La Vie Boheme!

Here's to the broken hearts army

Tue, 21 May 2013 05:31:11 -0400

Here’s to the broken hearts army
Marching seven billion strong
If this sounds all to familiar
Perhaps this is your song:

Here’s to the front-liners: party of the generalised
The single parent, the bullied, those waiting to die
The drunk, the struggling artist, the disaffected youth
Those who thought voices spoke to them
And that the world burst into flames in a million colours
Whose pain has been so much described
We think we know enough to sympathise
And yet whenever they break down
Our numbness at the lack of surprise

Then here’s to those living on the margins
Who cries into their pillow at night
When all they had done was to love
Who gets lower pay and longer hours
By their employer whose skin is a shade lighter
Who everyone avoids like a plague
The legacy of a wild night when 18

But most of all here’s to you
You who spent hours making the dinner your husband doesn’t touch
You who had looked forward to that Disneyland birthday trip for months
You who stayed up till morning going through your notes
Just to watch the college offer land
At the feet of the girl born with the silver spoon
You who handmade a card for your crush
Which he forgot about and never read
You who slept in the office to finish up work
But never got the pay rise you deserve
Here’s to all of you who sought for reciprocation
Here’s to the broken hearts army.

inception

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:33:00 -0400

I used to always wonder what it was like for people living ages ago, isolated from the world - what do they do with their lives? How is it that they can accept the things that they do, not knowing about the multitudes of things around them, the limits of the sky?

“Of course it is … “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

We’re all in the blind spot until someone plants an idea in our head. You want to go on road trips because you’ve read On the Road. You want to travel because you’ve seen millions of pictures of different places. You want to be in certain relationships because of years being finely bred by soap opera. You want to start a family in a nice suburban area in the States even though you’ve never been there and live halfway across the world, just because you’ve heard so much about how it’s like. You even want to experience the bad things, so long as you have an expectation of how it’ll turn out. You’re rarely interested in anything you’ve absolutely never approached. Things are seldom good or bad. They’re good because they match or went beyond the expectations. They’re bad because they didn’t live up to what we pictured. It is very, very difficult to feel anything towards something you have absolutely never come across. Our lives are not so much what we do but what goes on in our head.

In this world of growing connections and information explosion, it’s no wonder people never feel happy anymore.

My tea’s gone cold I’m wondering why I..got out of bed at allThe morning rain clouds up...

Fri, 17 May 2013 22:20:50 -0400

My tea’s gone cold I’m wondering why I..
got out of bed at all
The morning rain clouds up my window..
and I can’t see at all
And even if I could it’ll all be gray,
but your picture on my wall
It reminds me, that it’s not so bad,
it’s not so bad..

Dear Nobody,

Fri, 17 May 2013 22:11:20 -0400

I don’t know who else to write to, because Nobody cares and Nobody would listen.

Why do I feel so sad all the time? How do you tell people about that? The world demands of you a reason to be sad. When you tell them you’re sad the first thing the asks is why. Why do they do that? Everyone knows feelings are irrational. And yet, there has to be a reason for your irrationality. I’m on my period, you tell them, even if you aren’t. You’re on a lot of pressure from your schoolwork lately, you say. Yet you know that’s not the truth, the truth, the truth is something you can’t tell anyone, because they won’t understand. I remember when I was in Year 8 there was this girl who was depressed, really depressed, so depressed was on meds, but it was alright for her, because she had an excuse, her mom had cancer. She’s okay now. But I remember how it was like then, when she was sensitive and touchy over everything and she would interpret everything to be an attack against her and she would believe that the whole world hates her and eventually the whole world did, save one friend. That wasn’t me, I wasn’t so understanding back then. Nor now, I suppose. The ironic thing was, she was very aware of her behaviour, and she knew that if she kept being sad eventually every would disappear, which was what she was most afraid of, but she did it anyway, because obviously she couldn’t control her sadness. It was like an experiment, and a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That’s how I feel now. I come from a family of people who are known to have depression. Maybe that’s a reason there.

When you feel suffocated by emptiness what you’re really doing is screaming and waiting for someone to hear you, but they almost never do. How do you tell anyone the feeling that there’s not a soul in this world that can understand you, how do you come to terms with the feeling that you don’t even want to try because you’re worried that the few people you have left in your life would think you’re weird and leave you. I tried pouring my heart out once, this year, to a guy who wasn’t worth it at all. After a thousand word long text message he replied me with three words and then next day in the corridor he looked at me awkwardly as if he or I had done something wrong.

My brother said I fantasized about killing myself, and I brushed it off an overexaggeration, but recently I’ve had very funny ideas in my brain, conversations I would have with people as I’m about to throw myself off the building. I was listening to Stan by Eminem yesterday, and I almost started crying, because Stan was me, this was how angry I usually was at the world, so angry I want to kill myself so that everyone would remember me forever.

Right now, the song Franky played when we were guitar-shopping is playing on my spotify, and somehow this is keeping me alive.

I so very much hope someone would read this, and at the same time I’m so scared someone actually would and leave me forever.

wouldn’t it be funny if i disappeared forever

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:51:53 -0400

wouldn’t it be funny if i disappeared forever

“When’s The Great Gatsby coming out? Next week?” “Yeah I think...

Sun, 05 May 2013 05:58:00 -0400

“When’s The Great Gatsby coming out? Next week?”

“Yeah I think so.”

“God I hope they don’t make the movie crap. I don’t care much for the plot but I feel for the characters. Jay Gatsby. He was so obsessed. I watched the 1980s version of the movie after reading the book. It was horrid. The script was basically just the original dialogue of the book. Do you know about the director?”

“No, who is he?”

“The guy who directed Romeo+Juliet.”

“The Claire Danes movie?”

“Yeah, and DiCaprio. It was a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, they came from family of gangsters or something. But it was really weird, it was set in modern day and they were wearing modern day quotes but they talked like they were reciting poetry. (laughs) He also directed that…what did you say was the movie that had Smells like Teen Spirit again?”

“Moulin Rogue.”

“Yes, Moulin Rogue. I fell asleep in 10 minutes.”

“I like Moulin Rogue!”

“He also directed Australia. The one with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.”

“Ick. That was a horrible movie.”

“So, yeah. Those are his credentials. (laughs) Who do you think would make a good director for The Great Gatsby? Obviously you can’t have someone like Tarantino direct the movie, Gatsby will turn out to be like a ninja and shit. (laughs) If it’s Nolan Gatsby will be trying to implant an idea into Daisy’s mind.”

“No, maybe he’ll find out Daisy wasn’t in fact, actually Daisy. (laughs) Who can do that kind of detachment and loss?”

“Wong Kar-wai?”

“He’d be good for the sentimentality, but he can’t show the extravagance of the imagery. All his movies have these dark, slow shots that just wouldn’t work here.”

“Yeah, that’s true. Who is a good romance director?”

“Have you watched Blue Valentine? Before Sunrise?”

“No.”

“Before Sunrise is really funny, it’s just two people doing absolutely but talking. It’s one of my favourites.”

“The dialogue would have to be fantastic then.”

“It is.”

“Seriously though, I hope they don’t screw it up. I like Gatsby. Such a tragic character. He had everything in the world except the one thing he wanted. He was so obsessed. Daisy probably never loved him.”

“It’s hard to say, don’t you think? She’s hard to figure out as well. Honestly, I think she’s just a pussy. And honestly, I’m not sure if Gatsby really even loved her too. All that’s happened all those years ago - for Christ’s sake, they were so young. Of course there’s going to be all that romance. Did he ever think what would happen if they actually get together? I think she’s just an obsession - the manifestation of what he could never have.”

“Maybe, maybe. Maybe an object to him. How much did he spend on her? Throwing those parties every night? Millions? And it wasn’t even directly on her, it was just to catch her attention. God. What do you think is the key takeaway of the book? I’d say it’s better to have one friend than a whole shit load of people who don’t care about you. Nick was probably the only one who did. Did Meyer, the one who was helping with the bootlegging? I can’t remember. The second one is ‘Never try to relive the past.’”

“I’d say it is ‘Be careful what you wish for cause you just might get it.’”

“That’s a good one.”

Claustrophilia

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 02:06:08 -0400

There’s something oddly comforting about being trapped -

Summer typhoon. It’s pouring and school is cancelled. Can’t get out onto the streets without fear of being blown away. Supplies are limited but sufficient. We turn on the television and pick a random movie. It’s 1408 based on the Stephen King story; I pick up my Law and Society notes and started reading to distract myself from the screen. I have a love-hate relationship with Horror, because I could never reconcile my curiosity and my fear. All of us crowd round the couch, our legs all tangled up together, slurping cup noodles, watching the rain fall.

Snowstorm. All land routes cut, communication with the outside world is nil. Trapped at school for a week, unable to go home for the holidays. Must be the worst Christmas ever. Wanders aimlessly in the hallways. Then, the by accident, a long and winding pathway, murky and wet, the scent of the corsets and chandeliers; out of the darkness, a fireplace, a grand piano, the principal’s son. Two weeks of pizza sandwiches, writing by the window, kitten purring on your lap, nights worthy of Baby and Johnny. Then you realise the snow has long gone, and by now, it’s Hotel California, you are Persephone to his Hades.

Cathy and Mary, half a decade apart, nothing out there but the moor, the endless moor, a vast nothingness of beauty and decay, romantic with a capital R, sealed off from the rest of the world, where time has no meaning. Don’t ask for more, because all you’ve got is what is here, and scream, scream, scream, but no one will hear -

One solitary mansion, miles away from home, a group of disaffected youth; one stands alone, amending all these broken toys, rewinding so that they can march again. And they say, they say, rehabilitate for the while, the cuckoo’s nest is perfect, pristine pool, feast fit for a king, library with a view. Late night guitar strumming, sleepovers, stargazing; and yet, we must fly over it, for there are demons to be conquered.

Beautiful, beautiful days with nothing to worry about except the changes we bring about ourselves. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Human beings are too irrational, they say, and this is how wars begin. Human beings are emotional,...

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 05:03:04 -0400

Human beings are too irrational, they say, and this is how wars begin. Human beings are emotional, they say, and this is what makes us better than other animals. Women are too sentimental, they say, and this is why they aren’t meant for great things.

I wish I had a button to turn off all my feelings.

We all push people away. I know you do, because everything is all too familiar. Despite everything...

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 04:59:27 -0400

We all push people away.

I know you do, because everything is all too familiar. Despite everything that we shared for the past two years you could push me away just like that, and act like it has no impact on your life at all. And I’ve become more thick-skinned than I ever thought I could be, telling you that I was angry, but I missed you; and still you remain unperturbed.

We never fight for what we cherish. Instead, we become destructive, towards others and ourselves, and establish a perimeter around us. We tell ourselves that relationships aren’t meant to last anyway, and that it’s always stupid to put too much trust in other people. So, at the first sign, however minute, we give ourselves excuses to back off. Those who don’t understand stop trying and leave. You don’t help those who want to understand; you make yourself more and more intolerable, and eventually, they leave too. Then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, a vicious cycle in which your trust in others corrode with different relationships you cruise through, and each time you refuse to anchor, but instead go along with the tide.

I know you do, and that’s why I stay. Because I think we both need to believe.

Relationships

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 22:08:19 -0500

I learnt a lot (of shit) from them.

Among those worth mentioning, Tom taught me the difference between actually loving someone and how your mind can trick you into thinking you do when you actually really only just want to be in a relationship. And how even though you can know absolutely nothing about the person to begin with and how your reasons for beginning this aren’t even legitimate, you guys can still last being together in a loveless relationship for such a long period of time that amazes even yourself. It made me realise what it meant to be merely loving a projection.

Steven disillusioned my fairy-tale relationship ideas. I learnt that no matter how romantic it was, the way you met each other and eventually starting dating, again, it really didn’t mean anything. In this case, he and I basically stared at each other for 3 months until one day when we both decided to make the first move. We spent a lot of time with each other after that but our actual relationship only lasted a month. Why? Because I found that despite his frequent mooning over me and serenading me with love poems and chocolates, I didn’t connect with him. He could barely understand English, and knew nothing about the books and movies and music that made up a huge part of my life. Within a week or two, I knew that there was nothing we shared in common and that I could never really talk to him.

It was the hardest with Michael. If he had told me he loved me back anytime during those four years I spent pining for him, we may have grown old together (and then at the age of fifty, I would probably accept the fact that he could never understand me but by then we would have gone too far to back out). By the time I entered university it was too late. I was opened to a whole new world, and I found out too much about myself to know what I was looking for. When he left Hong Kong for England, he left the rest of us behind but let me stay in his life. When I left high school for uni, I left everything behind, including him; I moved on. I didn’t love him anymore.

But none of this really prepared me for this: loving someone and realising there were too many things about ourselves that if we didn’t overcome, it would never work out. All this, though, left me with no courage to start trying. It was tiring, putting so much of yourself into anything.

Best of @karenhaner, 2012-2013

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 05:22:00 -0500

34d: OMGGGGGGGGGGGG MY FLATMATE JUST WET THE FLOOR

42d: Great night counting down, getting pissed drunk, puking atop IFC, and getting lost on the way to flying pan at 2am with people I love.

64d: im so turned on by my own hair

84d: Chris: wanna eat? Me: No I’m full.
Chris: don’t lie I know you’re broke

109d: Mental note: next time if I’m going to lkf in costume, take the cab, not the tram (laughcry emoji)

164d: I don’t know if it’s just me but EVERYTIME I’m drunk I think: “WTF am I doing with my life?”

177d: Suddenly remember the time that Serbian guy said you should spit in your goggles to prevent spit only he didn’t know ‘spit’ and said ‘vomit’

Crossing Paths

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 08:28:00 -0500

The old friend from primary school you bumped into when you were at your university library, unable to take your eyes off each other because of that distinct feeling you’ve seen her somewhere before. That cute guy who said hi when you were sitting alone reading at Leceister Square (minutes after you discovered your strapless dress had given way and your nipple was showing), whom you proceed to get drunk on cider with for the rest of the day and kissed on top of a shady bridge at Camden. He whom you met at a social drinking event, who didn’t stop messaging you, and then you found out he’s been doing the same with your friends, only oddly you still decided to go along with it anyway. The person you were best friends with for 5 years, whose hand you held in bad movies, who said ‘I need you’ and ‘I love you’ more than your boyfriend ever did to you, whose mom liked you and sister you have met, who you thought was your soulmate; now you don’t talk anymore. That guy with the weird username on an online forum who shares the same favourite band as you, responds to your requests to form a band even though you don’t play any instrument, whom you think is a creep but is now one of your best friends, the one you get lunch with every Sunday when you head back home to your parents, since, miraculously, he turns out to be living just 10 minutes away from you. The guy whom you ended up having lunch with after comparative lit class, when both of you got stood up by your friends; he mindfucked you with his thoughts while he limped to the cafeteria, and when you asked him if he was alright you found out he was just trying to be House. The Colombian boy whom you watched Game of Thrones with every day after work in Turkey, who revealed to you three months later that there were moments he really wanted to kiss you. The leader of your group in orientation camp, (which you thought was a total waste of time because you never met anyone you connected with): two months after when everyone’s lost contact with each other, he was the only one who said yes to your halloween plan ideas; now he’s the friend you can barely go three days without talking to, the one you grab beers with on a cold winter night, the one who sits on your menstrual-blood stained bedsheets while you attempt to arrange your lingerie without flinching. The guy you thought was an idiot and judged because he never greeted you when he saw you in the hallway even though you had known each other in professional capacity for over 6 months; a year later, he’s the shoulder you lean on when life gets too frustrating, the House to your Cuddy. The girl you briefly talked to on the last day of camp turns out to have the same obsession with you and *gasp* posts them on the same blog; two months later, she becomes your flatmate. The guy never stops trying to get your attention at an event you were hosting, and then he gets your number, and never calls, but that doesn’t stop you from stalking him facebook every few days. The tall masked guy you were dancing with at a halloween party sat with you on the sofa when you got bored with the party, chatting away about v for vendetta; after weeks of flirtations in french, he takes you out for tea at a teahouse, and you realise you like him but you don’t like him. Your groupmate during a conference you never though you’d get along with, because she seemed like a bitch (turns out she thought the same about you) becomes the only person with whom you keep in contact and now you confide in her things you never tell others. By accident you discover the blog of a boy you briefly had a crush on in primary school; you marvel at the interesting mind he’s grown to possess and he becomes one of your first followers.

And yet, and yet, all these relationships will one day come down to nothing. Maybe they already have.

There are times when your mind goes blank, not blissfully peaceful blank, and not the opposite...

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 12:13:05 -0500

There are times when your mind goes blank, not blissfully peaceful blank, and not the opposite either, just somewhere in between, in limbo, somewhere you aren’t quite sure of yourself. You clutch your head, you ask yourself a million ‘why’ questions, you stare at things but they don’t quite make sense, you talk to your friends but you’re not sure what to say, you just look at each other; you listen to music, sometimes you sing along, but you never really pay attention to the lyrics, or even the melody, or even the memories that it evokes, you just press play because it feels right; you fight the feeling, but you started it; you love it, but you can’t wait for it to pass, because it didn’t make you feel quite ‘you’ anymore. And then you realise you can’t stop, not because you want peace and quiet, like you originally thought, but because you want, for once in your life, to know what nothingness feels like.

Sometimes I read my old posts and I think what am I, a 14-year old? Still rambling on and on about...

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 12:05:51 -0500

Sometimes I read my old posts and I think what am I, a 14-year old? Still rambling on and on about stupid emotions and stupid relationship problems for the world to see and then I realise no matter how old I am I’m still going to be this darn stupid when it comes to things like this.

Now this is another one of those posts I would really wish I hadn’t written when I see it published.

My friend Louis often called me ‘a walking contradiction’, a term which I outwardly...

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:28:00 -0500

My friend Louis often called me ‘a walking contradiction’, a term which I outwardly rejected but sometimes secretly relished, for it enforced the complexities in me - not that I know why this was something to be proud of. Perhaps it is the inner semi-conscious psuedo-artist part of me acting up.

I never really understood what he meant, though, until I re-read one of the stories I had written as a girl. I have a tendency to put bits of myself into characters I created - I think every ‘writer’ does, for it wouldn’t be realistic. I remember describing, in detail, to my best friend one of such characters, and she told me it didn’t really seem realistic, because no one could embody this many personality extremes or want all these things which are of complete opposites at the same time. It’s only thinking back now that I realise - that character really is just me.

I remember the time

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:12:51 -0500

when I was suicidal.

That’s an overstatement. It wasn’t like I was chronically depressed and thought about killing myself all the time. But I did think about suicide, a lot. My childhood and teen years were spent magnifying all the so-called problems I thought I had, and I was hostile towards everyone. I would take little things to be signs that people I love didn’t care about me, and often I would think of throwing myself out of the window as a sign of revenge, so that they would know what they have done to me and would spend their whole lives regretting it and never once letting me leave their thoughts, not even for a moment. I was very spiteful. I was trapped, doing things I didn’t like, revising day after day, going home only to be engulfed in more hateful emotions, ones that weren’t intentional but were nonetheless directed towards me.

I haven’t thought about suicide in a year and a half, not since I started uni - not since I moved out. Despite my occasional breakdowns from stress of work, my loneliness from not having anyone when all of my best friends had found a significant other, I never thought of ending my life, because I had felt that, for once, my own destiny was in my hands, and that no matter how bad it was then, I had the ability to turn things around, and the best was yet to come.

I will do whatever I can - even give up everything that I have - to make sure I never go back to that state of mind again.

I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

I stumbled across the teenage-girly half-completed story I wrote two years ago! It’s really...

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 10:41:15 -0500

I stumbled across the teenage-girly half-completed story I wrote two years ago! It’s really crap but re-reading it amuses me to no end. I wish I still had the kind of motivation to write anything over ten thousand words.

http://www.mibba.com/Stories/Read/382170/

Photo

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 11:54:11 -0500

I saw Les Miserables a couple of days ago and even today my eyes still tear up when I replayed some...

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 02:00:00 -0500

I saw Les Miserables a couple of days ago and even today my eyes still tear up when I replayed some of the songs. It once again reminds me of the influence art has over us. Science may define the material world that we live in but it is art that stirs our souls.

The roads have changed.

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 13:02:00 -0500

A major shock waiting to spring on me like Jack-in-the-box when I went home this month was how the traffic has gone berserk. The government decided it’s finally time to start working on that railroad they promised us millions of light years ago, and all of a sudden, all I see is construction sites.

That, I can deal with. I’m not even home that often to be affected.

But the most unnerving part in this? I don’t know the roads anymore. I’ve lived in the neighbourhood for more than ten years and it would not be an exaggeration to say that I could have gotten past all the traffic lights and made it across several roads even with my eyes closed and cotton in my ear. (Not that cotton was ever very good at blocking sound, having tried that many times, in frustration, in my childhood years to drown out my dad’s inconsiderate music-blasting at 3am, but you get the idea.) Now they’ve become strangers to me. The traffic on the slope I live has been reversed. I couldn’t hop cross the road like a chicken with its head cut off and still emerged unscathed anymore. The green light used to give ample time to my grandma and my dad - both very slow walkers who are limping in their old age = to saunter their way across; now I have to worry because I couldn’t know when the light would suddenly turn hellfire-red, the way I used to justknow,like it was programmed in me. Cars that I never saw coming, vehicles that used to go in a completely different direction were now flying into me out of nowhere.

Bit by bit, things I used to know, everything in the world around me, is crumbling to pieces.