sipping dew in a wine glass.
looking at the lady in the glass window distilling last night’s rain drops.
there’s frost in the shadows of (my) thoughts.
but we’re in a hot country where sweat leaks from the folds of our flesh.
the sun rises and sets sooner than memories
of father, mother, all still children
raising children older than
their confused love
go.
Tag: mother
my typical morning
i wake up. i wake my daughter up. good morning sunshine. prepare breakfast. my husband gets up and occupies the bathroom. i read the news, or facebook timeline, and then realize i am already hooked and put down the phone. pick it up again, click on youtube, and look for bath songs. husband comes out of the bathroom, daughter goes in. take school uniform out from the dresser, put them on the bed. daughter splish splashes her way out of the bathroom and asks for her towel. she puts on her shirt while watching youtube. hurry up, it’ll take forever if you do it like that. i take the nice comb, found under the bed yesterday after it went missing for weeks, from the vanity and comb daughter’s dripping wet hair. remember, side part. woosh woosh. kiss mama goodbye. and they are out.
i take my probiotic with a glass of water. thoughts seeping into my head like a foul morning mist. i remember last night i woke up from a very weird dream, worrying i forgot to put the bread in the fridge, especially since i bought one with a rich cream filling. i turned on the flashlight, not wanting to stir my family’s sleep. and saw that all the bread was already safe in the fridge. i was the one who put them there. but the one with the cream filling was nowhere to be found. not even at the bottom of husband’s tote bag. i was so sure i took one in the bakery. but then i wasn’t so sure about what’s going on in my head anymore. and that made me sad and angry and scared all at the same time. i returned to bed, pondering whether i should go to the toilet or not and finally got up and went. i then slipped under the blanket, looking at my daughter’s round sleeping face.
i plop down on the bed and check facebook again despite knowing it would take so much of my time. but i have turned away from it for such a long time. maybe, just maybe, i can practice doing what’s normal again. just the right dose, you know. one social media at a time. it’s okay. and i like and comment on a few posts from my dearest friends. and then realize again that i have stayed there longer than planned. i immediately switch to my renungan harian. pray. have breakfast and my grey tablet. write for ten minutes. and cry for both every and no reason at all.
one of those moments
it is one of those moments when you get excited about one thing more than anyone closest to you would. night has just fallen and automobiles light up like fireflies, ferociously looking for enemies and friends at the same time on the city’s roads. you are looking out from inside one of the fireflies’s cold belly, thinking of one of the best books you have recently read. your husband and one of your dear friends would love the protagonist’s mother because she likes wallace stevens and transcendental poetry that do not incorporate the narcissistic pronoun “I”. and then you get distracted by the tender and alluring smell of freshly made pancakes you just bought.
tick tock
father’s bed is made, but no one has changed his bed sheet since he died in his sleep almost two weeks ago.
there are two clocks in this room. they had been souvenirs from two different banks. and both of them let out incessant tick-tocking sounds,
which must have been the last sounds he had heard.
_
i put my hand on his pillow, sit on the bed and then lie down. i immediately realize that almost everything that can be seen from this position is still the same with what i had seen when i was still a child sleeping on this bed between my mother and father.
_
i get up and look at his things, scattered around his bed. never worn shirts and ties, still in their packaging. bed sheets, some old some new. house clothes, washed and folded. coins, in small plastic containers on his dressing table labeled Rp 25,- Rp 50,- Rp 100,- in his handwriting. and even more coins that he had yet organized, coins that have now been withdrawn from circulation.
_
no one was allowed in this room when he was still alive. except for my daughter.