Deci equi non habemus fortitudo vaginae

I'm going but i don't feel too lost when
thoughts and idea are placed on paper.

If you have asked the same questions then compare notes with what is written in this book with your life's journey.
What makes the trip bearable is knowing we are not alone.
Come walk with me through my mental journey and see if we are not heading the same way.





Flirt

I know. I know. Being a romantic is not being a realist.
Being able to feel more passion, is also being more likely to receive more pain. But this is what i am, a really sensitive creature, a sentimental fool who is, as Alanis Morisette put it so poetically, "an infatuation junkie."

It's my drug. It's what gets my heart pumping with speed and energy. I am forever floating on clouds and my spirit forever flying to new heights. Of course like all drugs, the feeling eventually wears off and I tumble back down to earth. But, I would find a way to fly again because the feeling is so wonderful.

There is a Thai word for this, "jaow chew".
I once told a friend that I fall in love everyday.
He called me "jaow chew".
I smiled and said, "thank you".

Strange answer. That was the look my male friend gave me too. Is it really something to be proud of to be labelled a person who is always falling in love?

Jaow chew means "untrustworthy, selfish, egotistical and emotionally impaired", because jaow chew means having more than one lover. It's about not honouring the person you married and breaking your promise to make a commitment work with honesty and trust. That, anyway, is the common definition of "jaow chew" in Thai.
To me, "jaow chew" is a hopeless romantic: a person always falling in love with life.

Shakespeare said, "To thy own self be true." I agree. I know i am a romantic.
And what is romance but a selfish indulgence. A tango. A dance that makes you feel sexy and beautiful and alive.

It's about indulging your soul. It can be about brushing up close to someone and touching their skin or it can mean just looking and admiring. It is the ultimate compliment. To be listened to.
To be touched. To be told you are special and " I would like to get to know you even more."

Everyone likes a good compliment. Therefore, everyone is also a romantic, be it a closed-closet kind or a confident out-of-the-closet sort. It's within each of our souls to be loved, touched and listened to by someone beyond our parents.


But of course romance is not based on reality.

Romance is based on dreams, fairytales and hope. All of which are good for the soul, in moderate dosage.

As children, we have a lot of fairytale wishes, dreams and hopes for our future. As we grow older we realise that nothing ends with "....and they lived happily ever after."

In the end, the REAL END in life and love, all lovers must part and die or just move on.

But while we are here, in the small amount of time as humans, it's nice to feel special and beautiful by another human being:

a smile
a touch
and all the hopes and dreams in between.

If "jaow chew" means to fall in love often and frequently and never letting the fire in my soul die down and out, then call me "jaow chew". Label me as such. It means i'm not dead yet.


Areeya Chumsai




Love after Love

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome.

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror,
Sit. Feast on your life.


Derek Walcott



Guilt

i ate a bag of chips.
crispy. oily. salty.
one chip i said.
only one more chip...
one more chip,
just another little chip...

maybe, just another...
okay, my last one
crunchy.
crunchy.
crunchy.
yum.yum.yum.

now the
bag is empty
my fingers are salty and sticky,

I'm not full but my bag is empty
and
so
am
i.



Pop Aree
Tadpole