Three cream walls, one violet.
Cheating in a wedding dress
Ivory and slightly off the shoulder.
I was running up a wide flight of stairs;
Through narrow corridors and barely missing strangers' faces.
There was a strange sense of urgency
Glowing passion for the wrong person
And the lack of guilt was naive, whimsical.

-cut-

Back in the old flat
With the brown tiles that had little yellow square-motifs.
In the kitchen
Lolita was there- I hadn't seen her in 8 years.
She was saying something, I couldn't hear and/or understand.
There were gaps in the wall
Bricks missing, bits chipped off, a sorry sight.
I wondered then, even in the dream,
Why the hideous winter draught hadn't crept through;
Why I couldn't feel the cruel cold in mid winter.
But of course I couldn't.
There isn't winter in Singapore.

-cut-

Running, tirelessly.
I don't remember where.
Uphill, stretch in calf muscles.
What the hell was I thinking?

Meandering down virgin roads and roads that led into others.
The clouds were shifting - the textural brilliance however, was observed only the following morning.
The moon was low, bigger than usual, and almost eerie-
Playing hide and seek, its muffled cameos were followed hastily by long moments of disappearance.
With the moon, her mood rocked between wanton vexation and mellow flatness.
Counting down to spring, she wished to migrate seasonally like the birds do;
For sanity, if not survival.

Cowering behind the convenience of wintery dismal - too many ideas colliding, too much left un/done. Between foggy sunrises and wine-induced sleep patterns, things get lost midway, irretrievable. Shrinking away from decibel-madness, stunted by the consistency of routine. I dream of fresh croissant and good strawberry jam, long black, cane chairs.
To plod and plough. From start to no end. The heavy clouds moved to the push of the wind - I marvelled. As I drove past bare branches, and even barer expressions. The thoughts raced as the motor decelerated. Eyes straight, but faraway. I think of DH Lawrence's The Odor of Chrysanthemums, looking through the timber venetians. And instantly this brings back to mind even more.

Sitting in the car
As a passenger these days is a treat.
We drove towards the city
As the heavy stream of cars steered in the other direction.
Without my glasses
All I saw were blotches of light, red and warm yellow, zipping past.
I said little,
This was beginning to feel like a duty.
Elvis Costello was bloody amazing, and
It all seemed worthwhile when he did Alison.
I sat silent in the car,
Concentration bombarded by too many little thoughts.

When I was seven,
The maid at home told me my lucky number was nine.
Years on, at twenty
I was told I'd marry my ninth lover.
Problem was, I didn't where to start counting,
Definitions were tricky, and I didn't think to ask.
I was told that if I made a list of things I wanted,
I'd find them eventually.
I've made lists
And been disappointed;
I've not looked,
And sometimes been found instead.
Life is funny like this,
You learn to just smile about it.
I wish I was more of a fighter,
And less of a fatalist.

Someone had looked up and seen the stars,
And felt compelled to share the moment with me.
She was more than 5,000km away
But that didn't matter.
She was (probably) in a cab on her way home from a movie,
In that familiar humid air I now miss.
I was lying in semi-consciousness,
In the frosty capsule of a room.
I didn't look out of the window,
I'd had too many bad nights lately, mostly just tired.
The thought was enough,
That the indefinite distance is now bearable.

'I pick up a stone
That I cast up to the sky
Hoping for some kind of sign'

-Norah Jones

Like with any other whirlwind,
You're left in a pile of mess.
It was a week of extremities
Both pleasant and not so.
I'd found myself jolting awake at 0300,
And always taking too long to fall back to sleep.
I can now say the excitement was certainly exhausting,
But to live the moment was what I did.
I saw a chance, and jumped right in,
Though I'd much prefer to jump onto a plane now.
Between Asti and Tuesday,
Time moved religiously on, relentless.
Between saying little and writing more,
Reality snapped.