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Hello readers,

I've just realised that I'm facing problems with the comments. They are not showing up, so to those who have commented and not getting any response from me, it's because I am not getting them. 😩😩😩 I do apologise for not being aware of this technical difficulty sooner. 🙏🏼

I have reset the settings to let you all comment freely, but please adhere to basic common courtesies,  keep it civilised, and please refrain from posting offensive contents, or you will be blocked. ☹️

So...I look forward to reading what you all think about my blog posts, and do share with me what life's like in your parts of the world. Start commenting, people! 😃

Writer's Block

writer's block

noun [ U ] UK   /ˌraɪ.təz ˈblɒk/  US  /ˌraɪ.t̬ɚz ˈblɑːk/

the condition of being unable to create a piece of written work because something in your mind prevents you from doing it.

(https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/writer-s-block)

I guess I'm having what real writers call a 'writer's block' - the inability to proceed with a piece of written work, or works, due to my mind's unwillingness to cooperate with my need to produce a masterpiece chockful of clever play of words meant to suggest, to imply, to be so discreet you have to read carefully between the lines and then go back and reread the same sentence to try to make sense of the subtlety of the words and then you go 'aaaah, I got it!', when I deign to just be bold as I almost always am in my writeups and just say to hell with subtlety and finesse, let me just stop beating around the bush and just come out roaring and say what I want to say out loud and in your face, to shock you with honesty and truths, not half-truths, bcos half-truths are lies, and take it from a person who's been lied to in so many ways, I absolutely hate lies above everything else, so let me just write about my own truths, truths about stuff with emotions so raw you could almost smell the blood dripping from these words, about fears that are scarier than those monsters hiding under your bed and things that go 'bump!' in the night, about happiness that turns up at the door unexpectedly and makes itself at home in my heart, about anger that rises with every injustice I see and I just about manage to count one two three four before it turns into a storm that rages within and I have to retreat inside myself and ride the storm till it calms down, about Love stories that are much sadder than the tears of mermaids longing for their humans who don't realise that Love transcends colours and creeds, shapes and forms, humans who turn away cos they can't recognise Love staring them right in the eye, and so do not ask me to mince my word cos my words are mine to shape, to mould, to articulate with an esoteric diction and a fast conviction that roll off my tongue onto the page, and I hold them as gingerly as holding a fragile butterfly whose wings might tear at the slightest touch, and at times my words are as loaded as a gun pointed to the head, holding hostage vivid images and sounds and scents and moments, neither asking for ransoms nor leaving suicide notes, and if I am to be a writer with original thoughts, my words need to be my own, my words need to come out of a place so deep inside, a place of truth that hasn't seen the sunlight in a hundred years, a place so fathomless you'd have to close your eyes and jump in with both feet, just plunge in with something akin to blind faith that as you're falling down the rabbit hole, you'll pray that when you finally land, something much softer than piles of feather pillows will break your fall cos anything less will break much more than your bones, and the shock, the pain, the confusion of it all will make you feel such an outrage when you finally realise that I am here ranting ranting ranting it all in just one very very long sentence in the hope that after endless false starts and annoying stops, this one will finally break these chains of my accursed writer's block. Aameen! 😉✌🏼

Who Let Who Go?

Did I give you a way out

To just drop it

 To just turn and go

Back to your familiar 

People and things and such

Because facing our Love

Is too much upheaval

To your everyday comforts

That you falsely hold dear?

Did I make it easy 

For you to 

Just point and accuse

Me of breaching 

The sanctity of love

And in not so many words

I too turn and take 

my heart, long-suffering

And just slip away 

And disappear.

But, tell me one thing

Who let who go, here?

Zaie Hamzah

Hartamas

23rd Dec 2018

Have You Ever?

Have You Ever?

Have you ever loved someone so much

Your heart had to build a wall

To protect itself from the pain of

loving him too much?

Have you ever wanted someone so much

Your mouth formed a cheerful smile

While your heart retreated deeper

Into the recesses of the impossible?

Have you ever longed for someone so much

Your mind created stories so real

And you woke up disappointed 

‘Cos he was never yours to dream?

Have you ever?

Zaie Hamzah

25th Dec 2018

Kuala Lumpur

The Pledge

Hi all. 🙋🏻

Just trying out something new here, and need your feedback. 😅😅

I have been reading many poets who use the visual-poem format, and I am thinking of doing something similar and yet different - I am going to handwrite my poems, take pics and then post them here, like the example above.

I would love to know your view on this. Drop me a line in the comment box. Thanks so much. 😘🌹

The Heart Doesn't Break Gently

The heart doesn't break gently

It chips and creaks until cracks 

Appear from the bedroom walls 

Snaking to the front door

Which crumbles down

With a crash so all mighty

- It startles the thief

Who came creeping in the night

Who stole a heart that isn't his -

And my tattered own was found

In time, bruised and slashed, 

Taped with smiles tinged with grief

Handed empty to strangers

Lonely in these strange lands

Even if it is tired 

Of building castles in the sand.

Zaie Hamzah Kuala Lumpur
November 2018

Wallahi! A Marriage Proposal.

I recently became the 'lucky' recipient of a marriage proposal. 

Yes, I thought that might get your attention. 😆 but this is true, and came as a shock that I am still recovering from. This proposal came despite the fact that not only the groom wannabe didn't know me from Adam, he also didn't even know my full name. And oh, have I mentioned that I am also married?

Our 'whirlwind romance' started during my recent stay at a 5-star hotel in the Middle East. He was the manager in charge of the restaurant which I frequented for my 3 square buffet-meals a day, as included in my travel package. His English wasn't fluent but passable enough to enquire if I found the breakfast, lunch and dinner spreads to my satisfaction. Day 3 of my stay saw him asking me if I was married, to which I said Yes I am in fact very much married. That deflated him for all of 5 minutes, then his extraordinary 'attention' to me started all over again, as if I never said a word that I am married. I thanked him graciously when he sent a fresh batch of croissants to my table that morning. This followed by a plate of a local delicacy at lunch. The strange part was I had in fact hoped to sample as much of the local cuisines as possible during my short stay there. It's like he could read my mind. I only had to think it, and this little genie just snapped his fingers and poof! The exotic local delicacy that I had thought about suddenly appeared on the table. Was I happy? Yes, I was. I thought the hotel really takes care of all the guests. Turned out it's only me. He fed me lots of delicious foods, hot chocolates, coffees and teas, and who wouldn't be happy? He's my own little genie, and he made me feel very special indeed, which soon after turned into a weird am-I-in-Hotel-California feeling of uneasiness. OK. I might have gotten a little carried away in my exaggeration of this amazing story, but it was nothing short of 'amazing' to me. But not of the feel-good-that-makes-you-feel-all-warm-and-fuzzy variety.

Because how could someone in the hospitality industry take it upon himself to assume that a hotel guest who is friendly towards him could be anything but that - a friendly guest? This is what I just cannot fathom. I was in no way encouraging him or leading him on, and neither did I exhibit any behaviour that could be construed as expressing my romantic interests in him. His excessive attention to me even caught the notice of my roommates, and this embarrassed me to no end as they started teasing me when they saw him coming over. It once became too much that one day after an excursion out of town, I skipped dinner. The man was frantic to find out where I was, and insisted on sending a huge fruit platter to our room, which, to his disappointment, I asked my roommate to answer the door and accept it from him. When I came to breakfast the next day, he came over and asked why I didn't come to dinner, and that he missed me and that if I was ill, I should have told him and he'd take me to see the doctor. A day before I was leaving, he said he would miss me, asked me to give him my photo, and wallahi he needed to marry me. I mean...come on! 🙄🙄🙄

 To those who have known me from way back know that I stay at hotels a lot. In fact, for two whole years in Indonesia, I lived in two hotel suites in two different locations. I have always behaved and treated everybody respectfully and politely, and this common courtesy is also extended to members of the hotel staff. That is the only way to go. Respect everybody. More than anything, I dislike seeing people mistreat hotel staff, and I have seen many of those who feel justified to treat hotel staff with an air of contempt just because they have paid for a room for the weekend, they feel that they are lords and therefore they can rule over the staff in whichever manner they see fit during their entire stay at the hotel. I secretly hope the hotel staff will not spit in their coffees, or maybe I actually hope it's the opposite, forgive me for my bad thought. But I've digressed. 😆😆😆🙈🙈🙈

So coming back to this predicament of this amazing proposal of marriage. I I had to let him down gently, stating the obvious reasons again that 1) I am a married woman, 2) I treat him respectfully and politely like I do everybody else, 3) I don't share his romantic feelings in any way, shape or form, and then I asked him to leave me be. He apologised and that was the end of my 'whirlwind romance', if you could call it that. I sure hope he has not pulled the same fast one on every female guest who travels with no male companion. 

Since leaving the hotel, I have been asking myself why this happened. My roommates said I didn't encourage him in any way, because we had our meals together all the time we were there, and they could see everything. They said he was smitten with me, for some reasons I couldn't understand. It makes me feel a bit weary now of accepting the kindness and generosity of men, men in the service and hospitality industries included. 

Your thoughts?