you realize in moments like this that it is a work (or works unaccomplished) that what keeps you dormant and numb in your corner, not the weather. blaming things happening on external, how typical of you. turbulence upon turbulence, will you not learn the cause of your grief. now that you have shifted the avenue of your worry from your own mother (who is now more busy than the past year) to him (who is also busy thus ineffectual), you must turn to something of more permanence and not prone to influx. but what what what? who who who?

in waiting, we write.

there are a multitude of things to talk about, aside from the fragmentary impressions of courses taken within a day. all four women traveled two hundred kilometers away and yet you spent time in the train, one, reading sylvia plath’s Journal, second, writing a yet to be posted letter, third, staring out of the window watching twenty somethings clad in tight dresses and sharp suits rejoicing in what seems to be the end of the weekend, drunk in all excitement, guffaw guffaw annoying voices that rings across the carriage (no one goes as far to Broadmeadow, dear). the arrival. the greeting the occasional customary chat of getting to know each other, the act of introduction, the drowsiness of not getting enough sleep, another house, another lawn, another room, another kitchen, another longing. you are used to this constant newness.

the ideal home, or the ideal house, that is, for you, have the following criteria, one, a spotless kitchen, orderly, second, enough windows as to allow as much sunlight as possible (no curtains drawn at any time of the day, please), third, a sofa to read, the fourth, allows as much external stimulation from the environment, such that you know something exists and moves outside, be it noise, a movement, a car zooming through, the old blind woman passing through (all this, so that you are not perpetually in isolation). okay and probably, most important of all, is the nearness towards all things convenient.

your place, as of now, lacks the first (the perks of living with other people, but oh well).

nak tulis lagi tapi dah malas.

bye.

right now i find it more interesting to be exchanging my thoughts and words directly with this one particular person, so i find it hard to address myself anymore here.

until i am disenchanted, then.

yours truly,
maisarah.

the unloading of everything, caffeine and raisins, three in the morning, that rise into a praising. appraisal to the past, a promise of the future, adoration of one another, an adulation of the ideal, an avenue of secrets, all unbroken, unfolded, let loose, from the tongue, from the head from the heart a pride swallowed. a love so pure.

i’m looking at your old posts, written two, three years ago, my dear friend, because i am infinitely curious how on earth could my metaphorical death had managed to render you to such a state.

sometimes i think of you passingly and wonder how you’re doing (there is no spite left). but i dare not to ask (out of guilt), so i sometimes gather around the fringes what you care to spill to the world, and be settle on that instead. it’s enough for me to know that you are well.

tadi saya tengok perempuan perempuan berforum yang tak berselingkuh pun dengan satu sama lain bercakap mengenai kebebasan wanita. masing masing punya aspirasi sendiri, agenda tersendiri, amarah sendiri, melaung yang bukan bukan antara satu sama lain, bercakap mengenai hala tuju, tapi mana hala tuju mu wahai wanita.

no references at all except on the current context, and only the things you encounter in real life (as a woman), never to really dwell on the problem in general. court cases? how limited a scope. except the old woman that is, but her dissent towards the patriarch (and the Word, in order to bypass it), seems full of pent up anger. to take a point of neutrality, to hold a stick demanding rights for women – liberty and all that – seemed pointless to you. everything is dated, but you haven’t been inside a working place (how should you know?) yet – so you can’t say a proper thing yet. “most men are idiots”, you say, and then keep on labeling yourself as an islamic feminist. pfffff. bosan betul. baik pi baca shariati.

how to change a stigma?

how to begin a cultural revolution?

how to educate?

laying down a framework without filling it with consciousness is pointless.

*
to shake, shake everything. if one lulls lament in deep sighing breaths one would never get to anything. one must be shook, tremble with fear, violently, to the point of desperation, to the point of suspension, to the critical moment, if one is to leap into anything.
(i am reminded of Muhammad’s first revelation secara tiba tiba)
*
a sudden privation, the already mute woman barred her life once more, locking the gates for us to glimpse into her soul.
*
of course, i can’t write about you except to you. what use is there to moan for a presence when one is in communion already? a union is in order. with all words exchanged, how can i ever escape here?
*

if you imagine i would exude an air of indifference over this matter, then, you are quite correct. people who bridge between two things, and make such a leaps of thought and come over to such outlandish conclusions, do not understand how all of this might be an elaborate front. or truth disguised, poorly.

but what words are these, such malice.

the point is, if you’d rather me bury all my thoughts once more, then i shall oblige to it, obligingly.
as if one could not trod quietly over things and must burst into a convulsions and frightful fits.
as if guilt can consume oneself and beckon from the dead. can they not be exhumed?
as if overcoming is the most difficult part. haven’t death stood at your door are seized
away every single faculty of your melancholy, purged every thought of languish-ment
sinking into morbidity that all is left of you is you dredging out yourself, carving into hollowness
until that too is excavated, so you find a new nothingness out of nothingness,
that is something actually, so you cling to this sack of emptiness so that one day somebody will fill you back
in pour pour pour however poor his being; it is the willingness to participate – not the spade – it is the heart that you desire – not the art nor the grandeur –

but i must stop. because i am making no sense.

***
justifying reasons for marrying a person, or loving at least, by listing out her qualifications and where she works is so horrifying and glorifying, as if it is something rational and strategic (calculated) instead of being, i don’t know, spontaneous.
***
short reading list (without being unrealistic) to be read within the month (or two), because you are an engineering student, bukan some budak sastera.

• Life of Pi
• Immortality
• Risalah untuk Kaum Muslimin
• start to seriously understand In the Shade of the Quran vol. 30 (because i’m too lazy to launch on a full scale commentary) now that i have the book once again at my side…
• some of Pessoa, Plath, thrown in once in a while as usual…. and shit from the Paris Review kalau rajin. turns out the previous owner is one of the law lecturers here. how interesting. 
• malas nak bukak kotak tengok buku apa lagi ada~

***
if you’re already resolved on the matter, better start to get your act up together and start paving your way towards it, instead of flamboyantly floating here and there without a fleeting care.
***
goodbyes are awkward, no matter how sad they are. a temporal goodbye is easier than an eternal one. but you remain speechless and terrible at goodbyes. they prospect of having to say farewell to everyone, each personalized, so you better come up with some remark no matter how offbeat they seem, or resort to the general good luck in your life, hope to see you again, dear. strange how the same thing happened thing months ago; you were incapable of tears, (it wasn’t in your constitution anyway to cry over goodbyes), so you hid in one corner and said to another, confiding that you,  have a heart of stone.
***
ahead of all parting? nak cari tak?
*bukak buku baru rilke*
***
it’s twelve already. i’m 21. a year annihilated.
***
i’m waiting for that phone call.

(forget how i came across this series of lectures. ha)

The Conqueror Worm

       Lo! 'tis a gala night
         Within the lonesome latter years!
       An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
         In veils, and drowned in tears,
       Sit in a theatre, to see
         A play of hopes and fears,
       While the orchestra breathes fitfully
         The music of the spheres.

       Mimes, in the form of God on high,
         Mutter and mumble low,
       And hither and thither fly-
         Mere puppets they, who come and go
       At bidding of vast formless things
         That shift the scenery to and fro,
       Flapping from out their Condor wings
         Invisible Woe!

       That motley drama- oh, be sure
         It shall not be forgot!
       With its Phantom chased for evermore,
         By a crowd that seize it not,
       Through a circle that ever returneth in
         To the self-same spot,
       And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
         And Horror the soul of the plot.

       But see, amid the mimic rout
         A crawling shape intrude!
       A blood-red thing that writhes from out
         The scenic solitude!
       It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs
         The mimes become its food,
       And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
         In human gore imbued.

       Out- out are the lights- out all!
         And, over each quivering form,
       The curtain, a funeral pall,
         Comes down with the rush of a storm,
       While the angels, all pallid and wan,
         Uprising, unveiling, affirm
       That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
         And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

tengah hari semalam waktu saya sedang bermalasan di perpustakaan, saya akhirnya berjaya menghabiskan Conference of the Birds (yang tinggal lagi dua puluh page), dan maka, sesungguhnya, nak declare yang this is the type of puisi/epic thing/whatever one should aim for.

although i’m not particularly interested in the seven stations themselves (and hence skipped a large of part of… skimmed at least, without much reverence) i do feel that the transcendent quality of wanting to release oneself from everything that binds us to the earth, is captured magnificently in this book.

then again, i myself am guilty of not only not having to act upon my knowledge but decidedly went against it… i should stop. there is no use writing here, now. i’ve reached a point of saturation. this morning i had an idea, and that idea is lost. this morning, as well, i dreamt of you, but what exactly i am at loss. vagueness.

stupendous.

i am to write elsewhere.