Friday, April 30, 2004

all the atoms in my world
pick up their luggage and
realign themselves around you,
(breathing your breath so softly)
as if they had been born to. each
flicker holds (an instant so small
so closely woven into my fibre)
infinity each smile
(i drink the cup of life) is the
gladness of my soul



happy birthday.

Mina at 8:59 AM

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Thursday, April 29, 2004

happy birthday, you.

just wanted you to know how much i miss you....every day, every heartbeat. i probably couldn't do it without falling into some stupid cliche or the other but god, i do; so much that depth and breadth fade away and leave behind a chasm that seems to stretch into infinity because you can't see where the longing begins and if it will ever end. i wish you were here, especially now...there is so much i want to tell you, show you. i crave the sound of your laugh, the feel of your skin, lazy summer afternoons with the cooler droning and us lying around in the lounge talking...just a hug, just once; your wrist to put the flowers on your bracelets into line, your side to snuggle into. just once, one more time. one moment to tell you how much i love you still, how lonesome it can be without you, how much you still light up my life. can you see me? i'm the one blowing kisses into the sky.

to the original free spirit, with a devotion deeper than the sky. from the girl who got first dibs...happy birthday.

Mina at 9:23 AM

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Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Taint is a good word. Enough to stain, enough to be disfiguring, enough to leave a mark but be sweetly discreet about it. Less violent than stain, better than nishaan. People taint each other. Leave scratch marks on our shiny paint jobs that can be waxed away, but need a lot of elbow grease all the same. I’m not afraid of being tainted- being me, I will never ever remain unaffected by people, however much I may detest the notion many times (and thus have been developing stronger elbows). But that’s not the point. However pompous it may sound, I’m afraid of tainting someone else enough to rob them of happiness that could be staring them in the face. I’m afraid that some woman will have a hand in hers, her head on a shoulder that is physically there with her- but in essence, in soul, in mind....is somewhere else, and it will be my fault. I don’t ever want to inadvertently be the reason that held anyone back from finding joy in someone else. I have executed (pun not intended:P) enough rejections to know that yes, itisn’tmyfaultifthathappensilethimgownasgentlyasicould (as Pete puts it: blahblahblah) but the thought of me being a barrier instead of a conduit to anyone’s happiness is…well, worrisome. As if I’m responsible in some way for lives that should have been different if it weren’t for me. The prospect of being the reason for anyone's misery is not one I would like to entertain. Well, almost anyone's ;)

Mina at 4:57 PM

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Monday, April 26, 2004

"Randi is jealous of me because I'm young and good-looking, and have nice wavy hair."

~ Uri Geller to Stefan Kanfer of Time, about James Randi

Mina at 10:56 AM

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004

now i love you and you love me
(and books are shuter
than books
can be)
and deep in the high that does nothing but fall
(with a shout
each
around we go all)
there's somebody calling who's we

we're anything brighter than even the sun
(we're everything greater
than books
might mean)
we're everyanything more than believe
(with a spin
leap
alive we're alive)
we're wonderful one times one

e e cummings

Mina at 8:56 AM

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Monday, April 19, 2004

this damn man is going to be the death of me. i will never be able to write another love poem ever ever again because he steals every moment away from me and puts it in his devastatingly beautiful unchained verse that leaps off cliffs and is as honest as a dandelion in a three year old's fist. i'm going to go drown myself. or eat the twix ali the angel gave me and was thuggofied by the chillun and leap into iris murdoch's zany book. or just drown myself in the pink balti that lives in my bathroom because cummings is a jewel, a great big dark blue sapphire in a sea of ugly ferozas and it's not fair that some woman got all that poetry. well, for her it was (*lol*), but why whywhYYYYYYYY? a man wrote all this! it's beyond comprehension, and that in itself is one of the the saddest things i have ever written.
off to another pome. i love you, you beautiful unconventional goddamn FREE man.


" and if what calls itself a world should have
the luck to hear such singing(or glimpse such
sunlight as will leap higher than high
through gayer than gayest someone's heart at your each

nearness)everyone certainly would(my
most beautiful darling)believe in nothing but love "

Mina at 8:22 PM

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since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

e e cummings

Mina at 7:18 PM

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Sunday, April 18, 2004

the ho-nail sparkles underwater
gleaming liquid cherry

i wish my camera was waterproof i want to
capture the bubbles forever

...

(different colours we all are-

so very very sacred)


bal bal jaaon main torey rang-rajwa

Mina at 12:46 PM

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Saturday, April 17, 2004

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then--
How old is Spring, Miranda?

A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty
Ogden Nash

Mina at 3:54 PM

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Thursday, April 15, 2004

http://www.afn.co.kr/archives/readings/laurel.htm


She came slowly down the steps and peered into his face.
"Why," she said, "you're crying."
He looked at her eyes which were almost as wet as his. "Another fine mess you've got us in," he said.
"Oh, Ollie," she said.
"Oh, Stan," he said.
He kissed her, gently.
And then he said: "Are we going to know each other forever?"
"Forever," she said.

....

And during that year they went up and down those long piano steps at least once a month and had champagne picnics halfway up, and discovered an incredible thing.
"I think it's our mouths," he said. "Until I met you, I never knew I had a mouth. Yours is the most amazing in the world, and it makes me feel as if mine were amazing, too. Were you ever really kissed before I kissed you?"
"Never!"
"Nor was I. To have lived this long and not known mouths."
"Dear mouth," she said, "shut up and kiss."

....

"Dad," said the other daughter, leaning in to peer at his face. "You're crying."
"No."
"Yes, you are. Isn't he, Mom?"
"Your papa," said his wife, "as you well know, cries over telephone books."
"No," he said. "just 131 steps and a piano. Remind me to show you girls, someday."


Even when I was nine and reading this in Reader's Digest I hated to see Stan go, Ollie letting her...and each time I allowed myself the petulant heart-pull of reading it again (the pull being strong enough to make the 'agains' a grand total of five in the eleven years since the first reading), still hoped the door would never open.

Mina at 8:46 AM

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Wednesday, April 14, 2004

nostalgia trippin' :
me and my mom, listening to the radio. i'm in the single-digits and my mom is in her late twenties.
sana and me, in a room that's still pink, with a tape recorder stolen from a cousin and tapes amma brought back.
minu, me and sana- then and now- still knowing all the words...and still singing along together.

Nothing's Gonna Stop Us - Starship

Lookin' in your eyes I see a paradise
This world that I've found is too good to be true
Standin' here beside ya, want so much to give you
This love in my heart that I'm feelin' for you

Let 'em say we're crazy, I don't care about that
Put your hand in my hand, baby, don't ever look back
Let the world around us just fall apart
Baby, we can make it if we're heart-to-heart

And we can build this dream together
Standing strong forever
Nothing's gonna stop us now
And if this world runs out of lovers
We'll still have each other
Nothing's gonna stop us, nothing's gonna stop us now, whoa no

I'm so glad I found you, I'm not gonna lose you
Whatever it takes, I will stay here with you
Take you to the good times, see you through the bad times
Whatever it takes is what I'm gonna do

Let 'em say we're crazy, what do they know?
Put your arms around me, baby, don't ever let go
Let the world around us just fall apart
Baby, we can make it if we're heart-to-heart

And we can build this dream together
Standing strong forever
Nothing's gonna stop us now
And if this world runs out of lovers
We'll still have each other
Nothing's gonna stop us, nothing's gonna stop us, ooh

All that I need is you
All that I ever need
All that I want to do
Is hold you forever, forever and ever


And we can build this dream together
Standing strong forever
Nothing's gonna stop us now
And if this world runs out of lovers
We'll still have each other
Nothing's gonna stop us, nothing's gonna stop us

Build this dream together
Standing strong forever
Nothing's gonna stop us now
And if this world runs out of lovers
We'll still have each other
Nothing's gonna stop us now

And we can build this dream together
Standing strong forever
Nothing's gonna stop us now
And if this world runs out of lovers
We'll still have each other
Nothing's gonna stop us, nothing's gonna stop us

Mina at 10:13 PM

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Friday, April 09, 2004

in 'ever after' (which was an enjoyable romp through visual fairytaleland), our herione makes it to the ball, dressed like an angel (if you had leonardo da vinci on your side, you'd look like an angel too. but seriously, the costume was an angel one) and is standing at the entrance to the ball-place (park.hehe). its a beautiful frame; she is dressed in white and there is a backlight that is making her gauzy, shimmery wings glow (very angel-y, very pretty)...and somewhere in the crowd is a prince who is nuts about her (and she him, otherwise this wouldn't be a fairytaleland story), a step-family who is about to be royally (pun not intended) hand-fied and a life that is about to change forever (yay, she deserved a fantastic good-twistinlife). and she says to herself, 'just breathe.'
which is the best piece of advice i've ever heard anyone give themselves, because its true. when gloriousgreatgood things happen, it's the first thing you forget to do, and once you remember, just about the only thing you can...because everything else is brimming over with a glorious idontknowwhatexactly (its a joyous something, in any case). kind of like a sponge you are then, because you know that you will always remember every detail about these moments, so that when memory recreates them it will be like they happened yesterday. i paint them in vivid technicolour on the walls of my mind.
all righty then. what is the gloriousgreatgood thing that has sparked off this rambly brackety blog, you ask?


Yellow Beginnings © Mina Farid Malik 2004


i am just breathing.

Mina at 11:36 AM

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Wednesday, April 07, 2004

how could i forget this peacefulness-
you lean on me with the ease of a lifetime
and i breathe, and you breathe.
i lean my cheek on your hair and
breathe some more, drifting in
and out of the noise and grime around us.
how could i have forgetten this effortless grace, this
quiet reminder of the pieces that you
and i have fitted together? sitting here
something in me brims with content i have not known
of late.

we fit, time after time, always.


me an' you, true-blue

Mina at 9:07 PM

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Tuesday, April 06, 2004

Just to record this moment. It is the sixth of April, almost nine p.m at the time of typing and I am being sent a contract to sell my first story. I have been paid for articles, but a story- this is my craft. This is the one thing that has always been with me, longer than memory can recall or soul can feel. This is what has always come to me before tears, before breathing, before instinct. Words.

So this is what a dream coming true feels like.


I am a Writer now.

Mina at 9:04 PM

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Monday, April 05, 2004

we have learnt to control ourselves so beautifully that now, when all you want to do is shed everything that clings, tentacle-like, to your life, you can't. but of course, you don't know that as you untie the strings, pull the packing peanuts and bubble wrap and wadded-up newspaper away and stand like something Michaelangelo would have loved- clean line of muscle and dip of bone, shallows and silk of skin. and there you stand, proudly pulled up to your full height, feeling alive and electric and graceful. you are an angel, you are Icarus, you could touch the sky and walk on water and do all the things you have always plotted and planned to but never really did.
which is when you discover that you can't move, not even an inch, and it's your fault. your fault because you listened to everyone who told you to behave, to be quiet, to not say things like that. to be brave and strong and keep the pride. you didn't know then and now you're caught, dying to shriek and cry and love and finding youjustcan't...justbecause..because now you're so tightly glued together that your maelstroms whirlpool inside you, underneath your papier-mache skin, roiling and burning and rolling higher and higher until you're choking and desperate for release...to just explode from the sheer weight of it all- and youjustcan't.


when you're an island you're always waving goodbye

Mina at 12:29 PM

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Sunday, April 04, 2004

This is the first swim of the summer that
is swishing its cotton skirts closer to underthetree.

This is the first practiced
pull of t-shirt over head, gliding
easily over swimsuit already on and
hair already smoothed for the first crisp
snap of swim cap. Changing-room chatter
-richly elitely clubgoing english-
as we wait for the first
gurgle of shower, first gasps of
an icy waterfall’s sudden deluge.

This is the first clean cleaving of the water, refound
grace of streamlined body shooting
across metres; This is
the first floating on my back, hearing
my amplified breath, watching the fuzzy outlines
of the pretty latticed wood cover; blued
by goggles.

This is
the first mango bug, stumping
its grey squishiness along on
waving little legs on the
way back. This is the
first heavy satiation of the limbs, the
contentment of chlorine lips and
wrinkly toes, of flipflops that
thud with water and hair that curls
wetly against languid skin.


summer days

Mina at 1:31 PM

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Friday, April 02, 2004

"The artist is one who is full of questions, who cries them out in great angst, who discovers rainbow answers in the darkness, and then rushes to canvas or paper. An artist is someone who cannot rest, who can never rest as long as there is one suffering creature in this world. Along with Plato's divine madness there is also divine discontent, a longing to find the melody in the dischords of chaos, the rhyme in the cacophony, the surprised smile in time of stress or strain. Perhaps the artist longs to sleep well every night, to eat anything without indigestion, to feel no moral qualms, to turn off the television news and make a bologna sandwich after seeing the devastation and death caused by famine and drought and earthquake and flood. But the artist cannot manage this normalcy. Vision keeps breaking through, and must find means of expression."

Madeliene L'Engle

(how does she know? not that i presume to call myself an artist or anything as high-falutin' as that, but when they are so spot-on you want to jump for joy and sing)

Mina at 9:45 PM

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"yaar, tum aisi kyoon ho?"

(pause for brief thoughtfulness)

"agar main na hoti, to aur kaun hota?"


conversation




we are who we are because nobody else could handle the job.

Mina at 8:48 PM

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