The Mast

A harbour anchoring moments,
Winds whispering feelings
Mind reeling into reminiscing 
But like the rope hitting a yacht's mast,
Persistent-
And resisting in a desperate rhythm
Reminding not to linger with the restless wind.

A perched seagull squawked arrogantly,
It soared free to the horizon.

Here I sit seeking no sympathy
With stillness unlike the lake before me,
Let the gentle ferry horn reprimand,
And the wafting dock console me.

-written May 2014
"Big Tub" Tobermory Harbour

My writing space;

Though I sit on the bed, with four walls around me, I am not here. Physically, these walls have enveloped almost four years of sweetness and turbulence. Through these walls by busy Bronson Ave I've spilled words. Letters, after letters collect themselves into words...to phrases...and sentences. They form images of memory. Or an escapism-

A creation of my inner reality. From dissonances, calamity. To cacophony of ecstasies. In my proses and poetries. But I do not seek agreement nor do I vouch for sympathy. These lines are mine, as they have always been. To release into the airwaves, for no other purposes than simply to release. Like everything else in life, there is a need to let go.

When I write, I let go. Sometimes a part of me. Sometimes nothing, but empty alphabets. 

The inner I, sits by a dock. Lulled by a sea's breeze. Gazing into the distance, of a sun setting sky. There are no walls where she sits. Just vastness. But she knows, the time will come again. To face a different sky...

& maybe she doesn't know where she is going. Perhaps she may sail on a wafting yacht. Or find her feet in a foreign soil, hopelessly leaving her heart in places where nobody knows her name but she calls home. She has done so in the physical and inner moments of her life.

But she knows, wherever it be, she is on the right path & never alone. Even if destiny throws a detour worth traversing, they serve to direct and reassure. Not hinder. This she has learned, from the four years surrounded by four walls that accompany. 

Punta Gorda, Belize

The gourd juice is leaving an after taste in my tongue. It is much too sweet. And I feel it dissolving to the back of my throat, mixing with the salty breaths of the ocean I am breathing. I am staring at the distance, where the purple orange horizon burn the lines of the ocean. The breeze lulls my mind away from the present. Into a space so far from here...

So much of this experience triggers memories and thoughts of my cultural identity. It is as if the Caribbean waves synchronizes itself to my heartbeat. Continuously, persistently...revealing to my minds eye: of who I am, who I have been all these while, in spite of where I have been and everything around me.

To my left, there are concrete houses by the shore, erected as if to defend from the vastness of the sea. If Punta Gorda is a kingdom, I wonder what struggles and sweetness it has endured. And I wonder how they compare to my own.

Belize puzzles me. Or maybe I am just thinking too much, like I always do, trying to make sense of everything around me.

I have seen caves, swam creeks, hiked into jungles, and now I am staring at the sea...
I have embraced a lot of things this country has offered me. And now I can feel the ocean's wind blowing frantically against me, reminding me to breathe.

& for some reason, I am reminded of mama's words, "seeing the world of creations, without forgetting the Creator"-

Thinking I finally understand now,
Believing, I can see it objectively now
Knowing, what it means to let go-
only to be begin again.

This is me. In full circle again. In Punta Gorda, just like once I was in Panajachel staring at the majestic Atitlan last year, witnessing the creations, and feeling the Creator's gaze upon me. As the wind sinks into my skin, as if to envelop me...

I feel tiny.
But differently.

-from my journal, written 22/02/13 at Asha's Kitchen dock, Punta Gorda, Belize.

Photocredit: Omar Khan