With a stroke of the pen....

I can write stories of joy, sorrows, and be completely in control of how I want it to start or to end. For the story of my life, that stroke of pen couldn't work the same magic of what will happen to me. My life, hence, is inconclusive when it comes to fictional writing. I can only feel along the way and write as the signs of times unfold itself.

Life as it is, is hard to live and never a breeze. Anticipating for bad news worsens it. It creates unwanted images in the mind, an amounting fear, intense duress, the reality of how insecurity could threatened one to the very core. Time couldn't possibly wipe all these out without leaving a mark or a dog-ear on those pages of life. Perhaps a page or two will need to be completely torn out. I wondered when would be a good timing to start tearing pages out, to tear it into little pieces and flush it down the toilet. The timing seems perfect from time to time, but try to make an excuse to postpone - these must be the works of empty hopes, and make-believe love. I pretend to look at all the clocks in the house, hoping that they could guide me to be there and yonder on time, to tear some pages out, that is... It is almost a joke, I procastinated, am never on time, time has always been on me. Tick Tock, the clock goes. The cuckoo pops out of it's little door to tease me, "Cuckoo, whatcha waiting for, you fool?"

Ah... a romantic fool that I am, always believing that there's a love of a lifetime. A combustible kind of love that keeps your heart pumping, your pupils dilated, and lips parted. I am created the way I am, it's ingrained in my genes, perhaps it takes effort, and lots of hard kicking of myself to stray away from this fictitious frame of mind. Though it is carved on my heart of how things should be - I am in a way, a fool of a kind - self-created - self-destructive.

I am at a point, which I may might as well take advantage of completely make changes to fit into the world. Seems like my choices previously have failed before my eyes - it's almost as painful as stories of love and betrayal that one reads. This road will be less taken, and will appear as paragraphs of past tense in my book of life .

They say, you need a heart to love. The heart is more treacherous in this sense. I've been advised all my life, "use the mind". At this age, I'm still listening to my heart most of the time, it tells me of where I should deposit my love. My mind doesn't agree with the heart most of the times. It's a constant battle. I never stopped for love because I seemed to have an abundance of it within myself to impart with, but love stopped me many times - dead in my tracks. Perhaps that's the right word - it leads to death. Death to the personality, death to the heart eventually, death to who I am.

The evolution needs to take place, I should know this. There was a 2-year-stop once, and then a 7-year-stop and now, one stop that is hanging over my head. The heart seemed to know that this is the one, but there are so many signs that I should keep on walking or to stay far away. My mind says, "Be careful, be very, very careful". My heart says, "Wait, and see". I took the option of waiting for months, there were more disappointments than joy. I've been there before, I've waited for years once. I lived on the bits and traces of joy, in denial that it will overcome the disappointments. Seems that life never worked out that way - as seen amongst my contemporaries. I should know better, I should go into my self-preservation.

Time and again, I've been faced with waiting games. It is cruel. The player gets scott-free, and probably doesn't even know that a game has been played. The 'played' gets the brunt of sufferings - allowing oneself to be toyed - how sad! Ah... 'pen this down' I'd say... somewhere back in my mind, I hear the words, "experiences are good for you"... my mind tells me that "if I go on this way, I will lose my own respect for myself". You see, I am the toy in that little book of life, not too different from that old Christmas teddy that many toss out when Christmas is over.

Even time deceived me, as it once promised me that "things will get better". The signs of time seemed deceptive enough to put a film over my eyes, lying and promising to me that love is there to stay. While at the back of my mind, I hear the clocks mechanically ticked and tocked emotionlessly away, mocking me that love will never stay. Patience has become a joke, because it could not wait for love. Grace has it's hidden thorns, as in the disguise of a christmas present with a ticking time-bomb inside. I really thought God was watching - is HE? How long more, Oh Lord? The book of Job has the best examples of pain, sorrow and bitterness - do I share a similar fate - one that is of a new variation to what Job had gone through? Where heavens will reward me in a different way? Well, that's Job, and I do not have a heart strong enough to go through what Job did. What have I done to deserve all these pain? Something is seriously wrong somewhere. My mind must take over.

I cannot take in the pulse-stopping surprises in life any more. Seems like I go through one test after another, and my envelope of fate seemed to be sealed with an endorsement in blood-red wax, "TO BE TESTED UNTIL THE SEAL IS BROKEN". That's how it appears to be, and what is within the envelope, will be yet, a new lease of life. How long more will this seal hold? Allow me the new lease of life, Oh God. Even writing about this makes my fingers tremble, my eyes water, my tears flow like blood gushing from a cut wrist. It's a pain too much to bear, and I believe right before I snap, the tables will be turned. It has always been that way - the close play to the brink of insanity.

Hence, this is my brink of insanity - the in between worlds of sobriety and madness - making my writing must now appear to be incorrigible, it's readability is only clear enough or rather, obvious with signs that it belongs to a hurt writer. Thus, leaving my piece of paper appearing even at a close range, as smudged periods and crooked lines - nothing is actually written, even if was, there's no logic to it. From a distance, it is blank. My life hence, a riddle, blank from a distance, and unreadable at a close range - it requires analysing, rethinking, perhaps, exorcism.

My life once ruled by my heart and God has taken a twist. I peer up at the skies, wondering what else do I need to go through. With all these experiences, and they are not many, but still, they are really painful ones that is more than what I can bear, has made changes in my heart. A heart that was born so big, but corroded with years of acidic hurt, and layers of experience in the form of gunk deposited on the uncorroded parts, making it's space smaller, valves narrower, and filled with more impurities... The sweet blood that used to pump in and out of it were once filled with bubbles of joy, cells of grace, and the colour of love - a healthy crimson red.

The years of being nice have not done any service to this heart, it has overworked it, and it has stalled it's healthy pumping. Sadder still, it harbours stagnant and corrupted blood, embittered by the gunk and the corroded walls. Hence, it has begun to contrict more than it should. Soon, it will forget to grow, and there will be no space for anything else, but stuck with all that no-good experience. This heart will in time, forget the profoundness of love, the meaning of forgiveness, the tracings of joy, and the kindness of grace. The pages on my book of life are filling up really quickly with drippings of venomous hurts.

How could the hand that shaped the heart, has now changed? It's loving support has turned into a cruel grip. The blissful joys of love that the heart once felt in those loving hands of the father has now been corrupted with the games of the world. The current love that seemed promising appears to resemble a mirage.

Illusions and hallucinations could be it. It wasn't there before, perhaps it's the cunning works, moves, and the processes of the games. Thus, the heart is 'played out'. Betrayed. Checkmate. Almost like a fiction, a movie in my mind, but I am not the writer, nor the director - who is writing and directing all these? Whoever it is, my bleak hope still plays with my psyche that here are still seeds of consideration and sensitivity implanted before more games are inserted into my pages. The games are still there - from time to time I feel little baits of hope - a shady love - dodgy promises. The games are merciless - the way of the world. It is no wonder that heart loses it's immunity to hours of grace, minutes of faith, the seconds of trust, the milliseconds of love, the nanoseconds of hope. The light of life has dimmed.

My life, that once filled with love has now taken a twist. My heart, that used to generate and harbour love has turned into a cold, bitter stone. There must be something left deep down in that heart that could still stir my life. Ah... if only, with a stroke of the pen, I could rewrite my life and the condition of my heart, things will be completely different...