by Szeying Tan
I stand on the curb waiting for the green man to light up. All around me, the cars go their own way and the smell of exhaust fumes fill the air. Questions fill my head. Easy questions. Boring questions. Silly questions. Questions that dwell for days without answers. Questions that kept repeating themselves. The more I question, the less I understand. My mind is weighed down by my own thoughts. My own thoughts follow me everywhere. Lingering thoughts. Haunting thoughts. Morbid thoughts. I lie awake, thinking, questioning, disecting every inch of my mind. My past, there must be something there that would pacify my pounding questions. It is hard to look back, delve into the past, to ask the right questions. It is hard to figure it all out, with a mesh of memories, some concocted, some real. I think about pleasure. I think about pain. Nights of passion in the arms of a lover. Intoxication. Fear. The faint constant need to get drunk, stay stoned, feel sober. I think of balmy nights, insects flying, clinging to sweaty brows. Dirt roads and abandoned resevoirs. Steamy jungles and dim streetlights. Robbing candy from the streetside newstand. I think of cool nights and chain smoking friends. I drift into a semi-concious state. Bad genes and tomorrow's fears. No past that will let me free myself anytime soon. But in death, I hope. I think of my mother. A generation of poor helpless women. Loss hopes, scared children and emptiness. Yesterday's news. Today's guilt. Where's tomorrow? My thoughts flow like a broken faucet. Happy is the woman who has a good husband. Ironic, isn't it? I think of my mother's death. Tearless nights spent pondering.One night of fickle words and a lifetime of regret. Burst heart, open casket. Laughter dealt against guilt's last stand. Cheap salvation, a dime a confession. No more sorrow needed. I need to get used to pain somehow. As the nights wear thin, I think of my father. Jumbled thoughts, perverted silent screams. I feel my skin through the insides of my fingertips. Too many screams unheard. Too many. A Tarantino sitcom on must-see T.V. A prosperous man with a beautiful family admired by many. Little known demons in secret cupboards. A worm that has dug itself too fast, too strong, spilling out of its safe crevice. I take deep breaths but my lungs refuse to move quietly. It's painful, painful even to breathe now. I can only love my father through a child's eyes. This pair of adult, bitter, tainted eyes can only hate. Hate for a shitkicking, half-assed justified kid-beater. Hate for an accusing, malicious, hurting man. Hate for unbecoming guilt. Hate for angry words spoken in jilted tongues. Hate for fear. Bleeding. I don't have to look back. I have an addict's personality. Do everything to the extreme. I want to be higher. Out of here. Out of my senses. Human disintegration. Few have seen such lows as I have. I have followed the cliche perfectly. Outwardly cheerful, successful and happy, inwardly sad, alone, dying. The demons of my own making. The demons that I have shook hands and partied with. These demons are friendly now. Nothing more but just harmless nightmares. It's time to close the door on myself. Check out Szeying Tan's web pages here, and here. |