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Overflowing Ideas.

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Just because I’m awake doesn’t mean I can’t dream.

  • Complements and Rivals

    When we look at the two extremes of this world, we see life and we see death. We hope that there is an incredible amount of space between them. That we can distance ourselves from death as much as possible. That we can cherish life forever before giving into death, the inevitable consequence of entropy.

    When someone we know crosses the bridge of extremes to meet death, we are enveloped by grief and sorrow beyond thought. We writhe and wonder why- why did death choose them and not us? Why didn’t we see it coming? Why couldn’t we say a last goodbye?

    It never strikes us that maybe life and death are intertwined in this delicate thread- that binds us all. Maybe all of us carry death as we walk the bridge of life. Life and death are not opposites, but rather two experiences that complement each other. As we live, we also die. We grieve as someone dies and maybe another part of us dies with them. As they turn to memories, we wonder if they still live in our hearts.

    Death still speaks to us, through life. And as we move forward, we spot more occurrences of the two, each one more haunting than the last. These events snatch us of words and leave us defenceless; we wonder how we will ever recover. Recovery comes, but it yearns for the courage to keep moving on. The toughest thing that life asks from us, with no guarantee that the bridge ahead is better than the one before us. Life asks a lot. Death does too. Perhaps knowing how to confront the two is how we can move forward.

    Written by
    Milomi

    Inspired by-
    “Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life.”
    Norwegian Wood- Haruki Murakami

  • In Search Of

    Quite often, I search for inspiration. I hunt for ideas and long for inception.

    I search in my room and rummage around in my cupboard. I squint my eyes and sift through magnifying glasses and telescopes, wondering how far inspiration is. Wondering why it hides from me and forever avoids me.

    I search in trees, in mountains, in butterflies. I search in windows, in winding roads, in bus stops. I search in books, in stories, in lives.

    Often, it slips out of my reach. I see glimpses of it between my trips, dancing and elegantly twirling farther from where I am. I try to understand it and study it, but I forget it before I can truly express it.

    I think after years of searching, I finally found it. Or at least, what I need to do to actually find it.

    Inspiration is not a destination, but rather a state you achieve during a journey. It is important to start doing something, and inspiration will usually follow. Once you gather motivation and put in effort, inspiration will follow.

    Sometimes, I still try searching for it but it hinders my journey. It’s a long search full of moments I feel like giving up. Moments I feel like I have it, but I realise I don’t. Moments I’m exhausted and confused and wondering why I even search. In those moments, I force myself to simply start.

    The rest will follow.

    Written by

    Milomi.

  • Swimming Pool- poem

    This is a poem about how we settle in with life. How we adjust to life’s rhythm and try to live to life’s beat. How we succeed, how we fail.

    SWIMMING POOL

    We’ve been swimming our whole lives
    Laden with floats and sponges
    And something shouting that
    If we drown, we have someone to hoist us up.
    But we won’t be drowning anyway.

    As we grow, we learn how to
    Catch our breath after every lap
    How to perfect our strokes and technique
    So we can win the race.

    And as we grow older,
    We realise that the race was simply
    An illusion to make us sure we challenge ourselves
    To swim faster, better, smoother
    To be our own opponents.

    Yet as we age
    We find it tough to come up for water
    Almost believing we have gills
    And so it is fine to overexert ourselves.
    We have seen enough (and a lot) of life
    To know how water works.
    We have lived enough in water
    To now be fish.

    Years later
    We realise that we are still human.
    And wonder why we didn’t ever catch our breath.

    Written by
    Milomi.

    Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/4AQjVB2UrdU

  • The Last Sunrise- poem

    sun

    If I don’t wake up tomorrow
    I want to make sure I see the sunrise today
    I want to breathe in the air
    And feel the blades of grass
    Like a language beneath my fingers, telling me the secrets of the world.

    I want to open my eyes one last time
    And take in the world in awe
    Before my eyes close forever.

    I want to sing and shout and fit
    Twenty years into one night
    Full of lights and promises,
    As we stay up to see dawn
    For the first and last time
    Before falling asleep at night.

    Written by
    Milomi.

    Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/xg8z_KhSorQ

  • Entangled

    We find ourselves entangled in life. Our stories are each more complicated than the last, threaded with thought and detail. We focus on untangling our own yarns of wool and painstakingly untying knots we find along the way.

    We drag our threads through life. Making sure that we encircle every object, every person, with carefully spun thread. Making sure that we’ll be able to find our way back- through photo, songs, scents, sights, if we ever do have to.

    Sometimes we lose track of thread. We don’t know where our story is heading. We’ve forgotten the past, are uncertain about the future, and barely remember what it’s like to live in the present. In those moments, we lift our heads to look at the yards of wool piled around us. It’s turtles all the way down.

    And sometimes we find ourselves tracing our story back to where it started. Only realising later on that we can only start once we’ve gone back. That we can only start our story once we know where ours came from. Once we know the amalgamation of stories, the weaving of the tapestry that lead to us.

    We still find ourselves bound by thread. But with the knowledge that we can always find our way back. It’s easier to navigate further. It’s easier to experience and express ourselves. We memorise our story and run it over a thousand times. And spout poetry when we attempt to tell this story and capture the true tangles in life.

    Written by
    Milomi.

  • quirks- a poem

    i’m where i started, and where i’m going,
    and the experiences that have made me
    with the people that have moulded me.

    i’m songs on repeat and full volume,
    and a head full of dreams i wonder i can chase.

    i’m also fragments of words trying to coalesce into sense
    and stars still stitching themselves into constellations
    and i’m someone gazing through a telescope trying to decipher true meaning.

    i’m lost between pages, trying to find myself in someone else,
    staunchly believing in hope and life and praying that the odds are in my favour
    stopping in my tracks to calculate probability.

    i’m making pop culture references no one understands, smiling for no reason, scribbling with blank ink on scraps of paper, and insisting my desk is not messy.

    i’m someone who laughs easily,
    blushes even harder,
    forever making the peace sign- as if to
    defend my quirks and qualities
    from the world.

    eons later, i’ll only be words written on a faded paper,
    photographs and blurry frames,
    a tall stack of books i never got around to reading,
    and where i ended.

    Written by
    Milomi.

  • To Be Beautiful- poem

    Sometimes, things are only beautiful
    Because of the knowledge that they might one day
    Be no more.
    That they will escape your grasp,
    So to make the holding on with as much
    Passion as you can muster up in that little heart of yours.

    Sometimes, the fact that
    We will die
    Is what shapes us into gorgeous beings, ready to
    Seize the day.
    Living spontaneously, obliviously, with a bucket list of things we want to do before we die.

    It escapes us that we’re insignificant- in the face of a booming cosmos.
    That, stacked up against billions and billions of years, we vanish in a blink of time.
    And so, floating amongst stars made up of stories
    The earth is only one radiating love, life and death.

    A flower blooms vigourously at the thought of withering,
    Wanting youth to overpower her. To overpower someone’s senses with
    Entrenching scents and colour, colour, and colour.
    A flower blooms, living briefly but beautifully, proudly conspicuous and couraegous.

    And so in the short lives we live
    In the multitude of experiences we experience
    In the best of times we have-
    Mortality ties us to beauty, and
    Beauty brings us home.

    Written by
    Milomi.

    Inspired by On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong.

    Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/P0m3k_u5nVc

  • A Sky Full of Colour

    This is a story of sorts- narrated by a boy who grows up learning to fly kites. He recalls a memory of him flying kites and reminisces looking at a colourless sky.

    A SKY FULL OF COLOUR

    Kids my age bruise their fingers playing an electric guitar. I get cut on my fingers while flying kites- the coarse string cutting into my hands.

    It’s the good pain, the type that reminds you that your effort is fruitful. The scars you can show off and wear with pride. Saying my blood blossomed and adorned my finger tips, but my eyes were greeted with a sky full of colour. My eyes were introduced to one of those moments that last a lifetime.

    I tug my kite, not caring about the sun eating my face whole or the wind wanting to carry me off to another world. It somersaults in the air as if waving to me. I wave back, holding tighter to the string that connects me to freedom.

    It’s why I like flying kites. I get to hold on to something, and know it’ll always be there. It’s going to be fluttering like my heart does when a butterfly lands on my hand.

    It’s a reminder to tie a string to my loved ones, to hold them close. But it’s also a reminder to tie a string to those I can’t reach, like a kite so high in the sky I can’t find it anymore. It’s still there, and I can tug on the kite if I want. The kite will tug back to let me know it’s doing okay- that high, above the clouds.

    I hope that kite has found other kites it can play with. And I hope the kite remembers me and knows that I’m waiting- at the other end of the world. That I’m there to cushion his fall. That I’m there to embrace him and carry him home.

    Written by
    Milomi.

    Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/uCyX_xn8Y1I

  • Old Days

    We are constantly making memories. We are living days to look back on, saying things that later become catchphrases, forming our personalities- without realizing any of it. In this bizarre way we move through life, only realizing what we built once we’ve moved on from that stage of life.

    We talk about the good old days and reminisce, trying to recollect our laughing faces and piece together the wonderful times we’ve had. Every step of the way is yet another memory we overlooked, and we descend down this lane- losing ourselves in a scrapbook of old black and white photographs.

    It’s probably tough to realize we are in our good old days and to live like we’re on the edge of existence. It’s easier to fill our phones and cameras with photographs, tirelessly documenting our live- writing in journals and newspapers, expressing ourselves. Maybe years later, we’ll talk about our good old days and flourish blurry photographs or ones where no one is posing properly.

    We don’t know who we’ll be, looking back on these days- and we don’t even know who we’ll be tomorrow. We need to seize today before it’s over. We need to shake today by the shoulder and scream into her face, try to hold on and pull through the day before it’s over, so we can tell this story over again. Many years later.

    Written by
    Milomi.

  • Vast Blue Skies- poem

    I look out and see vast blue skies with endless possibilities.
    I tiptoe across the clouds to touch the horizon
    To feel the taste of fresh air and freedom
    To savour the delight of being lost in the mist.

    My heart thumps and pounds saying my soul is scattered.
    Saying I’ve drifted into dimensions behind my understanding.
    Saying there’s no way home.

    I grasp in hope of reaching those endless possibilities.
    Thinking of soaring dreams and feeling myself soar, trying to outrace those dreams.
    I fumble, I stumble, I lose my footing on the cotton candy clouds-

    As I fall, I think of what lies beyond the horizon
    I flap my arms, mimicking a bird, remembering every last thing about
    Daedalus and Icarus
    Maybe I can save myself before falling into the depths of reality.

    Up there, near the vast blue skies
    It seemed like everything was alright.
    I saw the world for what it was
    Noticing the specks of green and brown and blue
    Realising the tininess of me.

    So I close my eyes again, re-centring like the needles of a compass after you spin a lot,
    And put my ramblings to rest.
    I close my eyes, and no longer hold the skies in my hands.
    I close my eyes, and my spirit returns from its constant wanderings, rendering me back to a person on an airplane who just likes to think a lot.

    Written by
    Milomi.