Eight in the evening is by no means a time late enough to be thinking things. You shouldn't be second-guessing.
There's sound of engine roaring. Then halting. Gate opening. You'd probably expect footsteps approaching. Front door banging. Stranger barging in.
Brief silence, followed by sloppy footsteps stumbling over bags of trashes you're piling. Plastics scrunching. Panicky footsteps approaching.
Which takes you back to expecting door banging. Heavy breathing. Low-pitched mumbling. Stranger barging in.
But no. Silence is what's following. And it is rather unsettling.

You'd lose to curiosity. Leave your couch. Walk to the front. Take a peek.
A cat is rummaging through your bags of trashes.
And your gate is closed, well and fully closed.
A car is parked right across the road. Someone is chatting happily to your neighbor.

You shouldn't be thinking things. You shouldn't be second-guessing.

I am thinking it's a sign
that the freckles in our eyes
are mirror images and when we kiss
they're perfectly aligned

And I have to speculate
that God himself did make us
into corresponding shapes
like puzzle pieces from the clay

And true, this may seem like a stretch,
but it's thoughts like this that catch
my trouble head when you're away,
when I am missing you to death

When you are out there on the road
for several weeks of show
and when you scan the radio
I hope this song will guide you home

They will see us waving from such great heights
"Come down now," they say
But everything looks perfect from far away
Come down now, but we'll stay.

Ijen, August 21

Ninety minutes after midnight we started the hike. We could not quite make out the landscapes, the sceneries surrounding us through the dark. It was a long, ascending walk - followed by quite a steep descend to the crate, going through the sulphur smokes to catch a close glimpse of the famed blue flames.
We were climbing back up, racing against the sunrise to the top of the mountain. Luckily we were in time to catch the dawn, the emerging light, the dark phased out by the blue and oranges of the sun against the sky.

The most beautiful pictures were the ones only our eyes can capture, it was true. As fascinating as the pictures of sunrise and dusk were, nothing can quite capture how beautiful the morning at the peak was; how the sun casted its lights and shadows in all the right places, how we squinted our eyes at the glaring brights, how golden the lashes looked when bathed with all the lights, the dawning realization of looking down and seeing clouds - how we were at such height.
And actually feeling the gradual warmth taking over the chill over our quivering bodies, our cold skin - how the higher the sun went, the warmer our bodies became. It was quite a reward.

Malang, August 21-23

Another long hours of drive, exhausted but content with the hike. At night of the 21 we arrived in Malang. I wasn't strange to the city - went there once years ago.
It seemed like the rest of the day passed by so fast - sleeping and eating away all the exhaustion.
On 22 we went to Batu. From the museum to the secret zoo, it was a day well-spent. The attractions were well-designed, decent and the contents were not at all boring. One would think that a day visiting museum of vehicles and a zoo of, well, animals, would be quite a cliché, but it was not.
Malang was a pretty enviable city to live in; great food, nice places, even pleasant weather. We had a full-day to explore the city but I didn't think it wasn't enough. When my nephew is old enough to see things and understand, I'd love to have a vacation with him and the family there.

Surabaya - Bandung, August 23

Our schedule was packed and by the morning of 23 we made our way back to Surabaya to return the car, and then board our 15-hour train ride back to Bandung. We smelled all sulphur-y courtesy of Kawah Ijen (it was hard to rid the smell off the clothes) and we had certainly seen better days physique-wise, but despite all the tiredness and the sleepy-ness and for some of us, the cold and illness, we were content with the days spent.

-
It was quite a week. I wish I kept track of the cities we passed, the places we went to, the foods we ate and the conversations we had. I wish I had a travel journal. Weeks later and the best I could make was travel footnotes: a blur recollection of what happened in merely brief narratives, leaving out details (some of them I forgot, the others I intentionally leave out).
I did remember though, that it was a mightily fine week, an enjoyable voyage, a fantastic travel. Quite an epilogue, closing out my book of college life.

With the friends. Those were the times to remember, and y'all were a part of it, so I'd keep you close in my heart, I guess.

Surabaya - Trawas, August 19-20

Cities I've never been in, two hours apart yet worlds of difference between: Surabaya's scorching, punishing heat to Trawas' shivering chill. Enter cozy bed, nicely parquetted floors, warmth trapped inside the folding glass door. Board games, barbecue, free-flowing food; if we were guilty of any deadly sins it was surely gotta be gluttony. I'm sure we'd be forgiven though, we're yet to start the journey. This was the inaugural feast.

Baluran, August 20

Six hours trip on the road. Perhaps it was early days excitement, we didn't sleep much on the way. We chatted, bought snacks, played silly games, made math problems out of car plates. The mundane became interesting: mistyped billboards, hilarious truck arts, and wiggly road markings easily became talking point. Self-navigating our way through the phone apps and watching where the green boards' arrows were pointing. It was one of the easiest six-hour road trip I had, truthfully.
Six hours and we made it there.

It was another day of scorching heat - with a mix of dry wind gently brushing the skin, though. The animals were having a lazy day in Baluran - aside of deers, peacocks, birds, monkeys and chickens we didn't see much of them. Nevertheless we were blown away by the savannah, the vast, dry land, the solitary trees, the evergreen. The scenes were picturesque.
It was a scene so feral, so wild, so inhumane. The emptiness, it felt almost surreal, almost as if it had never been touched by mankind before. Strange, foreign, intriguing. Most importantly captivating.
The beach was also nice - most beaches are nice, though. We didn't spend a long time there - mostly because we looked like a bunch of misfits leaving home their beach gears, instead coming there all long jeans and hiking shoes. The only thing we did at the beach was confirm that indeed, men do not have much power at this land - we lost a battle with a group of monkeys. Us a group of seven, versus monkeys. They had been eyeing up our lunch, wickedly lured us to bring our lunch to their territory, and successfully robbed us of it. It was genuinely scary. Monkeys 1, human 0. What human superiority?

As the sun was setting and the day was getting progressively darker we made our way out of Baluran. Two friends joined in, braving the night on their motorbike. Next stop would be Ijen.
But not before a few bites first.

Aku rindu saat dimana antara kita, ruang terdefinisi
dalam sudut, garis,
bingkai-bingkai pintu dan jendela,
sebuah meja.
Dimana cakap memantul-mantul
memukul dinding, kemudian mengendap -
mengisi celah, menyekat jarak.
Di dalam ruang ini tidak ada satu yang keluar. Semua tinggal.

Sekedar presensi itu dangkal,
kalau ruang kita dibangun
tanpa sudut, garis,
tanpa pintu dan jendela,
tanpa meja.
Semua menyelinap keluar,
percakapan yang hambar,
tawa yang datar,
tak ada yang tinggal. Kita tidak punya ruang.

From the poetry book I read (and posted about yesterday) I came across one titled Brother last night; and today is my brother's birthday.
I almost swear I saw his name printed in between the curves of letters, the spaces distancing the lines. I squinted my eyes and I could almost see his image formed in peripheral vision, his features distinct.
I quiver through the words as I read, his resemblance growing more and more uncanny. This is him. This is about him.

Happy birthday my dear brother.

There have never been any seatbelts on your side of the car.
You have always known the better magic tricks.
You told me once that I was just the first draft,
and I'm inclined to believe you, but you came
with a lot more pieces to assemble and
Mom and Dad never got the manual. 

... 

You are my favorite stick of dynamite.
You are the opposite of a rubber band.
There are so many things I would tell you
if I thought that you would listen
and so many more you would tell me
if you believed I would understand. 

I hope you know that you were never meant to wear my shadow.
In fact, I'm the one who always steals your shoes.
But is that my sweatshirt you're wearing? It's okay, you can keep it.
I won't tell your secret. In fact, it really does look better on you. 

[Brother - Sarah Kay] 

Poetries are best savored in silence, or over white noises, true.
But living room scene with footsteps and chatters, clings and clatters, the television noise, while not favored,
is teasing my senses in an interesting way.
How they are so loud at first, then slowly fades into background noises,
to white noises, faint and distant. But you're not going anywhere.

Going for simpler and cleaner look. This blog decidedly needs some refreshing - change of layout to bring back my writing mood again.

It's a bit messy and uninformative right now, but maybe a few of online crash courses and I'll be fine to do some little CSS changes to tune the look into what I had in mind. Or maybe I'll give up and settle for this layout.

In the meantime, I really appreciate the fact that some people somehow still find their way to read this blog despite the serious lack of publicity. As much as I am a fan of solitude, knowing that I am not thoroughly neglected is a very good feeling. Thank you guys and keep coming here :)

When everything failed to build, eventually there's only guilt
left within the ruins, tidbits of things
we tried to make something from.

To me it's the least I can get,
the scraps I feed myself off.

To you, it's the thinnest of threads you can't cut,
your own personal brand of karma.

First off, let me start this by saying selamat idul fitri dan mohon maaf lahir batin untuk teman-teman semua. Kata-kata yang gak aku ucapkan selama hari raya itu sendiri, kecuali secara personal ke beberapa teman terdekat. Aneh memang budaya meminta maaf di hari lebaran ini. Di satu sisi, momen yang diciptakan hari lebaran itu sebetulnya sangat, sangat berharga. Kata maaf yang diucapkan di hari lebaran seperti kulminasi dari usaha 'pembersihan diri' yang sudah kita lakukan selama sebulan, sepanjang Ramadan. Refleksi diri menyatakan dalam diri kita masih banyak kesalahan, maka kita meminta maaf di hari lebaran. Sebetulnya cukup puitis, kan. When you think about it, it kinda hits you how profound the moment of Eid actually is.
Di sisi lain, aku punya stance yang cukup skeptikal juga mengenai momen ini. Skeptis dengan kata maaf yang rasanya maknanya jadi tidak lebih dari jargon lebaran. Semua kata-katanya seperti hanya mengambang di permukaan. Tidak dalam. Padahal dipikir-pikir, kata maaf yang mengambang itu masih lebih baik daripada yang tidak diucapkan. Setidaknya ada niatan.
Jadi mungkin walaupun terlambat, dan walaupun rasa-rasanya maafku pun masih sebatas di permukaan, rasanya usaha perlu dihargai dan akhirnya pun perlu dilakukan. Jadi mohon maaf, teman-teman. Dan semoga dengan maaf yang saling kita tukar, pintu-pintu kesempatan dibukakan.