All he wants

This song breaks me into bit and pieces. Again. What does it mean when people say their hearts are broken into pieces? It is that moment in between you can't hold yourself up together and your head is held up high; and you're totally down on the ground unable to move into the direction of happiness and anything that comes along the way.

Again.

Out of water

Will a shark
be as fearless
in a
forest?
Can the devil
survive
in heaven?
Will a tiger
still roar
on the face of
the moon,
or will it
whimper
more meekly
than
a lamb?
If the moon
can linger
on a morning
so bright,
why can't
the sun
do the same
at night?

When you are gone

But if only God
would grant me
a piece
of His courage,
I might face
your absence
without dying.
But if only you would
take me
with you
wherever you go,
I would find
home
in a million different
places.
And I would sweeten you
in a million different
ways.
Before you are sleepy,
I will have already placed
a thigh
under your falling
head.
Before you are hungry,
I am already peeling
onions.
When you are
angry with me,
I shall
kiss you.
When you are not,
I shall kiss you
twice.
If you should die
before me,
I shall lie down
beside you.
Whisper a joke
into your half-listening ear.
Promise
the ultimate promise
of eternal companionship.
When you are gone,
I do not die,
But I am forever
dying.

Well, you know that's a lie

A wise man once said you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you're willing to lose. Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right, and letting someone in means abandoning the walls you've spent a lifetime building. Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don't see coming, when we don't have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, when the battle chooses us and not the other way around, that's when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear.


 

So why d'you have to lie?
I take it I'm your crutch
The pillow in your pillow case
It's easier to touch

What's the point of this song? Or even singing?
You've already gone, why am I clinging?
Well I could throw it out, and I could live without
And I could do it all for you
I could be strong
Tell me if you want me to lie
'Cause this has got to die

Don't look back at this crumbling fool

  Didn't I give it all?Tried my bestGave you everything I hadEverything and no less

Love IS a battlefield

There is no better film to watch other than In The Land of Blood & Honey, after I get back from Birotatanegara Camp (sorta a boot camp but less military). As Angelina Jolie's directing and writing debut, the piece gives a perfect reflection of what is happening intricately in Malaysian politics, nowadays, and the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I am gonna leave that to my fellow Malaysians to observe it in the film.

If you look at her portfolio as an actress (The Tourist, Salt, Wanted, Tomb Raider, Original Sin, Mr. Mrs. Smith), you’d never thought of seeing this piece from her. As her first time directing and writing, Angelina has an artist’s eye, strong personal vision, and a masterful command of her stars.

It is 1992 and tensions between Serbs and Bosnians in the former Yugoslavia were escalating to frightening levels. Ajla (Zana Marjanovic), an artist and a Bosnian, agrees to go out on a date with Danijel (Goran Kostic), a cop and a Serb. They meet at a club and as the evening progresses, dance and flirt with each other. Their date ends when a bomb explodes in the club killing many people. Ajla and Danijel survive but they are now thrust headlong into the center of a war characterized by a newly designated term, “ethnic cleansing”.

This piece highlights the savagery of the Serbs. Danijel has been given the position of running a military camp by his father, Serbian General Nebojsa (Rade Serbedzija). When Ajla is one of the women rounded up to be a sex slave in his camp, he saves her from rape. Danijel keeps her away from his men and takes her as his lover. Having a Bosnian Muslim for a lover and protecting her, is highly dangerous for him.

Zooming out to the actuality of the war, this ruthless movie puts a human face on a conflict that was all but ignored by the rest of the world even as it encompassed the worst genocide in Europe since the Nazis and horrific war crimes from mass systematic rape to the use of civilians as human shields.

Of course I have heard about “ethnic cleansing” but this film boldly and bluntly puts it all out there like an untold story. The rape and humiliation of the women and Nazi-like behavior of the soldiers is harrowing – important because it happened in the 1990s. The Serbian soldiers killed civilians as ruthlessly as the Nazis. They took people from their homes with the same violence shown the Jews during Hitler’s reign.

If there is one good reason why this piece lost to the Iranian masterpiece, A Separation, in last year’s academy award, it should be the direction in acting and weak script. While I am sure that romances such as the one depicted in this movie do occur, the movie is unconvincing. What happens on the screen seems impossible, despite a good many things the actors and technical people do very well. Even the good choices Jolie makes, such as her insistence in casting actors unknown to U.S. audiences and having them say their lines in their native Serbo-Croatian, are undone by the terrible love story at the movie’s core.

Never less than competent, it’s clearly the result of a sincere, long-harbored desire to raise awareness of these horrific, dehumanizing events. It is frequently said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it and, with that in mind, it’s an almost entirely noble endeavor. The film’s treatment of Serb characters – most of whom are portrayed as monsters beyond redemption – has already proved controversial and divisive for many in the Balkans as they look to move on from the past.

The man and the woman

We all want to grow up. We're desperate to get there. Grab all the opportunities we can to live. We're so busy trying to get out of that mess, we don't think about the fact that it's going to be cold out there. Really freaking cold. Because growing up sometimes means leaving people behind. And by the time we stand on our own two feet, we're standing there alone.

For the past, at least, 10 years, I have been waking up feeling I am the one who holds my own choices, decisions, and consequences. Friends, best friends, family, lovers, acquaintances, people around me, come and tap all kinds of resources out of me even at the heart. I have given it all and most of the time without tapping into theirs.

However, the man of my life and my mom have taught me an essential life lesson.

That the human body is made up of systems that keep it alive. The one that keeps you breathing, the one that keeps you standing, the one that makes you hungry and the one that makes you happy. They're all connected, take a piece out and everything else falls apart. And it's only when our support systems look like they might fail us that you realize how much we depended on them all along.

There’s an endless gravitational limitation on how this man has pulled me into a force to reckon with.  Healed.

I have never fully and heartedly understood this piece, which I have once performed years ago in front of a bunch of talented performers in Movement for Actor class in Purdue Theatre. A recent ‘fall’ has reminded me that this piece speaks directly on how ‘beautiful’ this man is in accompanying me to get back into the battlefield of life.

 49

 I hold her hands and press her to my breast.

 I try to fill my arms with her loveliness, to plunder her sweet

   smile with kisses, to drink her dark glances with my eyes.

 Ah, but, where is it? Who can strain the blue from the sky?

 I try to grasp the beauty, it eludes me, leaving only the body in

   my hands.

 Baffled and weary I come back.

 How can the body touch the flower which only the spirit may

   touch?

                   The Garderner, Rabindranath Tagore

Mom used to tell me that I could go out and play. Running and chasing all different kind of victories. But do come back before the sun goes down. She hopes for happiness.

I came back with a great wound.

She has come comforting me as the truest friend I have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon me; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with me in my sunshine desert me; when trouble thickens around me, still will she cling to me, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to my heart.

Thus, now, I have learned that everything is connected. Every little kid knows the words to the song. The foot bones connected to the leg bone. The leg bones connected to the knee bone. In biology, I learn it's a little more complicated than that. The song’s not wrong. Everything is connected in order for ME to stand tall. Again.