ENTWINED

Way back in my uni days,

I rented a room in an apartment shared by four students. 

I had the former servant's room

- white-washed & high-ceilinged,

and I thought it was incredibly romantic.

 I furnished it sparsely

with all things white and vintagey,

letters and diaries stashed in an old battered suitcase.

I'd close the door and enter a world of my own.

By night I'd sit on the wide window ledge,

marveling at the starry skies above

and listening to the trams 

taking a bend somewhere below. 

A time filled with dreams and insecurities,

coupled with an incessant 

hunger for beauty and meaning. 

(I remember waking up in the mornings

with a kind of mantra on my mind: 

"Today, I want to do everything 

with as much beauty as I can.")

In the first autumn semester,

I chose to read 

Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway

as part of a course. 

Throughout my subsequent lit studies,

it was V. Woolf who shone above the rest

-  her delicious drift-of-thought language

that one wanted to read out loud, quiet and slow,

tasting each word on the lips.

Words that weren't preoccupied 

with unnecessary facts and characters,

but evoked emotion and a longing,

crawled under the skin,

entangled with one's dreams...

A long time since then,

with much that has changed...

yet so much that actually hasn't.

Like one's love for white,

apartments old and vintagey,

Virginia Woolf,

the sound of trams, 

stars and city skies...

and an incessant yearning for beauty.

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