A touching piece of advice written by Kimberley Chia to her littlest brother, Zachary: So recently my little (or not so little anymore...) brothers hole in his heart closed up, and as a little celebration I thought Id post a (spoken word)poem I wrote quite some time back. So yeah, here goes x Amateur Advice To My Baby Brother Number one: Yes, someday you will need this. Trust me when I say you do because the last time someone told me I needed advice, I brushed it off like irrelevant dust on my shoulder and thats precisely where I ended up. In the dust. People are going to nag, but when they do, resist the urge to defiantly press both palms to your ears. Just press it to one side. So hopefully it doesnt let whats coming in from the other side slither out. Two: Read. Read, darling, read. If youre going to stay up past midnight, stay up late with a thick book in your hands, eyes so weary that your trembling little finger has to ambiguously trace masterpieces inked on weathered yellow pages to properly take in the enormity of imagination at its finest. Reading is where the magic begins. Read because one lifetime isnt sufficient, read because you will eventually get your heart broken, so why not do it prematurely anyway. Read because stories are the only things where you can find the truth and slivers of solace in blatant lies. Read because you can. Three: Smile in photographs. I have a void vacuum where my childhood once was because of a lack of substantial sentimental memorabilia. Listen to your mother when she tells you to look at the non-existent smiley face in the lenses. Shout back with gusto,I see it, I see it! and wear your best mega-watt grin like you mean it. Like your fathers unsightly photographs of you on Facebook. Do not block him, I repeat, do not block him. Four: Dont curse. Bite your tongue when you feel fury rising ominously like bubbling bile and swallow it with obligation and a yes mummy. You will find that yeses are golden and silence is silver — as you grow, it will become a word that lithely rolls off your tongue. Repeat. Do it till the Fs and Bs and Ss become unfathomable Greek and the bile settles in your stomach. You can always slaughter the pillows afterwards. Five: Never lock your bedroom door. Six: There are a billion magnificent things to do on this earth. Find one, and keep it close to the Mecca of your heart. That is called your passion, and honey, dont ever let it go. Seven: This may sound cliché, but follow your dreams. I dont know if this is going to be a shamefully vintage catchphrase by the time youre old enough to read this, but YOLO — you only live once. And if you live it well, once is absolutely enough. Carpe every diem. Do not let anyone mercilessly dictate what to do with your life, do what you love, what you excel at — do what makes you feel thoroughly marvellous. But be practical; I wanted to be a unicorn but unfortunately that didnt work out the way I planned. Eight: Chin up, sunshine. This world will be unfathomably ruthless, as it is beautiful. Dont let it get to you. Your words may sound shaky and taste foully bitter in your mouth, even after youve mixed them in with spoonfuls of sugar, but say them loud and clear anyway. Dont keep your eyes trained on the ground, the scenery gets awfully boring after a while. Look at everyone straight in the eye. Smile like it illuminates the whole room. Dance — like everybody is watching. But stay humble —if your nose is too high up in the air youre bound to fall . Nine: be kind to everyone. Say your Ps & Qs — turns out, they are most important letters of the alphabet, not the As on your essays. The word hate is horrific taboo, it causes the sky to crumble and forces the world into the zombie apocalypse. Expand your vocabulary, use dislike instead. Hold the door for the stranger in a queer fedora, and smile even if he forgets to thank you. Dry someones tears, then offer the space on your shoulders as temporary solace. Respect everybody, regardless. Everybody is fighting their own relentless battles. But most importantly, be kind to yourself. Ten: you can break rules. You are allowed to. Rule number ten. Nobody is perfect. I spent a large amount of my time trying to mould myself into what I perceived as desirable perfection and had to pick up the shattered smithereens between trembling fits of self-realisation afterwards. But its okay. There are no failures, only lessons. Do things that make you cringe in retrospect and toss and turn between sessions of deafening 2a.m. musings. It is okay. Break rules when necessary, break rules when you forget, break rules occasionally to satisfy the rebellious cravings in you. But always, always apologise. Its okay. It really is. Zach, youre going to be okay. Love, Jie Jie
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 15:18:00 +0000
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