Come Up To The Attic

Come up to the attic, come one and come all.

Climb the steep ladder, its right down the hall.

I promise, I’ll hold your hand, and you won’t fall.

Come up and play with the rest of the dolls.

 

Come sweet little “precious”, your new journey’s begun.

But, darling, don’t cry, the mascara will run.

Come up to the attic, we’ll play dress up sweet angels.

Don the brightest of pearls ‘round little necks that’ll strangle.

 

Wrap ‘round slender waists flowing sashes that’ll mangle.

Fluffy boas ‘round bodies that’ll clutch if not handled

Prance streets with bright costumes, dirty school girls to nuns.

Please, darling, don’t cry, the mascara will run.

 

Come up to the attic, don the make-up of time.

Cover up with blue shadow those heavy eye lines

Replace blotches with blushes, bruises hidden, skin fine.

Bruised lips ‘placed with red ‘stick, stash borrowed from mine.

 

New look beheld by dank alleys hidden from sun.

Oh, darling, don’t cry, the mascara will run.

Come up to the attic, and play romance games, honey

With grown men that give gifts of sedative candy

 

Bring you to rose-petal rooms with lights that are dimming

And lay you on holy mattresses that are ever so comfy

Now, just lie there pumpkin, let the men have their fun

No, darling, don’t cry, the mascara will run.

 

Come up to the attic, and play with sharp things.

Poke ourselves with needles, for a moment they’ll sting.

Make you shake, make you tremble, make your ears ring.

Shoots down your spine, make your bones rattle and sing

 

Then dance for more in the streets from Monday to Sun.

Hell, darling don’t cry, the mascara will run.

Now come down to my basement, and see what’s in store.

See angels fall from flight, to scratch the blisters that sore.

 

See the doves turn to crows, into scavenging whores

See pumpkins turn ill and rotten, fall dead on the floor.

See the dolls wander aimless for futures so bleak.

And I turn away while mascara runs down on porcelain cheeks…

 

~ found poetry

Daily Prompt: Eerie

Flâneur

Observing a street artist in action.

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Smoke

I like the idea that we build up these walls or rules or laws to maintain our reality, and when they fall away, you’re left with a whole bunch of illusions. Smoke and mirrors.

-Sarah McLachlan

daily prompt

Transformation

Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It’s a journey of discovery – there are moments on mountaintops and moments in deep valleys of despair. 

I am going through a process of life-changing transformation since I’ve been diagnosed with auto-immune disease few years ago. You can read the details here.  I rarely talk about it. Not even to my nearest and dearest. I don’t want to talk about it. Not even when the reality is staring me right in the face. No, I am not in denial. I long past that stage. I just don’t want to concentrate on it. I rather focus on the positive side of things. Make the most of what I still have and can do instead of what I cannot do. My options are limited and keep getting narrower by the day but I still refuse to give up.

Okay, I can’t hike 25 km anymore, but a four km evening walk will also do. The pain keeps me from sleeping so, I write instead. Good exercise for my slowly rotting brain. I still garden but not intensive. Only when I feel I’m up to it. I can’t work for a company anymore. My condition is so volatile to adapt to a normal working schedule so, we set up our own small design and technology company and try our best to get if off the ground. Life is not easy. Never been. I’m used to that. But I am far from resigning. I recently published my first E-book  And there are five more in queue. 

Maybe nobody would buy them. But what counts for me is the fact that I did it and it’s out there. In between, I’m busy writing my memoirs and another novel I am planning to finish before my brain will fully deteriorate. I can still enjoy loads of things, like golden hour, reflections of something on the water, the colors of flowers, droplets of rain on their petals; rainbow, birds in my backyard, architecture, smiles of strangers and random kindness.

I will continue pushing my boundaries despite of obstacles. It is better to be out there fighting than sit and wait for the inevitable to happen. Not every day is roses and moonshines. In fact, seldom. But those little wonderful moments when I can think clearly and feel passionately I’m holding on and use as my anchor to keep me grounded and strong when the tide is fierce and there is storm looming in the horizon. Not so many people would understand. Especially when I show no weakness. Playing a victim will never be my forte. I don’t want understanding or compassion. Those are tricky to get anyway. Genuine ones I mean. I just want to continue minding my life the way I see fit. Without prejudices, without judgment from others.

Tiny

That’s me. A hobbit. I’m so little that my flowers are taller than me. They are Digitalis Purpurea. Better known as Common Foxglove. I love them. Bees love them. A great additional structure in the border. A biennial highly toxic plant that contains digitalin, an extract use for the treatment of heart condition. Easy to propagate from seeds. You can either collect them or let them self-seed. I prefer the latter. I can always transplant them later on if desired.   

Artificial

What is real these days? Almost nothing. Even food are genetically modified. God knows what else… Seldom a relationship or a marriage of today lasts. Friendships are based on favors, popularity, status, material things and personal gain. Even looks and body parts of attractive people are mostly store bought or medically enhanced if not totally altered. You can even have designer babies (a baby that is the result of genetic screening or genetic modification) how creepy is that? Ever heard of artificial intelligence? And love… we don’t even have to go there. It is universally understood.

We live in a society where everything is questionable. Real in every aspect is fast becoming a thing of the past. You cannot trust anyone or anything. But it seems the majority prefer it judging by/from the rise and popularity of social media where virtual reality is the reality for most people and everyone can create and project their own realities to the world that swallow it without complain and almost no resistance and often idolized for all the wrong reasons and set it as benchmarks for their own success and failures. 

The more time we spend interconnected via a myriad of devices, the less time we have left to develop true relationships in the real world. But most people nowadays don’t have time for real. Yet they have plenty to spare sitting in front of the computer investing efforts building legions of fake friends, artificial existence and virtual connection. All for the sake of synthetic applause and false recognition. Everything to make oneself big and feeling great even though it is only imitation. 

I know, I know… To each his own, whatever floats your boat and different strokes for different folks; but can’t we not have it for real? If we are willing to pour so much time, effort and hard work into a make-believe existence, we can surely do the same amount of labor in reality. No? 

It is so much more rewarding experiencing all these wonderful things in real life where everything is almost tangible. Where body language and (facial) expressions are essentials part of communication instead of symbols and emoticons. Where feelings and touches are undeniably authentic. So is the appreciations and warmth you get from real friends and loved ones. Nothing can beats a hug, a meaningful glance, a genuine smile and passionate/tender kisses. We have to preserve these (treasures) gestures in our culture. We have to try to keep things real.

Shine Like Diamonds

Find light in the beautiful sea
I choose to be happy
You and I, you and I
We’re like diamonds in the sky…

Weekly Photo Challenge 

Ancient

Daily Prompt 

Mixing Media

Someone once asked me:

I said:

And I added for a good measure:

Besides…

Labels are for filing. Labels are for clothing. Labels are not for people.

-Martina Navratilova

Which reminds me of what Juliet said to Romeo on that fateful night. You know…

“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

But for the sake of an argument let’s mess up things a bit…

I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I’ve never been able to believe it. I don’t believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage. 

― L.M. Montgomery

Just because we associated them names first with other things. If we reverse the order…

Anyway, in the end…

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Underground

“Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your two ears.”  

-Laird Hamilton

daily prompt

Waiting

I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly. In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized. Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids. For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin.

And through all that waiting, here I am. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin.

I love movies about “The Big Moment” – the game or the performance or the wedding day or the record deal, the stories that split time with that key event, and everything is re-framed, before it and after it, because it has changed everything. I have always wanted this movie-worthy event, something that will change everything and grab me out of this waiting game into the whirlwind in front of me. I cry and cry at these movies, because I am still waiting for my own big moment. I had visions of life as an adventure, a thing to be celebrated and experienced, but all I was doing was going to work and coming home, and that wasn’t what it looked like in the movies.

John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” For me, life is what was happening while I was busy waiting for my big moment. I was ready for it and believed that the rest of my life would fade into the background, and that my big moment would carry me through life like a lifeboat.

The Big Moment, unfortunately, is an urban myth. Some people have them, in a sense, when they win the Heisman or become the next American Idol. But even that football player or that singer is living a life made up of more than that one moment. Life is a collection of a million, billion moments, tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of luminous, glowing pearl. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies.

But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that move-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets – this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of us will ever experience. 

― Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life

Urgent

We live in a time-crunched world, and just about everything we do seems to be urgent. -Joyce Meyer

Yes. That and a lot more. 

We need (urgently) to learn to really listen and communicate properly. Not just spitting words that hit no mark and designed to confuse, manipulate and deceive others.

We urgently need to sort out our priorities and prioritize those that really matters. Not only for personal gain but for the good of mankind and this world in general.

We urgently need to simplify our lives. People of today are becoming more and more materialistic with each passing second.

We have to start bringing back old fashion morals and values like respect and honesty. 

We urgently have to stop idolizing people for all the wrong reasons.

We urgently need to relax.

We’re losing the sight of our primary and original goal-that is to live, not merely exist. We’re so worried about the future, image, possessions that without knowing we become slaves of our own ambition.

We are so obsessed with youth and beauty we neglected the fact that the very thing we despise is our very own future staring us square in the face. Be kind to elderly, have patient, be tolerant, value them because it is only a matter of time before we arrive at the same station. How you want to be treated when the time comes? 

We urgently need to sit down, have some serious thinking, try to have a clear view where we are heading, what are the options? What we want to achieve? Is the end really justify the means? We are clearly heading for disaster-globally. We cannot deny anymore the facts. If we don’t do anything to alter our course immediately, then there is no future for mankind.

We urgently need to save this world. Believe you me.

Local

Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You’ll find what you need to furnish it – memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey…

Weekly Photo Challenge