"There are still days when I pace my living room, crumpled paper at my feet, rejection letters tacked to my bulletin board. If I still smoked, there would be overflowing ashtrays. If I could grow a beard, I would have one. But I no longer have the fear that deep down I'm not supposed to be a writer. You don't get to decide those things. It's not about having a degree or winning a prestigious award or finding a respected mentor. It doesn't have to be about chapbooks and literary journals. How it works now is that if you're writing something someone else is reading, for better or worse, you're a writer. You just have to decide what you're going to do about it."

- Pamela Ribon in Bookmark Now: writing in unreaderly times.

讀鍾文音

站在邊界。我的生命課題。既不想孤單，也不想進入人群，這究竟是如何的邊界之邊界，我不得而知。

鍾文音

To be continued

It is all very strange, the things that happened, the stories that I never meant to share.

I had never imagined myself actually speaking these words out loud, let alone having an audience. But there she was, there we were, in the dim light, the small coffeehouse next to my place. She had told her story first, the words carefully crafted and almost forced. I knew she wanted an audience, someone to listen to her and comfort her for the loss and pains that she believed she had lost. For all the time that I’ve come to know her, I had never been the right person to tell the stories to. We have shaped our friendship around the things that we do together, the people that we meet together, the food, the jazz, the neighborhood that we live in.

I have learned my lessons after all. I have learned not to force feelings out, not to press for untold stories. I have learned not to care, not to mind too much business.

But it was that night, a night of magic, the time we had come to each other at the bus station that she chose to tell her stories, to someone as far as me. She had come to me with a hidden agenda, carefully disguised to fool.

She spoke of her pains, of her anger, of the desires.
That was when we fell into silence.
That was when I felt compelled to tell my story for the night to go on, for the connectedness that we felt to last.

There I was, there she was, in the dim light, the small coffeehouse next to my place. I spoke for the first time, of the inner fear, the weakness, the hurt, the pain, the losses, the regrets, the tortures, the self-tortures that went on every night, the hurt that stung on every bus ride to work. I spoke these words for the first time, to an audience.

She listened. She shook her head. She did not understand.
She did not understand the necessity of going this far for the punishment.
She felt for me. She felt for the pain and the losses. She felt the hurt and the fear. It was the tortures that she did not understand, the self-tortures that I had inflicted upon myself every night of the week, on every bus ride in the mornings.

I had never imagined myself actually speaking these words out loud to an audience. But there I was, there she was, in the dim light, the small coffeehouse next to my place. She had told her stories first. I told mine second.

天真的渴望

「我們也許都是多有貪求。可是，這會不會是因為，我們對這個世界還充滿了好奇與熱情？會不會是因為，我們在心中還擁有一些天真的渴望？一些如蔓草紋如纏枝花紋般的始終不曾消失的對「美」的夢想？」

席慕蓉

I would love you

If I could, I would tell you how much I love you
How much you've meant to me
How you've been important to me and how I act as if it doesn't matter
If I could, I would tell you in person
I would confess all my love for you
I would be in tears and I see you would too

If I could, I would tell you how much I love you
How much you've changed my life with and without knowing
How you and I have let each other down
If I could, I would tell you how much I love you in person
How I think about calling you every day of the week
How I've never picked the phone up

If I could, I would bring all of your children back
I would make us all happy
A big happy family
I would make things better, easier for every single one of us
I would make your worries go away
E would apologize, you would forgive
WY would be in tears, and so would I

If I could, I would love you with everything that I could offer you
I would not be afraid of you
I would speak to you with love and respect
I would take away the silver hair
I would understand how you've always felt about the story
How it really ought to have a very happy ending

Would it be?

Wouldn't it be nice?
Wouldn't it be nice to be happy?
Wouldn't it be nice to go through a day without any negative thoughts about anyone, anything?
Wouldn't it be to nice if I could do that effortlessly?
Wouldn't it be nice if I didn't have to try too hard to be myself?
Wouldn't it be nice to not go home in the end of day wondering what you've said wrong today?
Wouldn't it be nice to be content and fulfilled for once?
Wouldn't it be nice if I could figure out what life really is about and why people upset me so much?

Is there any reason for me to not be happy?
Is there?
Is there any reason for me to cry over spilled milk?
Is there any reason for me to ever wonder if I deserve it?

Wouldn't it be nice to not feel stifled by dailiness? For once?
Wouldn't it be nice to get over the hurt in an instant?
Wouldn't it be nice if picking up the phone to call dad felt just like the right thing to do at the moment?
Wouldn't it be nice if the two weeks of having WY home could repeat itself too many times?

Wouldn't it be nice to not live in regrets?
Wouldn't it be nice if I found the passion for reading back?
Wouldn't it be nice if I eventually learned the ropes and mastered the tricks of game about life?

Wouldn't it be nice to not knowing how to doubt myself?
Wouldn't it be nice if I was not very good at it?

Wouldn't it be nice?
Would it?