Penang (flexactly a week ago)

You Are the World.

i am the indian boys carrying wood over sand
i am the waves tickling the land
i am the father showing his daughter the clams
i am the monkey taking bread from your hand

i am the snake slithering to the stomp of your soles
i am the monk at the bus station just:

holding
a
bowl

i am the muslim crouching, clutching his Nikon
extending my lens to grasp the pause of a fire fly
i am a rock floating under your sky
(that means your the universe)
and I am the memory that slides out when you sigh.

i am the kunda in you lini when your
spine
aligns

i am the batu in your ferringhi
the nasi in your lemak
the Ki in you knee
the roti in your canai

i am even the heat on your toes like fungi


I wrote this poem on monkey beach after we had hiked there for one hour, after reading Krishnamurti and listening to "Burn Out" by Cinematic Orchestra. I was feeling very seperate from the things around me after Kuala Lumpur and sorting out my thoughts regarding muslim attitude towards the female gender. Conservative women covered in head to toe, including their face, with only a slit for their eyes, strolled the edge of the beach infront of me with their husbands while I and other foreign girls wore bikinis. Then I read this Krishnamurti section of "You are the World" about how the biggest psychological issue blocking us is this idea that we are seperate from others and everything. The quote, which I can't find now because the book is somewhere in the depths of my luggage. And even though I've vibed and agreed to this fact in theory it was the perfect moment for me to take that in again and I began to percieve my being from the point of those around me, finally, experientially knowing, that I am them and they are me so i should just chill the fuck out.

ps. i made a new word in the title: flexactly. Which means: flexibly exactly