asdil.

Love,
Hazlin

oh hush
serpent tongue
preaching choir
horse's mouth
swim not
shallow pond
holed sieve
holds no water
mind you
flipped coin
different sides
reverse lies.

(c) Hazlin Aminudin, 2010

Well, I think this speaks for itself. 

Love,
Linzy

Disclaimer: Picture entitled "Serpent's Tongue" is by elainedori from DevintArt.

 
Watch the slow decline
The steeping edge
This fall from grace
A downward spiral
I'm losing face.

(c) Hazlin Aminudin, 2010

Disclaimer: Picture by bucz from deviantart.