Love

She trailed the tip of her finger lightly along the curve of his earlobe, listening to the even tempo of his breath. She traced the shape of his jaw as her gaze lingered on the pout of his lips, now soft and vulnerable with sleep.

She felt her insides squeeze and twist. Almost painfully. Almost fearfully. Like on a too-fast elevator. Or a roller-coaster. Love?

Fierce possessiveness. An equally fierce resentment. I don’t want to share him. I don’t want him to own me.

My love. My life. My future.

In just these few short months he was already so much a part of her. His needs ahead of hers. His moods and wants dictated hers. When she ate. When she slept. When she showered. When she peed.

He didn’t even ask. Merely demanded. And expected his due.

She hurriedly jerked her hand away as he stirred. Rolled over. But didn’t wake.

I know more about him than he knows himself, she thought. Like he feels warmest on his toes and the back of his neck. Like he likes the crunchiness of sugar, but not anything too sweet. Like he can be incredibly generous even with his very favourite things but only if he got total devotion in return.

His hand clenched in some deeply felt dream. I can do anything to him, she thought. He’s totally in my power. The thought, ironically, made her feel more vulnerable than ever.

How did it come to this, she thought. Marriage was supposed to be light-hearted, fun. Bonding after a hard (but fulfilling) day at work.

Not this crushing responsibility. This crushing pride. This crushing love. This child they made together, she thought looking down at the still sleeping form.

potential

potential lives. potential paths.
live up to your potential you say. the potential me, your heart whispers.
living up to your dreams... more complex than living in your shadow.
what do i want? do i even know at this point?
makes it easier to work for what you want. the best for me. naturally.

run away. clean break. finally my own choices to make.
what do i want?
what do i do?

who am i?

is there any potential left?

Language at another level

You write, review, critique, blog. You stretch to extend syntax, expand vocabulary to express the more abstract.

Only to find that the other end of the spectrum is even more of a stretch – to simplify.

Explaining to a(n almost) three year old the events of the past week without scaring the life out of him. ‘Why is that bus in such a big puddle?’ led straight into ‘why are those people in the swimming pool with all their clothes on?’ and the big one that deserves a straight answer, ‘where did all this water come from?’

Clouds aren’t the puffy, non-threatening things they used to be.

The catch is he knows a cop-out answer when he hears one. Try explaining the water cycle without the terms evaporation or condensation to a total sceptic. I shudder to think what I’ll do when I get to ‘the Earth is round’.

When I re-enter the world of grown-ups, I’m sure to be hard pressed to conduct a grown up conversation. Not in content, mind, but in style. No pop-culture references, no literary asides. No Gilmore Girls-esque sharp repartee.

Rainy Monday

While I understand news TV’s role to provide regular updates of the goings-on here, would it be too much to ask for fresh visuals to go with it? Or at least clear supers saying that this is in fact footage from last week.

Instead we have seemingly understatement-of-the-year remarks of “don’t panic, but this is the scene…” over pictures of submerged buses.

So actually, things weren't as bad as last week's downpour. But you'd never see that on the news.

here's an idea, how about specific news updates about specific neighbourhoods? Sakinaka still coping with landslide aftermath; Kurla/Sion waiting for the water to recede. Too much to ask, i guess when one can get large-scale action station "reports from all over the city".