Sitting by the lake on a sunday afternoon
watching the wind do its its little gliding dance on the surface
a ballet on trained toes
like skilled artist's hand
though the satin shoes hide the wrinkled
twisted monsters under the pink ribbons
and tights beneath the tutus
so the colours and the composition
masks the anger, passion, sweat
of paint stained nails
dark nights
countless torn and broken canvases
and skin and flesh reduced to grey
the colours long fled to another realm
the parallel world only envisioned
then imagined
for what comes to light
are only a figment
the rest lay in shadows

not forgotten
but abandoned
the failures pulsing underneath
the celebratory sucesses
wants recognition
the waiting, the time gone by
the failed experiments
the lost chracters
doomed to become a psserby in your masterpieces
demands their rights
the boy on a bicycle
a woman crossing the road
the lake on a sunday afternoon
they ache to become more than background
more than description
to partake of flesh and blood
like pinocchio outgrowing wood.

Right now, I'm thinking of Garang Guni
and their long walks along HDB corridors
or that Aunty at the foodcourt who wiped the table
somewhere in my memory they are but passing background
unimportant blurred images
I try to excavate them
their voices and sounds
and give them life
but the video game raging in this very room
drowns them out
somewhere he is still following the complex maze
of corridors
calling out
without echoes.