nan*s DustyRoad.

Nothing frustrates me more.
Than the people that I let in.
Closer than I should.
The thought of letting that.
Person grow a little bit.
Inside me.
Then root it out.
Ashamed at my stupidity.
Weak and naive and weak.

After all, it is one man.
One island, isn't it.
No argue no drama please.
I am already walking away.

I remember the time when I tried to hide my tears in the dashing car behind my sunglasses.
It is the same story all over again and someone just forgets to learn.

You are an ocean away.
From home and Mom.
Surrounded and never alone.
Momentarily hold your gaze.
In place of the purple light.
People of different heights.
Losing themselves in name.
Of retrieving themselves.
Nothing heals.
Nothing strikes.
No one sleeps.
Wish you someone to adore.
Rather than
A thousand to adore you.

This is a time that we drove. We laughed, talked, sighed, and danced. We traveled and marveled, as if there were no yesterdays and there would be no tomorrows.

But even this, has come to an end.

You spoke of the first impression you had of me. On the dance floor when I smiled to you, "just relax", then turned to dance to ignore the blazing world. You said you instantly knew, my future role in your life. I cannot, however, recall any first impressions of you. It hardly bothers me. Because the picture of you, happy and kind, innocent yet splendid, has grown richer than any imprint. Second by second. Your ever-positiveness, amazing sympathy and bravery, your honesty, have earned so much appreciation and affection in the house, including mine. And by the time that the mind realizes your radiance seeping through the days, rain or shine, the attachment of the heart is already too deep.

Sometimes I am the older one, listening to you and giving you advice. Other occasions you are the stronger one, looking after me and giving the indecisive me the push that I need.  We are not afraid to turn an impatient but honest look towards each other; yet we hold only each other's hands, racing through the endless seas of strange or familiar faces.

You are the sister I never had.

All of a sudden she realized.
You drained her of all her soft feelings.
Of her surrenders to subtle lingers of the eyes.
Gentle brushes of the fingers.
Quick exchanges of the nervous looks.
The held breaths.
The seemingly meaningless intrigue.
Insufferable curiosity.
Good old smiles that blossom under a touch.
Of her temper.
Of her audacity.
Her sculpted taste for a tango.
Nothing left.
But shiny armors and perfect shields.
Into which she gradually withdrew herself.

You drained her.
And she let you.

All but a warm heart and a cold mind.

Trapped in subway.
I suddenly thought of you.

You.
Your sadness and loneliness.
Your candid confession of.
The deepest fears that.
We are all desperately alone.
Incapable of reaching others.
Incapable of being reached.
How I wish to comfort you.
How little I can.
And how brave you have all this time quietly been.

Some days I see it. Other days I don't. Just hope that on the days when I forget.
Can still remember that there is always another day that I will. That things turn out to have made sense.

Wish for you the same.
If not more.

The three of them took three days to go.
South and back.
One drove. His younger brother sightseeing.
Girl tagging along, all amazed at.
Glistening jelly frogs and cows by the highway.
Strolling down the vaguely familiar streets.
With no purpose to serve. No agenda to fill.
Girl cannot quite place her thoughts.
Still somehow that strange bewilderedness.
Finally stopped hammering at her.

Morning they woke up in front of the Pacific.
The monstrous shadows from last night.
Heaving on their backs, tailing after their car.
Dissolved into a forgiving and peaceful blueness.
Sunlight dawned on the ocean surface.
Lush and tender.
From time to time, they muted the radio and.
Rattled out all sorts of silly road-trip games.
That you would compromise to, only.
Trapped in a shooting vehicle but nowhere to go.
Younger brother dozed off in the front seat.
Older brother would talk, voice low and soft.
Girl in the back seat nodded while she listened. 

Under the prolonged repetitive strain that gradually seemed to her the very tissue of her existence.
Heart had toughened.
Even though she had to run along the tall brothers just to keep up.
For three days.  Her mind.
Went on an aimless and effortless float in between the heights and depths of her smothering tomorrows.

Linger, she says, but stop never.

You are such an actor.

When you grabbed her arm and.
Gushed out all the things Romeo said.
Once upon a time.
All within one single breath.
She was unashamedly stunned but reminded.
Right away that.

You are such an actor.
Flaming passions and unfathomable dreams.

A sudden inexplicable flutter seized my heart.
On the first sunny day after a gloomy week.
Sunshine pouring like rain.
As if a first day at school.
Ambushed by uncertainty;
Unforeseeable encounters.

The madness of Monday night slowly dims out.
The running-around laughters;
Almost insanity.
Plunging to the floor,
Got back up only to fall backwards.
Seemingly calm surface and a seething sea.
Finally the elevator door chinked.
Let out and let go.

Pandora opened; we are left with only.
An evaded memory and a hazy next day.

Such a contrast of colors it renders, however.
When I stepped out into the Wednesday sun.
Morning latte and cranberry muffin.
Sunlight in your eyes and wind in my hair.
Embrace the bliss. Born anew.

Solving a myestery is not the same as deducing from first principles. Nor does it amount simply to collecting a number of particular data from which to infer a general law. It means, rather, facing one or two or three particular data apparently with nothing in common, and trying to imagine whether they could represent so many instances of a general law you don't yet know, and which perhaps has never been pronounced... the search for explicative laws in natural facts proceeds in a tortuous fashion. In the face of some inexplicable facts you must try to imagine many general laws, whose connection with your facts escapes you. Then suddenly, in the unexpected connection of a result, a specific situation, and one of those laws, you perceive a line of reasoning that seems more convincing than the others. You try applying it to all similar cases, to use it for making predictions, and you discover that your intuition was right. But until you reach the end you will never know which predicates to introduce into your reasoning and which to omit.

-- Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (1983)

It matters not how strait the gate.
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate.
I am the captain of my soul.

W. E. Henley.