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Footnotes

I have spent most of my life learning how to carry things without making them look heavy. A childhood divided into before and after. Two small hands reaching for mine before I had learned what mine were for. I became useful early. There are worse ways to disappear. For years, I mistook being needed for being known, and responsibility for a kind of love that could not leave me. I kept records of everything. The places people touched me. The places they didn't. The exact shape of a silence after someone changed their mind. I studied people the way some people study weather— not because it could be controlled, but because knowing its patterns made leaving the house feel safer. I called it research. Sometimes it was. Sometimes I was only trying to understand why a person can live inside another person long after they have left. There are things I have loved with the discipline of a scholar and the recklessness of a woman who has mistaken longing for evidence. I have built entire theori...
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Ink That Knew Me Before I Did

"you’ve spent years becoming fluent in yourself—and you’re finally admitting that fluency means nothing if no one else ever hears you speak." I've only realized this recently, which is very ironic and belated when I think about it. I have spent years processing my life through writing and I didn't exactly realize that directly. Realizing that now feels belated, like the kind of thing that anyone who knows me would know, except I didn't. I genuinely thought I just loved writing, but what if it's just that it's the way I know best how to meet myself, how to process my own experiences and surface through them.  I've discovered truths I hold inside me before, while writing. I am most honest here. It's not to say I am not honest in real life, but writing poses no risk for me to be honest, so I am. It was also through writing that I've learned my subconscious can hide truths from me, as if there are two people inside (sounds meta, yes), but its real....
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A Letter to Hope

Dear Hope, You were a room inside of me that I never dared to walk into willingly. I am surprised every time at how much life has persisted without my attention, on the few occasions I've found myself here. On those occasions, I have had to strong arm my way out, because I know all too well how time passes here. Time doesn't exist in your room. Seconds, minutes, hours, months, and then years and then a decade- I have seen them all pass by without so much as a speck of dust on your glimmering and shimmering. What fueled you? What has fed you and kept you this long? Why? A part of me wants to walk into this room one day and find it dilapidated, in ruins- perhaps then, I won't be so vulnerable here. But a larger part of me knows that this room is the source of all the joys of my life, so while I never walked in willingly, I always knew every now and then that I might find myself right back here.  I do not know how to lock you up. I am not the kind of person who keeps a house f...
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A Perfect Being

What would I do? If I was an author in my own right, living on her own wherever she ends up in the world, I would have a library, full of all the books of the world that tickles my brain and keeps my attention. I would have a garden full of all kinds of plants because I'm not averse to any. I would have white walls and grey lounges, glass tables and mahogany desks and shelves. I'll have colors and I'll have none. My resting place will be in shades of black and grey because colors are mentally too loud  It'll be the biggest room in the house because loud thoughts need to scream. I'll have the perfect patio that opens up into a space not disturbed by beautiful towering trees- only because, I would wish to see the stars at night.  I'll spend most of my nights on that patio,  drinking all the alcohol my body could contain  because it is then that my thoughts recognize themselves.  I act, think, and do transparently, to everyone else and not just myself. I say everyo...
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Amidst My Intermittent Nature

The universe used to be so small.  It used to consist of only three stars in the night sky,  the trees in my backyard and my thoughts-  my thoughts that never could recognize themselves.  Somewhere between the peace of being absolutely still  and the speed of which I'm always moving,  my thoughts present themselves over and over again-  and I realize, that amidst my intermittent nature, there is much for me to be gentle for. From the moment I get up out of bed, with my eyes partially half closed, face swollen, morning breath, and walking reflexively to the restroom  posed like a zombie- to the minute I leave the restroom, face washed, teeth brushed, and straight to the coffee pot, where my real morning routine starts, with a complex personal self-served coffee order, that I computatively go through without error, as I'm thinking my thoughts and thinking no thoughts-  thoughts that don't recognize themselves. The universe now consist of my int...
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Dichotomy of Time, in short

The dichotomy of time is my most loved concept. Time is such a mysterious reality, a realistic mystery, it does not lie but it eludes you- every single moment. It's reality but it's never truth. Somehow, that's more romantic to me than the red roses I received on valentines day in 2019. Somehow, this concept of time that keeps taking away my life simultaneously keeps me insatiable; for I keep ending back to it, no matter where I choose to start. Have you ever gone back and read things you wrote more than 3 years ago, exchanges you had, poems you kept, and little subliminal messages archived into your stories? I do. I went back and read messages I had in an old account with another account that has already ceased to exist. Our messages remain- little words of pain, truth, confessions, and lies. I realize I cannot see myself typing the same words ever again. I am not that person anymore. The memory is so far and detached from who I've become that it does not feel like I...
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Animal of Regret

  I've been having more trouble lately than usual, taking myself and my work seriously. To be honest, I don't really see the point sometimes. I don't see the point of trying so hard in order to die a meaningful death. I think people put too much emphasis on life, myself even. What a dangerous and problematic opinion, I'm sure any therapist worth their salt would say so too. However, what I mean to point out, is that people get sucked in to their idea of normalcy- working hard, studying hard, making money, striving, avoiding hurt, deflecting pain, etc. We're so predictable. However, consider this- so what? so what if I get hurt for no reason? My emotions would dictate that I seek closure, whether its an emotional tender hurt or a passerby who accidentally bumped in to me. A human being's first reaction is react to the source. We're so engulfed in our narrative, and the world we create in our perception. So what? So what if I don't get a good job and make ...
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Prose: White Roses

solipsism: (n.) the belief that everything around you was created by your mind   if everything around me was created by my mind, then youre the best thing that I've ever come up with; you are real, but only as real as my thoughts. There is no other time, other than when Im completely surrounded by commotion and chaos, do I realize that there is such a thing as peace. Peace in the quiet of moments I've taken for granted many times. Peace in the stillness of my heart when I'm loved and taken care of by people I've taken for granted many times. I take one deep breath and Im already one deep breath too late, because thats how fast time moves by my notice. I yearn for the safety of a soundless night, a sky dome glittered with stars- where I'd look up and see the Three Sisters of Orions Belt that has followed me since I was old enough to look up into the sky and young enough to wonder why they never separate. I yearn for the freedom of the wind on a starless night, gently...
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Omnipresence: Philosophy of Philosophies Pt.II

I have decided to take a stand on what I believe the nature of consciousness is and its place in space, by analyzing David Chalmer’s The Character of Consciousness and, Anand Vaidya and Purushottoma Bilimoria, A&P’s Advainta Vedanta and Mind Extension Hyphothesis alongside some excerpts from other thinkers that stuck to me personally . I presume that what consciousness is, cannot be identified for several reasons whereas, consciousness has to exist outside of time; whereas, if consciousness exists outside of time then we do not have the capacity to comprehend what it is as a fundamental fact through scientific theory. However, we can presume that it is the fundamental truth of reality. Functionalism and Physicalism does not answer the hard problem of consciousness and thus, are incorrect in its definition of what consciousness is and the landscape it exists in. Functionalism and physicalism, instead, offer us explanations of how consciousness is used. I conclude that in this realit...
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Omnipresence: Philosophy of Philosophies

   (Disclaimer: these are just thoughts/reflections based on appraised and published philosophy pieces.)     I have a habit of looking for parallels and analogies, in order to understand complex ideas, between different fields and areas of studies. I like philosophy, I thoroughly enjoy it. However, my brain is too small that most of the time- I have no idea what I'm reading when I read a philosophy piece. So, like all small and adaptive brains, mine immediately starts looking for patterns in other simpler areas- one of them being, Religion. Ahhh yes, religion. I hate it and I've learned to love it because of how elementary it has become to my understanding. What people in many religions across the globe refer to as deities, God, the "unknown" that lies behind the doctrine of rebirth and reincarnation, I have come to understand simply as THE energy with consciousness; the one unchanging and eternal thing that all other things come from, it has to exist outsi...
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Amorphous Love

Amorphous: without a clear or define shape     Every once in a while, I climb up a really high mountain, or a high building, or even the edge of a cliff- and look out at what I see. Everything seem so clear from a distance, but because of that distance, many things aren't so clear either. Love is the same way sometimes. From a distance, I become absolutely sure that what I feel is love although I can't say exactly what is the target of that love. Without that distance, I know exactly what or who that target is, although I cannot say anymore if love is what I feel. Human emotions are tricky that way. I wish I knew but at the same time, Im glad I don't know. The fact that I am not sure now, allows me the confidence to be sure when I finally figure it out one day.     I've realized something extraordinary about myself this year. My heart is so loyal and patient. Because it is so patient, I am one step closer to concluding that it is indeed love I felt years ago- at leas...
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A Short Story: Lives Within Lives

  Sonder: noun. the realization that each passerby is living a life as vivid and as complex as your own.     8:05 p.m PST, LAX; I left Honolulu this morning for the first time in almost 3 years now, after having traveled so often and frequently in the past 7 years prior to the last 3 years. Sitting in my gate area 4 hours before my flight even boards, I can't help but notice people passing me by- each going to a respective destination. Every so often, a passenger would stop to look at the monitor right in front of me and I can see their eyes quickly scanning the endless list trying to find their flight numbers. In this moment, I wonder what its like to be someone else, anybody else other than me. I am certain that the intensity of my life would still be high, despite having lived very different lives. Through my life, I observe other lives- and I try to see the most I can from the surface of their physicality; their scowl, their smile, their excitement and their hesitatio...
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On the Edge of Yesterday...

  A comprehensive poem of all my traumas- so that I may start letting them go... On the other side of yesterday when I didn't know love, I loved wholeheartedly. I laughed the loudest, and only knew a childlike cry of pain. Just like a bird that hadn't left the nest,  I lived only seeing the walls of my comfort zone, and then suddenly- I was dropped down the nest  except-  I'm not a bird.  I was a little girl, a whole human being  a child who had never known the pain of being dropped  much less the pain of landing. Years later, I realize that being dropped did hurt more and lastingly,  than the landing that lasted momentarily. Years later, I would realize that I consistently re-live free fall sensory experience. Years later- I still wouldn't let myself hit the ground, still refusing to land. PTSD. On the far side of yesterday when I haven't known joy, I was ecstatic.  I lived in a state far from the current state of home, I made lifelong frien...
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