Hi,

How are you my dear readers? I just want to say thank you for supporting and reading this poetry blog. I also want to wish you a greater year ahead. :)

I'm also here to say that I'm taking a poetry hiatus. I tried to keep up with the daily poetry but unfortunately couldn't make it. I thought it would be easier because of the winter break. I was wrong.

This is because I've taken on to writing stories for a bigger personal project. I realize, too, that no matter how much I love writing, I could only write so much in a day.  I wish writing was the only thing I would get to do every hour of every day.  But as you and I both know, there's that little thing we just cannot ignore: life.

I'll be back to writing in metre hopefully very soon. I would always love poetry.

So before I sign off, let me leave you with this quote from my most favourite author, Neil Gaiman.

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself." 

The word "create" is inherent in "creature."  It is in all of us to create whatever we want.  We'll be doing ourselves a favour when we create something, anything.  It's a manifestation of our existence.  So do it.

Have a wonderful year all of you beautiful creatures,
jln.

I wish there was someone
to tell things to
without any hint of
judgment or questions
just plain talking
conversing
words flowing
like a bathtub faucet
left running
and running
for hours on end
until water jumps over the tub
and down to the cold bathroom floor.

And it seeps out under the door
silently streaming out picking dusts
on its way but still going on anyway.

©jln.

How is it that
the same substance can
both carry two polar messages
of a heart breaking
and a heart rejoicing?

And her puffy red eyes could mean
she has lost all hope
or she has gained it all back.

Tricky, confusing things
those tears are.

©jln.

Hours upon hours
of paid work, of
picking up clothes made
from distant lands to
the hands, shoulders,
collarbones of people
with the paper - so powerful
people die for it.

Or at least people sweat
break their backs
leave their families
for it.

Hours upon hours of
dealing with powerful money
and clothes from distant lands

I come home afterwards,
and first thing I pick up
is the stringed instrument
and wash my hands with
broken melodies and off-key notes

cleanse my soul with words
written by someone who does not have
to work hours upon hours
with clothes made from distant lands.

©jln.

I've made so many mistakes
that I'm afraid --
every step, I shall trip
and fall rolling down
the stairs -- because
that's what always happened.
Never failed to happen.

Until now.

And my dirty and filthy
being, my voice so small
and my lips that were
always shut

opened

and words that I thought were broken
finally came out right.

©jln.

Smile --
that's all I really had
for someone who
used to love to see and hear
me laugh.

I could not laugh like
I used to before
not when we're like this now.

But what's wrong with a smile?

A quiet one.
Because between the two of us,
no words need to be said
out loud.

It would just ruin
what has transpired.

We both can be happy alone.
We both can be happy for each other.

We both can be happy
even without a

happy ever after.

©jln.

I'm running. Very fast.
I'm running.
And I won't stop. I just
keep on running. Necessity
is much stronger than
everything else
right now.

I cannot wait.

I don't stop right away.
Not to a halt. It would
shot pains right up and down
up and down
my strained body.

I slow down.

Slowly, I catch my breath.
Slowly, everything comes clearer.
They were a blur when I was
running. Very fast.

Slow down and see
what's necessity and
what's important.

Sometimes, they are like
twins - twins who are
insanely identical

yet one tiny thing
one detail sets them apart.

And that's what matters the most.

©jln.

How is it that I'm
peaceful and immobile
for the very purpose
of resting my body

and then my mind runs
around blurring the lines
between dreams
and reality making me
believe that this is real
when it's only
a dream?

In the dream where I thought
it was reality
I almost died -- the basic
bodily processes don't work
as normally as they
would. I almost died in
a world that wasn't real
but I thought it was.

At that moment of death,
the moment I felt my
breath's cessation,

I woke up, found myself
alive in the real world.

©jln.

With your words, I feel
like I'm walking on a
thin wire like I'm
working in a circus.
But, I look around and
I have no audience - just
a shadow of myself... the
look on her (my) face
full of hope that I
won't make a mistake
- the same mistake -

I'm walking, walking
very carefully,
I won't let you down,
I thought.

I'm shaking, trembling,
weakening.
Like before.

I won't let you down,
I promise.

©jln.

And in the cold,
I feel dead and undead
at the same time.

It's like the cold
is burying my body
six feet under --
what it's like
to be surrounded by
lifeless cold
not an ounce
of warmth around.

Yet, the cold
is stirring every pore
and every nerve bringing
it back to a different
kind of life --
a life of quiet and
just nature's elements
all around.

©jln.

I have a photograph
of that day -- and
possibly that moment --
that I first
fell in love.

It's strange holding
the photograph in my
bare hands, seven years later.
The edges are browning.
It was not taken digital
but preserved in some film.
I had to wait weeks to see
and look back to that day
when I first
fell in love.

It's weird that
I have a photograph of
that day, found in between
the very pages where I create.

Three people looked back at me smiling.
One person purposefully turned his back
(that's just the way he is).
One tourist randomly included looking lost and bewildered.

Three people looked back at me smiling.

One was a good good friend who loved
to dance to music and to life.

The two left - smiling.
Me & him. Him & me.
Not touching, just standing beside each other.

Little did I know that I was falling.
Little will he ever know that I'm still writing.

(about him.)

©jln.

To create, we use words
to materialize ideas
see them in front of our eyes.
For plans to become actions,
they become words first.
We describe, we make sense
of every single thing
through words. We create or
recreate (how ever you
want to look or your belief
allows you) the world.

I have one question however:

Why is it that I've exhausted
hundreds upon hundreds of
combinations of words

to recreate you

and yet: you still remain
nowhere, non-existent --
I can't even hold you
in my hands.

I just want to hold you,
that's all.

And I can't even see you
with my eyes.

I just want to see you,
that's all.

©jln.

People,
including myself,
always find themselves
wondering why
the people they like
looking at -- never
look back; wishing they will;
like they do, oftentimes.

What I, we,
don't or may never know
is that those people
from afar can be like
toys --

there is that possibility
within our childlike and
hopeful hearts

that when we're not looking
they, like toys, do look back at us
that when we think dormant

one look
and our hearts come back to life.

©jln.

I won't ever,
never ever forget you.

You changed, I did too.

But what I won't forget
are two things:
who you were
and who I was.

You, who set to me
the definitions and conventions
of what this small tricky
thing was. You, who also taught
me how to break down these
walls of conventions
and reveal something not just
beautiful, but lasting.

Me, who didn't know
one bit about this
tricky beautiful lasting thing --
an eager listener
learner of your ways
gave you my small hand
trusting for your guidance
and comfort. Your hand on my shoulder,
imprinted all the way to
my heart.

In real life, we never happened.

In dreams in hearts exclusively, we were.

Always, it's you.
It will always be you.

©jln.

This is for you, you with the sleeping talent in need of awakening.

Stains, stains
on his graying apron
walking around,
his thoughts on
of his next paycheque
his eyes looking
for the next table to bus
his heart searching
for that beautiful
secretive face
he saw yesterday.

The face that held
a promise of a different
world away from spilled
soup and coffee
and black garbage bags
with small holes and leaking.

The face that told
of fifty one stories
about broken vases
and loose endings and
dusty keyholes to the
heart he

he never thought
would be his fall.

©jln.

And I feel a new image
forming out of broken pieces
new words within words
it's exciting.

And it's good to experience
all of it
the good and the bad
laughter, tears
harmony, incongruities
fullness, emptiness.

And it's only when,
when, I guess meaning now,
that moving on
can happen.

©jln.

Watching people lives
written in lines
connected by invisible wires
distance blur
and all of a sudden
I am inside their heads
and their hearts
and knowing, bit by bit,
what's inside
their pretty painted heads
and rotten hearts.

And I'm sitting comfortably
wanting to run away.

©jln.

I order hot tea
and I get cold
frozen icy tea
not iced
but just hot tea
becoming cold,
really cold.

I thought I was
perfectly clear
I said the right words
and I paid the exact amount
up to the very
last cent.

And for my longings to be warm
and cozy and safe,
in return, I've got a glass
or piercing cold touching me
from head to toe.

©jln.

Small talks over
milk chocolates on sale
and red scans over
a half blue, half white sticker.

A polite smile and
rehearsed words
greetings are exchanged --

one line of sincerity

turns it over
and becomes a rare
a very rare
moment of genuine
conversation
that lasts a minute
between two strangers
who have never met
and probably will
never meet again.

Yet both will remember
the face and smile.

Without names and
with sincerity, they will
remember.

©jln.

Life is like a coffeehouse.
People come & go.

Some will place their order
wait patiently until
they get their drink
or maybe doughnuts
then go.

Some will place their order
and in the unfortunate sense
that satisfaction is not met
they will explode and
maybe shout hurtful obscenities
leaving you seething
and helpless
behind the counter, and you
wonder if what you did was
THAT wrong for them to hurt you
THAT way.
And then they will go.

Some will place their order
and talk you up, start a
conversation, smiling and
pleasant the whole time
asking how are you and if
you're busy, make small talk
eye contact and wish you
a very good day, the world
in it's right place.
And they, too, shall go.

Life is like a coffeehouse.
If they feel at home
inside a place full of strangers
unknown faces,
differing ways to their coffees,
burnt out, hung over,
studying for an exam...

almost definitely
they will come back.

©jln.