Skeleton in my Closet

I've too many skeletons in my closet and some of them wear dress.
Say you have them too. Years past and next thing you know you'd have a collection of facts, those of which, in your opinion, may better be hidden, or concealed from, people in general, a specific group of people, or even a particular person for various reasons such as, to protect them from maybe pain - be it physical or psychological - or maybe, selfishly yourself. The metaphor 'skeleton' is used to reflect the nature of the fact it carries. Dark, dirty, deceitful they maybe but not necessarily. Some things are just not meant to be known, some must wait for the 'right time' to be let out, and some are just plain insignificant. But, either way they must come out. Sooner or later, they must and they will.

The trouble with these skeletons are, keeping it in too long might, or rather will, cause serious consequences. Unlike real bones, they will start to rot. They will start to stink and once they do, others will notice. Imagine you have a beautifully decorated bedroom, clean and tidy but there's a sharp nose piercing odor coming out of the closet and others walked into the room. You figure it out.

Think of it metaphorically. And, think of it from other peoples' point of view. What would they think? What would they feel? Something must be wrong, that's what. And at that point, whether or not they saw your skeletons, and whether or not those skeletons of yours has a dark side, or whether or not they knew the purpose of them being kept for so long, don't matter much more. Your intention of letting them out one day is now left in vain. The facts of which you had been concealing, be it bright or dark, now symbolize dishonesty, and intention to deceit. Whatever plans you have post skeletal disposal is now pointless. Premature discovery of them, turns honest mistakes and dark pasts that were, into lies. Try to deny it, try to save yourself, the ball is just not in your court no more.

You are now seen as a lying bastard, or cheating son of a bitch. The trust is now gone. You are back to square one. "GO TO JAIL!! DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT 200". All you have now are regrets, disappointment, hatred towards yourself, and not a single trace of self esteem. You get depressed, and try to share with those who think they know you well but you know better. With that many skeletons, no one really knows you that well, and as much consolation as they could possibly give, it just won't make you feel any better. You'd just want to bang your head really hard on the wall that you brain would explode. A knife in the heart, sounds very inviting. You just want to tie yourself on the railroad so it all will soon be over. This is when sanity comes into play. Facing it with sanity is like having an open heart surgery performed on you while you're wide awake, without any kind of anesthetics and it's not even an option. It hurts like a bitch, you can see and feel everything that's being done on you and there's nothing you can do about it but try hard to stay still. It will feel like forever. You feel like you're going to die which is ironic because it is exactly the one thing that will keep you alive.

There are only two possible outcomes. One, you'll die. The other, you'll make it through. One thing for sure though, if you did make it through, it will leave an ugly scar so obvious that you will never ever be able to forget and really get over it.

It stays with you forever. You will ever be haunted. Just like me.

-taukamal

Evolved

You know I'm a dreamer
But my heart's of gold
I had to run away high
So I wouldn't come home low
Just when things went right
Doesn't mean they're always wrong
Just take this song and you'll never feel left all alone
-
(Motley Crew-Home Sweet Home)

I am a dreamer indeed. A man full of hope and desire. A man who believes in the greater good, a man who believes in Disney ending. I am a hopeless romantic. As many have known, I left home five years ago to pursue a dream. I left the place i called by many names - shit hole, junk yard, pantat kawah - just to finally go back to 'her', kneeling, and begging for her to take me back in, with arms wide open, and make me feel, something that I have never felt in a long long time, BELONG.

And four months of hot summer that's exactly how she made me feel. I was home. Not anymore a shit hole, not anymore a pantat kawah. I was finally home.

Home is not quite a glamorous place to be in, not a place you could rent an apartment and fill it with IKEA furniture after two months of working. It is where you sleep on a mattress in a low cost flat. It is not a place where you drive a German car, but you ride in a tin can on wheels instead. Nor home is the place where your 'human rights' are taken care of. It is where you work like a dog and get shitty pay. Home is not a place you could save up enough for annual ski vacation in the Alps. It is where having KFC once a month is a luxurious treat. Home is not about Scotch over lunch and Merlot over dinner. It's ais kosong and teh ais when you can afford one. And home is not about working and studying during week days, longing for another weekend of drunken nights and meaningless sex just to wake up on Monday morning with a hangover and praying so the girl from last night won't miss her period cycle. Home, is about hard work during weekdays and spending quality time with your family over the weekend. Home is where you stay focus in what you do, a place where you set your goals and actually go for it, a place where live your life. Home is sweet, home is home, home-sweet-home.

Four months at home taught me lessons. Lessons, that I had been longing for throughout my exile. Five years of floating and drifting, looking for the answer, and of all the places I could have found it, I found it resting at my very own home. There, a moment of realization. To appreciate home I had to first despise it.

I love the life in a foreign land. I did not have to worry about, well, anything. Everything was made easy. Not once in my life time had I need to face hardship and difficulty. Not once. I had roof over my head wherever I go, never had to starve, and clothes, those that many cant even imagine to have, I have them lined up nicely starched and ironed in the closet. I love the life in a foreign land. I get amused by all the small things. Being all classy, stylish, and looking good in all occasion. While some of my collegues had to decide on which brand of canned tuna would be the cheapest one, I, a pompous pretentious spoilt brat would be all dressed up dining in a gourmet restaurant, enjoying my fresh mussels, with a glass of chardonay in hand. What a life huh?

Back to my four months of summer. It lasted a life time. I was happy, heart broken, revived, resurrected, and heartbroken again, many many times. And guess to whom I fell back to? The warm hands of my parents and, of course, God almighty. Obviously I am by far not the cover boy of Islam, nor am I an obedient kid. But over the months mending my broken self, I did go to 'meet' God with my old man. Soothing. It was like the first time I had ever experienced joy in my life. I also managed to have a few rather pleasant conversations with the sweet lady who carried me in her for nine long dreadful months, some 23 years ago.

Alone I sat in a multi-billion dollar coffee shop franchise in one of the greatest establishments in the country, I thought, "Am i going to leave all these for a bunch of overpriced coats, and some fancy restaurants, and getting hammered off my backside every weekend??? Hell no". Well, there was one reason why I wanted to stay. Not the overpriced coats, nor was it the fancy restaurants, but 'something' else. One thing that I, a pompous, pretentious, spoilt brat, could never have. I wanted 'it', and still very much desire 'it', and undoubtedly, in love with 'it'. But I just can't have 'it'. That explains why I wanted it so bad doesn't it?

Other than 'it', and 80 quids a day pay I could make in this foreign land, I have got nothing much to gain here. But at home in the other hand, I've got the whole country to explore, the whole system to exploit, and most importantly, my entire life to built.

So, bring on the low cost flat and the mattress, bring on the tin-can car, throw my human rights out the window, pay me dirt, shove the KFC down my throat and water it down with ais kosong, spare me the drunkenness, give me sobriety, and sex... it can wait until the day I tie the knot. I just want to get home, I just want to be home. I'm tired of running, living in denial. I'm done dissing my home and giving it names. I am going home, and this time I'm going home, for good.

-taukamal

About me

I'm a peace loving person. But I hold grudges. Believe in revenge. Even after a sweet revenge I'd normally still won't forgive, let alone forget. When I hate, I really do. If I curse you, I'd do so in my prayers. I'll curse you, your friends, your family, ancestors and descendants, dead or alive, and even the unborn. So, should you see or hear me cursing you with a straight face or tone, you know that I really have sincerely cursed you, that I hate you and to me, you and everyone related to you by blood or any other kind of ties or bonds, are as good as a pile of PIG SHIT. And I'll do anything and everything in my power to make your life, and dead, miserable. Now go cry to your momma.

Internally Produced, Nutritionally Drained, Biological Output

Yet another one of the epic adventures of my mind, lost in the parallel world. A mirrored image of the mirror image of the real world. Where opposites turned around once again, making fantasy seems so real, hindering the ability of mind to part the world we are living in from the parallel one of which, a partition of our brains wanted to be in.

Lying on the mattress so old that I could feel the coils poking my back like acupuncture therapy. Staring at the purple ceiling, hypnotized by the swaying chandelier, blown by cool winter breeze, I surrender under the warmth of the 20 togs duvet. Sub-zero degree Celsius, it was as if the air nibbling on my brittle 23 year old bones. Radiator was on, to the max. Room stuffed with Dunhill Fine Cut menthol lights fume. “Brain, brain, go away, come again another day” I thought.

It had been a week since I got here, and the only times that I left this spot were only when summoned by Mother Nature or loading carbohydrates for the sake of surviving. Surviving. Isn’t that what we all do? The turbulence in my head is reaching the climax. Identity crisis, priority issues; name it. I have it all. How do I deal with it? Well, the only defense mechanism that worked so far (up until last week at least) would be my sleep. That was when the soul parts with the body, floats to the parallel world that it feels comfortable in. But recently my soul was devastated by how real the parallel world turned out to be. That world of which it used to call a happy place is a happy place no more. The same shit it gets with the body is now the shit it gets without. Hanging in between, the body was left directionless. Purpose of sleeping has been defeated.

I somehow figured a way to save my happy place. I needed enhancement. So I got myself enhancement. After a pack of fine cut cigarettes, a litter of cheap French Chardonnay and steamy unprotected sex, my happy place was back. It somehow fades away as reality bites every dawn as I get up for Subuh submission. I pray to the higher power, day in day out, night in night out, so that one day I could get out of this confusion. Breaking away from sobriety was my temporary solution for all of these, but how long can my renal system take it? Nine years of puffing tar in and out of my lungs is enough to bring judgment day 20 years closer. How much more of my brain cells can I afford to burn and most importantly, how much longer can my bank account sustain?

My questions to god were replied by more and more questions that I had to ask myself. They are all about my confusion. Now I think I might not even be confused at all. Maybe I’m just scared. Scared of the future; the future that I had been anticipated for. It’s near now. Five months to be precise. A lot that I want to do. A lot that I have to do. Youngsters in Kapar need a proper leader who doesn’t do superman on a 70cc bike. The mosque could collapse if my 10 years old sister kicks one of the pillars, and my ego tells me “If you did not do anything about it, no one will.” I want to get my father a Maybach together with 24hr chauffer to take him golfing or hang out at Chinoz with his friends anytime he wishes to. My mother could use a bigger island in the kitchen. I love her cooking and I know she loves it when we enjoy her cooking. Seeing her smile is probably the most beautiful thing in the world. My little sister should get her SLK 55 by the time she starts college. But all these big things with too little time? What am I going to do? How am I going to deal with it? Where do I start? I don’t know. I don’t know.

The khutbah just now was about the new years. NEW FREAKIN YEAR!!! Not only I’m highly bugged by the fact that I’m getting old, they now have to remind me. Thanks. Oh well, it’s Friday. Not the day to worry about anything. It’s the day of congregation. Hallelujah. Friday; the day of pizzas, kegs of pilsner, girls too poor to buy clothes that could cover, and if we are lucky, some sweet sweet green source of Tetra-hydro Cannabiol (some call it 'weed'). Viva Bob Marley!!!! (Though he’s dead).

Saturday dawn breaks. Drunken limbs all over the place. This chick had a used condom up her right ear. My praying matt covered with vomit. Curly fries, fritté de calamari. Shit, now I know what she had for lunch yesterday. Fcuk this shit. I really need to get out of here. I love my faith, I love my friends, but I love myself more. I left home to achieve freedom. But freedom had let me down. I left to search prosperity, but poverty is what i found. My soul is dying, I’m a walking zombie. Directionless,….. Shit...

Mesiniaga,Taipei101,TheChateau,TheKaaba

I was lingering around a shopping mall the other day doing what most guys walking alone in a mall would do – checking out on girls. So I bumped into a few very interesting ones. Being my self, shy and introverted, I did not talk to any of them. I observed and made my own baseless judgment. It was great fun I must say. Since we did not talk, I did not get any of their names so I shall just give them nicknames, based on my baseless, preposterous and barkingly, madly insane judgments.

The first that caught my eyes was one of the most interesting ones. I’ll call her The Mesiniaga. Appearance wise, she wasn’t very attractive. In fact, she was the opposite of being even remotely attractive. The jeans she wore were embarrassingly ridiculous. Ones that Madonna would wear in one of her videos in the 80’s. She probably got her oversized top from ‘Kedai Pakaian Sin Kiew’ on sale. Her pink Nike sneakers were not of much help. The Mesiniaga was a complete disaster. Her ‘impeccable’ sense of style was not the one that turned my head. She can’t even walk like a lady for nuts. What did was the ‘aura’ that tailed her as she walked pass. The Mesiniaga is the kind that does not really care about her surrounding. She’s rather oblivious. No, more like, ignorant. Not the kind that would think before she does something, let lone considers the consequences. Why would anyone go out with this breed? I’ll tell you why. She thinks feels and acts out of the world, and with her you will, I can assure you, think, feel and act out of the world. Carefree like a wild animal running in the jungle with wind in her hair and sand in her feet.

Next was the Taipei 101. Yes, as in the tower. What interesting was the fact that I had almost overlooked her. Of course she wasn’t as tall, but she carries with her the ambition and elegance of the Taipei 101. Still experimenting her style. She has high hopes. Very determined and focused. She knows what she wants regardless how illogical her wishes would be. Young and naïve. She has a lot of potential but no experience whatsoever. Many would be more than glad to take her out, but she would just reject every single one of them and go for the very one that she wants despite the non-existence of it. She lives in her very own utopian dream. One that nobody in their right minds would share.

As I walk through the wing of designer stores, my eyes were fixed at Chateau de Versailles. She was beautiful, elegant and timeless in every way. She likes the glam and attention of being beautiful. Well groomed from top to bottom. Perfect physique she has. Looking at her, I could tell her life had already been planned since the minute her mother got knocked up. Her entire life is like a day in the Chateau, form the Levee to the Couchee. Perfectly timed. Like the construction of the Chateau, her up-bringing costs a lot on many peoples’ expense. The result however is remarkably brilliant. Flawless. She is the kind that every guy in the world would like to have. The Chateau has the ability to give her guests an orgasmic experience. But not all were cut out for life in a Chateau. After a certain time, most of us would probably get sick of living in such establishment. High maintenance cost, and the Chateau de Versailles, being a top historic spot, provides not privacy at all. She was so ‘inviting’ that I had almost went up to start a small talk.

But I was distracted.

I was distracted by The Kaaba – the gargantuan black cube in the middle of the forbidden land of Mecca. The Kaaba is the direction of which Muslim all over the world submit their prayers to before they (the prayers) were directed to God. The Kaaba is a simple construction of a huge cube built thousands of years ago by the prophet Abraham p.b.u.h. which had since been fought over by almost every single religious movement in the world including the pagans and of course the current custodian, the Sauds. Her style is just like the big black cube. With nothing extravagant, at all, not even a single trace of jewelries, she floats, like an angel, gracefully striding her careful steps in her blue jeans and polo-tee, mesmerizing enough to be worshipped by guys. She is tremendously, totally and utterly HOT. Just like the Kaaba, she had been fought over by many, and destroyed in wars and natural disasters, that she was badly broken and confused. Although fixed, she is now over protected and very aware of her own wellbeing that she allows no one inside. She however still unfairly lets anyone wander around her, and pray to/through her. Sadly, most of the prayers weren’t answered and more often than not the wanderer left in despair, disguised in the form of relief and hope, just to find out soon enough that they were left with nothing but utter disappointment. The Kaaba has the power of keeping guys coming back, literally begging for more, and more, and more, and for much much more and more, and more and much more, and more, and more, and more, and more until one day they’d either give up or just simply eventually … die…………..