A Collection Of Musings

By Karen Zheng

“What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is related only to objects, and not to individuals or to life.

That art is something which is specialized or which is done by experts who are artists.

But couldn’t everyone’s life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life?”

- Michel Foucault

Our days are filled with quiet, seemingly trivial moments.

Moments that aren’t actually trivial at all.

Gazing into the mirror.

You notice your freckles scattered across your cheeks, like a constellation of stars.

The way the brown splotches multiply in the summer, making you look more youthful.

A bit like that Wendy’s girl.

That time your little cousin asked you how old you were, and when you told her you were twenty-two, she replied with a serious face, “oh I thought you were eight.”

The scent of creamy citrus that lingers on your skin after a shower.

Your name on the tongue of a prospective lover.

It sounds different … special.

As if you are hearing it for the first time.

The heaviness of heartache reminding you of your capacity to love.

There is beauty even in great sorrow.

Reading Mrs. Dalloway.

Realising that despite being written nearly a century ago by a woman who lived on the other side of the world, Virginia Woolf shares some of the exact same thoughts and sentiments that you do.

How comforting.

Your favourite pair of knee-high boots, clicking and clacking as you walk across the concrete.

How feminine, how powerful.

You mean business.

Freshly glossed lips glistening in the sunlight.

Rapid fingers darting across the keyboard.

Jumbled thoughts turn into eloquent words.

Graceful sentences.

Inner ramblings become poetic musings.

Or something close to it.

Is this a poem?