Abang

And you are loved more than you know,

Even though sometimes you feel it is not so,

I know it was hard to learn

The blood in your veins is not the same,

But know this dear heart,

Never once did we feel the difference,

You are as much a part of us,

As you would have been

Had you actually came out of Mom's tummy,

We love you and always will,

Your biological history never was once an issue;

I know sometimes you wonder,

How life would have been,

Had you lived with another,

I cannot answer that for you,

Just to say that no one could have loved you better.

Finally 34

Exactly 34 years ago I arrived on earth after stubbornly staying in my Mom's tummy for almost 11 months. I guess I was so comfortable being nurtured in my Mom's womb.

According to my parents I arrived as round as any baby could possibly be. Everything about me was round. It turns out that is the one essence that I was born with that remained with me until today - I am as round as could be!

Other than that legacy I think I am not the same person with the clean slate that everyone is born with. There had been certain dark marks imprinted in my past, certain mistakes that I wish I could undo, but know that I never will be able to.

Sitting here 12 hours after my official birth time (3am) I find myself contemplating what my life had been and what it will be in the future.

Up until today, I haven't accomplished much that I could shout about. However that does not mean that my life had been meaningless... that would be an insult to all the wonderful memories and amazing people who had colored my existence.

On this day... I have a good feeling that the coming years would bring me more in terms of personal achievements and developments. For starters I am hoping that my writing career will grow wings and take off on a supersonic fly for me to achieve my lifelong dream - becoming a best-selling author. Insyaallah.

On a personal aspect I am not as optimistic as I am of my career development. I just don't feel like i am anywhere near of finding the other half of me. I know he is out there somewhere... the question is if and when I will ever find him... or when and if he will find me!

On loss. Too date, I've lost my Mom close to three years now and just lost my sweet companion just barely 8 days ago.

Still finding it hard to get used to losing Mom. For my thoughts on Mom you can visit my blog hanimommysgirl.blogspot.com and for some of my other exploits there is always dreamstalker.tblog.com.

Haha... always and forever promoting my writing. Who knows one day in the future you could say 'I have been reading her stuff ever since when!" Hehehe... I would love if that ever happen. Vain much?

To sum up: my wish for the future, getting established in the publishing world, and finding the one!

Pretty simple wishes huh? Wish me luck with my quest for fulfillment and enjoy your blog-walk!

Writing is all I have

Words that tells so much,

Carries within it all that I am,

As it flows from my mind,

To the screen as I type,

To the paper as I write.

Words that crosses my mind,

Form sentences that reveals all,

A tale that must be shared,

To those that care,

To those that matter.

Words I am powerless to deny,

Its existence the very beat of my heart,

The reason that keeps me pulsing,

To carry on when life gives me lemons,

To preserver despite its bitterness.

Words that must be written,

For writing is all I know,

And it is all I have,

To define all that I am,

To encapsulate all that I could be.

We used to be close

Thinking back to a time passed,

When you and I were side by side,

At a time when we glorified love,

And togetherness was all the rage

You were my heaven,

And I was your Eden,

We were going to spent eternity together,

The two of us united for always,

Chorus

Once upon that love-filled time,

We were the Adam and Eve of old,

We were together and nothing could break our hold,

Back when we used to be close,

Now those days are just memories,

Of a better time and a better place,

When we were strong together,

And nothing stands in between,

We were at our best when we were together,

We ruled the world with our undeniable unity,

We stand firm against those who would see us falter,

We were strong when we were in love

Repeat Chorus.

Black Times

A sad day in a history filled with heartache, trials and tribulations.

There must be a blessing somewhere in these dark times, I refuse to believe we have been forsaken. However it is hard to find the light when everything seems so pointless at the moment.

How will we ever rise and free ourselves from tyranny when the oppressor not only have its trickery and strong-arm tactics, but also the compliance of those unfortunate enough to buy into their propaganda and willingly allow themselves to be enslaved forever by the iron fist of those who rule this land without compassion and accountability.

For these people's unwitting submission and the oppressor's deceit, the majority of our countrymen who are more than ready to be rid of this endless dictatorship, are subjugated to another term of a ruthless regime.

Crying out for help from the international scene, is deemed to be trying to sell out our nation to the 'whims and fancy' of the world's mandate.

What recourse do we have when we cannot rid ourselves of this menace by ourselves and when we try to reach out to those who might be able to rescue us from this quagmire we are accused of not being nationalistic.

It is a catch 22 situation and it seemed at this moment in time, we have to bear with being oppressed until God knows when and it seemed that it might be a permanent situation, much to our detriment.

The only thing I can say is we must never give up hope that one day we might be free of this tyrannical regime, no matter how dark and hopeless our situation looks like right now.

An invitation to the dance

Mary Wills was the most popular girl in her school. She was the captain of her school's cheerleading squad and student body president. She was pretty, intelligent, well-liked and amazingly down to earth. She was friends with everyone, for she wasn't the one who cared much about social strata although she was placed high on the social pecking order. Every girl in school either wanted to be exactly like her or wanted to be her best friend or both and every boy wanted to be the one she dated.

Mary, however, despite being the most sought after girl in her school was naturally a shy person who underestimate her ability to charm people. Ever since she entered her school in freshmen year, the one person she really wanted to get close to was Chris Dunbar, by far the nerdiest kid in school given the fact that he was always on top of the class, knew all the answers without being asked, and always went after extra credit. Chris was actually a handsome boy, however his penchant of indulging in one-upmanship over anyone who dares to venture into his academic realm puts people off him.

Everyone that is, except Mary, who had always admired the genius spark in Chris. Mary had never dared try and approach Chris for fear he would rebuff her for not being intelligent enough despite her always scoring A's. That year, however was their final year in school and Mary decided she had nothing to lose. If she approached him and he rejected her she did not have to suffer the rejection for any longer than the end of the semester. There was only a month left anyway before they all graduate and move on with life after high school.

Mary decided she was going to invite Chris to the homecoming dance. She knew everyone was expecting her to go with Martin Cage, the star quarterback of the football team and nominee for homecoming king. She didn't want to do what everyone expect her to any longer. This was her homecoming dance too and she was going to have a night she was going to remember fondly for years to come and she wanted to spend it with the boy she had been fascinated with for the last four years and everyone else will just have to accept her decision.

On the Monday before the homecoming weekend, Mary was determined to ask Chris to the dance during their AP English class. She knew that was the best time to ask Chris because he was always a bit lax in English due to the fact that he found the class rather insufferable and was always found lacking focus in the class. Mary opened her locker door to grab her books for AP English when she noticed a silver envelope lying on top of her books. Someone apparently had slid the envelop inside her locker.

Mary opened the envelope and its content made her blush happily: Dear Mary, I know for the past 4years we haven't really communicate. I wouldn't presume to bother you if this wasn't the last year we are together and this was my last chance to tell you how much your presence in this school and the classes we have shared together brightens up my life. I am guessing that you have already had numerous request for the dance, but I thought I would add my request to those you already have and hope you will accept my invitation to go to the homecoming dance with me. Whatever you decide, know that I wish you well and will always hold a special place in my heart for you. With all my love, Chris Dunbar.

Close friends

Friends might be easy to come by, and just as easily go away again. And we would make new ones along the way and probably lose those too as time passes by. Such is the transient nature of friends that we are as easily gaining as we are losing them.

Close friends however, differ in nature and stature to regular friends who we enjoy having and making but do not really affect us as much when we lose them. Close friends are friends who have stood the test of time and harrowing moments and still remain a fixture in our lives.

Close friends evolve from regular friends who as time passes are as integral in our lives as our family members are. Close friends, have been through every ups and downs and all the craziness in between, seen us at our worse, at our best, through our highs and lows and still insist that they remain intact in the daily going-ons of our lives.

Close friends are rare, few and far between, and as such it is mandatory that we try the best we can to show the few close friends we have how much we treasure and appreciate their presence in our daily lives. Never take our close friends for granted. Even though they've seen us at our worse and have from time to time been the recipient of our worse self, it does not mean they are impervious to the hurt that we can cause them by being our very worse self.

Having close friends means at some point or other we had worked really hard to nurture and build the friendship with the love and care that it would take for a regular friend to turn into the close friends we have now.

Close friends could easily revert back to being regular friend or even worse as years go by and no measures are taken to keep the friendship alive, even close friends could disappear from our lives.

What we must always bear in mind is that although close friends are harder to lose both in the sense that it is hard to make a close friend disappear from your life and the heartache we suffer from losing a close friend is greater than losing a regular friend, it could happen.

Just because we are close friends does not make it absolute that they will always remain that way to us. Close friends are as they are because we had worked hard at that relationship as to elevate them from regular friends to the close friends that they are.

Therefore if we value our close friends and would always want them to remain as such, we must always remember that relationship like everything else that grows, needs nurturing, care and enough time spend together to keep growing. A friendship that lacks attention and commitment will wither and die, just like a plant that is not being cared for and nurtured, will wither and die.

There was nothing to remember

She stood in the doorway of the old house, wondering if she would find what she was looking for there. Years ago, this house, now empty, barren and gray, was filled with warmth, laughter and joy. This old house use to mean more than a simple piece of real estate. She glanced from left to right, searching all corners seen from the doorway, as if willing the empty spaces to resonate with long ago buoyancy. This empty hallway where once she ran freely and gaily, unknowing that in the future no footsteps would echo anymore on the wooden floorboards, that no voices would bounce of the walls. This house that once held so much promises holds nothing but rotting paneling and a smell of decay only achieved after years of neglect. No. After a quick decisive stare, she realize that there was no use to hold on to echoes of the past. The joy and gaiety which she longed for wasn't to be found in this old house. There was nothing to remember here anymore. What memories were once held within this structure was long gone along with the last of its inhabitants. Truly, there was nothing left there. All that she longed for are nothing that could be found in these dusty halls anymore.

The Answer

Amri wondered if he should even bother anymore. It had been years of constant battles to the extent that he had almost forgotten the reason why they were together in the first place.

However, it was that 'almost' part which had made him stay and try to make things work somehow.

The 'almost' still meant a lot to him deep in the corner of his heart where the hurt, pain, bitterness and frustration did not reach.

Lately though, he felt that even that part hidden in his heart of hearts wasn't going to be enough anymore to sustain him through more years of constant fighting and fielding uncalled for accusations.

He knew the hidden portion of his heart loved her tenaciously still, but the ceaseless arguments which went round and round and never culminates were wearing him down.

She had given him a week to respond to her ultimatum.

This was nothing new to him. She was fond of threats and laying the law down and all these while he had played for keeps, and that usually meant answering her with what she wanted to hear. Now though, he was having a hard time deciding what he would actually do in the face of her recent demand.

Self-preservation was screaming for him to cut his losses and run. He knew no one could fault him if he called it quits after having tried so long to make a go at something which had long since decided it was beyond repair. And of course, there's the thought of happiness... that wonderful circumstance he had long since left behind. For certain he was entitled to have it back. By rights no one should have to endure a tormented existence for eternity and right now it seemed to him that if he gave her the answer she wanted yet again, he was dooming himself to endless misery for he did not think that they could ever go back to the beginning when the two of them equates joy instead of pain.

Still with all that sound arguments and many more like it which had run rampant through his mind, he was reluctant to put the axe in their relationship, dismal as it might be.

It was that 'almost', the faint remembrance of how incredible it had been when they first started being together, that gave him pause.

All these while, their relationship was held together by him holding on to those cherished memories.

Those memories... he allowed himself to visit them once again, but he realized what they had then should not deter him from cauterizing the big gaping wound that has obscured everything else for so long.

He took a deep breath and pressed the speed-dial button to the woman who had imprisoned him in unhappiness for so long.

"So?" Her voiced asked almost in contempt.

He could picture her gloating already at what she thought was his capitulation yet again.

"No," he replied simply and hung up the phone. He had given her the answer, except he knew it wasn't what she wanted to hear.