First, i jsut recieved stephanie's email and i m on cloud ninth.
and, the main point of this post is

I would like to give thanks to Stephen, my cousin.

I wasnt sure whether you know this, but talk about butterfly. my kinda pseudonym for my chinese writing days back in singapore, was butterfly, like in chinses of course. it came from one of my short story, that i wrote about a butterfly and a moth, and how they die fighting for freedom, and i won some kinda award with that too, in my old school. And I am the butterfly in my story, no, butterfly was someone else, and i was the moth, but afterall, i m both, and thye are jsut different side of me, the proud and the shameful, the beauty and the beast. and i was enchanted by the fragility of a butterfly, the strenght, to emerge from a coccoon that she had built for herself and emerge, dazzling, narssicist( no idea how to spell that) and she fly her short life liek there is no tomorrow. and i was marvelledby the beautiful cruelty we do to butterflies, like we drug them, nailed it, and display it, making her beauty our own. spread her out all naked and motionless, it is actually as brutal as pornography, but yet we buy it, we collect it, we appreciate, as we call, we appreciate the beauty of a butterfly. I have spent my whole life to escape the little glass box, my little glass box with red neon light, where I stand on my transparent platform heels, taking off pieces after pieces of me, and display myself, exposed and helpless. I guess every writer girl dreamt of being a striper. It is in their subconcious, as i said, literature is a very profound kinda nakedness, it is a very elegant way to strip, and everytime we tear ourself apart, put it in words, we are stripping, and then we dance with our naked body, like poetry, like art. and it is the kinda butterfly I am . Also, the reason why I chose butterfly as the pseudonym, was it has the undertone of a 1920s shanghai prostitute. not the hooker type, the geisha type. but not as gracious as a geisha, not as decadent as a hooker. and there was a boy who accompany me, and i call him duan, and he is my customer in my previous life, that is with the assumption that my previous life is "butterfly" the prostitute. and i had wavy short hair, I wore black eye shadow, red blood red lip sticks, i looked like a typical paris new woman. I dance with a folded fan and I sing. SOmetimes I looked out on the street and i smoke, in my night gown, and a re sequined slippers. I smoked, 555, and my night gown made of shanghai silk. When it is time to come home, i wear a plaid, put on my light blue dress and black leather shoes. I go home, in a cantonese accent. It was the butterfly that I was. And of coz, it was the butterfly that we watched. yes, it was my favourite movie, I like the little beijing accented young girl in white dress. she is like the sexiest thing I ever see, and afterall, I found that, the word freedom, is the sexiest thing I ever wanted. whoever is free is sexy, whoever it is.
Butterfly. It is suppose to be a thank you note, stephen, but I guess, if you need that smile, I can tell you I was smiling reading the letter. I am glad I have a cousin like you, not becoz youare my cousin, becoz that is the way for us to meet, and it is a relation that could probably last forever. you know, if you are not my cousin, we could be friends, and friends stop seeing each other some times, sometimes they grow distant. and if we are not friends we maybe lovers, and that is the even more unreliable relationship. and i dont believe in marriage so forget it. So being relative is the best thing to have a friend for life. there was a boy in singapore i knew. I don know what happen to him, and I thought he was the other side of me. I dont know you enough to think that you are like , an english version of him, but at least,you remind me of him, and I am glad.
Thanks for going through all that to find me three butterfly, and thanks for explaining the three stages of me htat i had almost forgotten. thanks for thinking that my bra-lessness is a sign of freedom, maybe that really is, but you can try wearing a bra for like 24 hour a day, you get sick after like the 5th year you have done that, and you know you gotta do it for the rest of your life.
I m sorry too that i missed out your depression. but it is not the most important part of my life, the most important part is the part that is after that. and i hope you are already in that best part, that emergance. cousin, we are cursed, and we already know the kwok's family is not the best family that we can choose to be born in. however, being born is the kwok's family maybe the best fate I can ever have. maybe i chose it, before I was born, I don tknow, maybe I did. we are cursed too, for we love words, I chose not to call you because saying things out doesnt work for us. and loving words is a veyr bad habit , very bad addiction that could ruin a person's life. and I hope, i hope, i hope you would be free. there is no freedom in our family, in OUR family, no freedom. that is the reason, that we have to be free. I cant tell you what it is, but I am going to be free no matter how it hurts. I see it coming, but it is something I have to do.
thanks again, dear one

love,
stella