Lullaby

quietly he laughs and shaking his head creeps
closer now closer to the foot of the bed and
softer than shadow and quicker than flies his
arms are all around me and his tongue in my
eyes "be still be calm be quiet now my precious
boy don't struggle like that or i will only love
you more for it's much too late to get away or
turn on the light the spiderman is having you
for dinner tonight"

and i feel like i'm being eaten by a thousand
million shivering furry holes and i know that in
the morning i will wake up in the shivering cold
and the spiderman is always hungry...



The Cure, in Disintegration (1989)

:::

They call once a month, or just before my Dad is due to fly off somewhere - whichever comes first; this time, it was the former. Actually, I think it might've been more than a month since they last called.

Sometimes, it's really comforting to just hear their voices, talking about trivial matters - have you eaten already; what's the weather like now; how are you doing; how is school coming along; etc. - especially if I haven't heard from them for a long time.

Today, it gave me a headache.

"Your cousin Ah Bee got her PR; you should think about getting a PR too," Dad said.

"So you're finishing your degree this year? What's your plan?" Mom asked, with her oddly girlish giggle, which I've come to associate with nervousness. "Do you plan to stay there or come home?"

"I'm going to book your ticket soon; do you want a one-way or a round-trip?" Dad asked. "And pack whatever you can now; maybe my friend will be going down to Wellington soon and he can get some stuff off you."

"NIE? Does that mean you still have to study?" Mom asked, confused. "What would you do if you couldn't get in?"

"How many boxes do you think you'll have, roughly? I'll check with the DHL people in my office for the rates," Dad told me.

"You can text your Daddy or me if you have a problem," Mom said, "haven't heard your voice for so long. We've been so busy at work. These days, I only get home only around seven or eight plus."

"I can only spend one week in New Zealand if I'm going there because I have to make a trip to the US on November 15," Dad said.

"You don't want to attend your graduation ceremony? Why? It's good, even if for rememberance's sake only," Mom said, a little bewildered, maybe even disappointed.

"Think about it, and start planning," Dad told me.

Final papers - just one, on October 25th, then I'm home-free.

... Okay, bad choice of expression there.

Somebody has started the timer; it's continually ticking away and there's nothing I can do about it.

I want to run away again, get lost in a dream, sleep, never wake.

But it's so hard to have a proper shut-eye when you're ever conscious of the snooze alarm, because you just hate being jolted out of your skin, which is what always happens when it sounds and you're in the deepest cycle of your sleep - it's almost like ... you're afraid to sleep.