If you brought me diamonds,
If you brought me pearls,
If you brought me roses
Like some other gents
Might bring to other girls,
It couldn't please me more
Than the gift I see;
A pineapple for me.

But there is no one...
no one in all of Berlin who is more deserving.
If I could, I would fill your entire room with pineapples!

A pineapple
for you,
from you.

cabaret, tonight, loeb mainstage, magic

where is she hiding
behind the silent sirens
keeping still, waiting

i just bought my one-way ticket to the land of purple people, tapioca trees, and perpetual horizons.

i am very fond of sunsets... come, let us watch a sunset.

at times, you cannot come up with the reasons. your tongue hesitates and your mind draws a blank. silence... runs... through, not because there aren't any answers, but because your mind lacks the ability to verbalize unadulterated, unsaid truths. you can only feel, and perhaps show, but cannot tell. silence, filling the space between us, cradling us in its arms. with eyes closed, and minds open, the truths begin to flow...

the fragrance hangs in the air like a suspended web, capturing our phosphorescent stares and trembling lips. observe as we, insect-like, resist futilely against the gravitation of glistening lines. with every winged effort, we become one step closer to liberating ourselves from the intoxicating stickiness.

we survive, yet the spider starves.

one more robot learns to be
something more than a machine
when it tries the way it does
make it seem like it can love...
cause it's hard to say what's real
when you know the way you feel
is it wrong to think it's love
when it tries the way it does...

things i come up with when i'm falling asleep:

i would like to write
a haiku about haiku
meta-poetry

i considered adding an exclamation point after the last line, but i think [for aesthetic reasons] that it should only exist in the version in my head, and not on the written page. but when you read it, perhaps the exclamation point will be constructed in your head all by itself, and you wouldn't ever know the difference.

five seconds of now
to have and never let go
let me have a taste

a saturation of color... when everything hits at once, when your eyes cannot hold back the tears, is when the forms start coming into focus. outlines shaded in yellow and mauve signal the end, and the start, of all that has been and all that will become. you want the shadows to remain, but they fade slowly, disappearing altogether into ethereality. the hour arrives, yet your memory lingers.

in the dark, things become clearer... what is invisible in the day becomes visible at night, when there is no light, but only poetry and petals, to guide you. i see in the blackness... warmth and solitude in the shape of a smooth landscape with golden fields and willow trees, the wayward breezes sighing into consciousness. in the wind --their leaves shimmering-- the branches enigmatically sway.

the leaves wink to me in iridescence, but my heart only beats faster.

i cannot wake up from this dream...

.. . . . ....... .. .. .. . . . .. .. . . . * ... ..


yesterday i spent most of my waking hours pacing the sidewalks of boston, taking shots of the grim-faced populace and imported fabrics of chinatown. i felt alive, independent, courageous on my own two feet. i haven't felt this way since i canvassed the city like a true bostonian this summer, gliding down newbury, strolling through the commons, taking a detour into south end. craving... invincibility among the elements of the street and of the world beyond.

it's comforting that i have not lost that power.

in chinatown on saturday, i ate lunch happily at best cafe, situated right next to china pearl on tyler street. i sat alone [yes, party for one] on a plain, formica table, watching the waitresses giggling amongst themselves and customers bantering like regulars. as i watched the women assemble the dishes one by one at the single kitchen-counter, seeing their floral aprons and tired smiles and sprinkled scallions made me very happy. i am not sure why. an old man with thick black-rimmed glasses, an old baseball cap, and a hairy mole on his upper lip sat in the next table, facing me, his head buried in his bowl, the chopsticks darting in and out of view, a chinese newspaper lying helplessly by his right arm. i mirrored him as i slurped my beef noodle soup, the soft white strands slipping from the sticks, the bites of meat rimmed with gelatinous tendons, the broth warm and salty down my throat. soup had never tasted so delicious, so mine. my camera sat patiently by my left elbow, untouched, taking in all of the scene through its lens, preserving the moment in its dark box forever. she remains my auxiliary eye, silent and comprehensive and honest. my thoughts drifted back to china and all the wonderful dishes i consumed on the crowded streets of beijing and the sugar-sticky snacks of shanghai.

i drifted for quite a while. my teapot was empty before i left the cafe.

the unexpected transformation was to follow: you can see for yourself. before and after, left and right: three dimensions into four. the suns sets in red-violet.

my archives seem to have their knickers in a twist... some entries are eliminated entirely... allow me to tinker...

a secret message to those blueberry and beyond:

your prolonged and somnambulistic existence as a sleeping beauty will not be spent in vain. i have breathed heavily through two years of slumber, and tonight i rub my eyes in wonder. to awake, and find oneself within a nucleus of surreal love... it makes your hair want to tumble and dance.

once upon a time... the morning air, so light and sweet, silkily tracing our insides with the promise of youth, recharged our impulses and laughter.

once upon a time... your hair was soft, and my smile demure.

once upon a time... we hid under a canopy of translucent wonder, encompassed by warmth and sheltered from the elements beyond, our faces shadowed and painted.

once upon a time... the bells tolled one, two, three.

once upon a time... i felt weightless, supported only by the greenness below, and from you above.

once upon a time... we forgot reality and allowed ourselves to transcend...

once upon a time... i was impervious.

once upon a time... time stopped forever.

i had an afternoon nap. in and out of consciousness, i dreamt of a game, but the blocks did not fall. they were manipulated in midair.

i felt it.

two hours this morning (waking up at 8, like usual these days) was spent developing black and white film, a necessary evil to commence the procedural process of printing photographs, the application of my thoughts pressed deliberately and carefully onto paper. the whole photographic medium is surreal... people i know, things i see, elements i taste on every breath appear in fragements, like moments lost that can be reclaimed and savored once again. to relish... a still moment, silent, a visual yet visceral image that stares back with thrice the intensity that you throw it. the imaginary becomes real, in this intermediate space between your mind and your oily hands.

you continue staring.

every week i walk in to the darkroom, with hands numbed from the cold, cast my bags hastily on the black tabletop, and prepare myself for the little dark cell. i carry only myself, a can opener, scissors (with shiny red handles that match the bright red grease pencils and coordinate with my red sneakers, but only i notice the coincidence) and four tiny cylindrical packages that contain more time and space than my own reality can handle. reeling film, the first step in developing, is like no other experience you'll ever have. in pitch ebon, with only the floor beneath you and the four encroaching walls as absolute truths, you are expected to pry the film from the rolls, reel them onto these cold wiry contraptions, place them into an aluminum canister, and finally seal the light-proof container. even with eyes wide open, all you can see is a swallowing blackness that throws doubt on the fact that your body even exists. my fingers prove invisible, the table vanishes, and all that's left is the whir of the cool pipes and my own intermittent breaths. in this little room, time stops. blankness envelopes the moment, and you cannot even think, suffocated by this numbing emptiness. as you reel the film, which is akin to threading needles with your eyes closed, you think of nothing except how the wires are smooth to the touch, and how slippery the film is, and the faint squeaking that comes when you tug on the end of the spool. you don't think about the weather, nor what lunch has in store, or your fantasy of choice. for ten minutes, your thoughts are replaced by emptiness and your sight by darkness as your fingers fumble for the right items at the right places. this fumbling in the darkness, fumbling for ecstasy, fumbling for art, fumbling for truth.

the lid is secured. you go out into the light, and those ten minutes have disappeared. your brain readjusts to visual stimuli, but those dark moments will forever be imprinted in your mind as this nothingness. a continual, blank, clumsy nothingness.

despite the fact that today i have been out, talked to friends, been here and there, ate honeydew, and jingled keys, it's like i'm still in the darkness. i cannot think, but only feel the tangible. stains in the wood and leaves on the ground. the glow of artificial lights and the touch of nepalese wool. everything on the outside, and an irreplaceable blankness on the inside.

these times are tentative, vulnerable. i was discussing with a friend tonight on how strange the paradox lies... at this moment, so much is expected of us, yet this is precisely the time when we are most insecure about our futures. a turning moment, of revolution, of self-realization, of downfall, of sublimination.

my muse has flown.

a haiku for you:

which one shatters first
the soul bleeding thick and sweet
i still spin slowly

it being a friday morning, the sun lazily drifting through my window and my cs assignment still not quite right, i thought i'd take the five minutes of bubble-clicking and mind-clearing to complete an online personality disorder test. there's something strangely cathartic and thoroughly self-conscious about answering yes or no to questions such as "do other people accuse you of being manipulative?" i mean, i don't think so... i mean, i hope not... well, could i be? [insert deafening inner turmoil here] anyway, this goes on, pell-mell, for around sixty-one questions. (hee.) the torture is okay, because as a reward you get a little report card! yippee, just like second grade, except this time you get a sliding scale of intensity instead of the nice "O for outstanding, S for satisfactory, and we feel very sorry for those of you who got U for unsatisfactory because your work really, really stank", and in categories like "paranoid" and "obsessive-compulsive" instead of simple school arts like penmanship or geography (oh, how i loved making those salt-dough topographical maps; you got to squish them around for hours until they resembled the state of maryland; they were quite tasty too, only necessitating unconsequential glasses of water). i wish back then we had gotten graded in things like "antisocial"... perhaps a lot of us would have felt very proud to score so highly.

alright, so i'm looking at my list (and lack of) disorders. only one leaps from the screen, marked by a blood-red HIGH rating: schizotypal. weird. mmm, what does that mean...?


Schizotypal
Many believe that schizotypal personality disorder represents mild schizophrenia. The disorder is characterized by odd forms of thinking and perceiving, and individuals with this disorder often seek isolation from others. They sometimes believe to have extra sensory ability or that unrelated events relate to them in some important way. They generally engage in eccentric behavior and have difficulty concentrating for long periods of time. Their speech is often over elaborate and difficult to follow.

wow. so that's a disorder? haha. well, if so, the rest of the non-schizotypal population is definitely missing out. to the alternative of chasing tails, i'll flourish in my world of abstraction and dream about how the entire world can be singly equated to some undefined vegetable (blanched, steamed, and forgotten). follow me to that place, where signs and spaces and smells all coalesce, and you make as much sense to me as that weary rubber band, and i make as much sense as your mother's lipstick. a cool, smooth, catalyst to beauty.

the world has suddenly turned very cold.