My Cuppa'!


Do you realize that I need that mug of tea? The first cup in early hours is the most crucial. I need that first sip to go on; to feel that warmth oozing out from the cup that leaves little beads of vapor on your face when you stare too close at the perfect blend of milky brown; I need to hold that mug, cupped in both my hands while the warmth slowly travel up your arms and pervade throughout. I need to walk slowly, alone, lost in my apartment, just knowing that I can, that there is no rush, and that there are no answers I owe. After work, after school, I need that stroll in the city, the chaotic city, with energy tumbling out from cafes, street corners, alleys, this city that I find impossible to be passed off as descent livable space, populated with obese people, populated with the most beautiful people, with ATM booths and chain stores popping up in a blink of an eye just like those museums, boutiques and theaters. I denounce it, it’s not mine, I have nothing to do with this murky ditch, but I am taken aback by its crisp charm, its chirpy handsomeness and its frivolous pursuits. I need to keep my dates, my rendezvous every week, with my most walked avenues, the corner cafĂ© oppostite the curb in the neighborhood, that news-stand owned by the turban man, 14th St, Barns and Nobles. I deserve that papa-bear cup of hot chocolate the day it is officially winter. I need to run my hand on grainy stone walls while I walk, so that it leaves my fingers rough and tingly, studded with tiny silver dust particles. I long to look way up and watch high buildings while it snows for the first time before Christmas. I have to make that brisk jump every day from the fourth last escalator step, right when the talking machine announces for the very last time “to be careful and to hold on to the hand rail”. Do you know that honey?
I need to read atleast one peom every day that nips in the bud, that sort of tickles you but don't go deep. I need to come home late from work at times, even when there isn’t much work, just because I can. I need to be on and off in love with love, with you, with life, my life, all this which is my life. Babe, you know I do.
And sweetie now as much as I love lying here by your side, under the shadowy bed canopy with flowing lace, hanging ivy, purple grapes and white leaves, just as much as I love that occasional, reassuring squeeze of my palm, just as I need that out of the blue peck, as much as I demand to be questioned at times to feel cared for, I also need to get up, get up for my cup of tea.
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"......What peaches and what penumbras! Whole familiesshopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in theavocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, whatwere you doing down by the watermelons?......"


Weekday story:
Too many shoes lying around in my pigeon hole room, mugs containing yesterday’s remaining tea. Stale bread slices. Too many wires/cables running along from peepholes and corners, webcams, microphones, headphones what have you cabled to my laptop. In the dark gape under the bed, stock of toilet papers, bounty tissues, and lamp bulbs. In neglected corners, make-ups, toiletries, body splashes lined in a row, books racked and stacked. Oh and hair accessories, umm too many. My study table, scarps, folders, coffee stains, stains, residue of strains, books, book marks, pizza box, pizza slice..
I move and continue to function through the chaos, the filth, my random mess, your trifle mess, that riddled mess, haphazard zigzagged uncertainties…

Over the weekend:

the floor is squeaky clean, vacuumed; the bathtub, snow white; on the mirrors, my face too lucid, too apprehensible to settle and like; no soiled laundry tumbling out of wash-baskets; clean sheets, ironed covers, bright pillow cases, smelling the way the sun would if it were a lemon without losing its warmth. Freshly cooked food zip-locked and refrigerated for the following week. Order, Symmetry, Geometry, Straight lines, Rearrangement, Black & White…looming insanity.

Then again, I get so tired of living in this bell jar overlooking this psychotic city, that I at times in the middle of it all, take a walk. It drains me dry sometimes. I try to take in the details, the daily adornments, the love stories written and not written in the mundane…

Oi “Aicha, Aicha” what do you see?

Plenty of faces staring back at me…

A poncho clad evening…cloudy, chilly, dark all around yet crisp and clear when you look ahead.
A Puerto-Rican man tosses colorful leaflets like confetti. I frisk slightly in a tiptoe, to catch one: “Horoscope Reading by Sarah Ashley. An advisor known for her Honesty and Integrity. She can help you with any and all of life’s problems and will suggest which reading best helps you. Spiritual Psychics. Tarot Card Readings. Crystal Rock Reading. Tea leaf and Crystal Ball Reading. AVAILABLE FOR PARTIES. $15 Complete Life Reading with this coupon for only $5. Ph#/Address...”

I contemplate calling Ms. Sarah Ashley and making an appointment. This coupon will buy me a complete life reading for $5. And perhaps with another $5 she can, like she promised; solve my life’s “any and all” problems. Ashley’s leaflet caught while floating down from the sky. Talk about signs…I save that thought for the weekend and move on…
A peacock blue haze from the sky casts on the dust freckled, stone graveled road, a multi-color oil slick from some careless zoomed past car slithers down, wobbly, emulating the peacock blue tinge.

A beautiful woman walks a beautiful dog. Both of them grand, monumental, walking straight and high, no melting , bending or sticking out. A little girl in a yellow sweater yells out, “Ma, that doggy eat me!” The dog instead passes by her in majesty. The little girl frowns, stamps and decides to chase the doggy, her toying terror.

I slide in through the super market door; the automatic doors rush open as if awaiting me. The central AC gush an abundance of indifferent, teeth-chattering air that lands on my face like a hard punch. I scurry along the aisles, cold: Cereal-commercial-families on the cereal aisle, gently pushing their trolleys along with their pretty children. Men, women, queers, queens, children, laughter, cackle.
Buying in frenzy: credit debit flowing, swiping click clack, rummaging for cash, digging for cents, this, that, those, looking for that refuge, that need, that feeling of good. I hurry to ‘my’ aisle, get my cheesecake and wait at one of the sections that say in large print “Cash Only”. By this time I am seeing double. I see “cash only” every where I look. It takes extra long for the girl to tap at the cash register with her extra long, manicured, painted nails, with stars and gems glued on them.
Meantime, I try to ingrain fractured images upon my memory: Pretty girl, gemmed nails, Super-Market ID card, logo imprint apron, Irish accent, bleached smile, register tilt, “cash only” signs, spree, binge, cheesecake, cold, refuge, doggy, terror, your life readings for $5, fortune-telling available for parties, survival, purple-blue haze, the lingering trailing tang of chicken broccoli, road side Chinese take out, angels, Song Liling……somehow, along came Bruce-lee and lanky boys kicking and punching under florescent lights….

I oblige and pay in cash only…

I come back home take out a plate from the pantry with stars and gems on it. I procrastinate eating a slice from that cake.
I Walk by it, walk past it, walk around it, stare at it, mull over it, while it lies right there. I decide to wait for my right moment…..
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Bedroom window overlooking the city

The Den!
a chilly 4:00 pm, the sun about to call it quits
8:00 am-beginning of another work day and me already tired!
8:29 pm, back home!


12:39 am-the nocturnnal city







......



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