Untitled #1

We begin with words unfiltered, like tea with its dry, crushed leaves, like cigarettes rolled tight between our thumbs and our fingers.

We end with closed spaces, emotions boxed up until they dry up and die. We have come to the bottom, to the butt-end. The tea is bitter now. The smoke has died but the amber burns us.

Our lives have moved on. But we failed to. We failed too. We failed twice, and perhaps a thousand times over.

Speak.

Regrets pile up into a mountain of salt I rubbed on my wounds. You may mock me for this, but your wounds and mine are the same. We are both stuck in a shitload of unspoken thoughts and emotions and one day it will kill us.

Speak. Speak godamnit.

I love you and hate you, as you do too. I know. And I know your anger has spoken enough for both of us, though you will not let me hear it.

One day, when I have drunk until my throat is sandy from the crushed leaves of your anger, and I have smoked all our love to ash, I will let go of the glass, of the butt-end of my love, and crush them with my feet.

The morning after

Three years. Three fucking years and it narrowed down to one night, last night, and I was splitting open like a flower, like a dam, like an open wound that bleeds steadily, steadily and will never turn into scabs. I am fresh, fucking fresh and sad, fucking mad and I do not know why I am here when I want to be some place else, I want to rewind time and press play at last night, 091207 at 20:00 hours, press pause at 21:30 hours and rewind again, and play again, pause again, again and again and again. My soul was alight with fire, with energy like a thousand bulbs bursting at the same time. I do not want to be here. I want to hold on to yesterday night, or move on following where it left me, and where the bloody trail began.

Yesterday I was alive. Yesterday night I was awake and alert, voice soaring loud and screaming until it fucking exploded. I was moving with the music. Moving like it is the reason I live, I breathe.

Today I am hollow, like a corpse. My soul has left me in Stadium Merdeka. I do not know if it will come back.

Tell me if it is okay to have one of your impossible dreams come true, and then cry afterwards?

Tell me where should I draw the line, tell me how should I school my soul so that it stays with me, sober and dull.

Tell me if this is what I (should) want.

It is all wrong, wrong, wrong.

There is a secret dream where he wants to hold me
and I need to hold you but you just look away
with tears on your face.

I'm appalled by how you are so still. How
he can make you and how we
can hurt you so.

It was like the time when you said I can walk away
whenever I want and you won't ask me
to stay. You said 'I want you to be happy' but
how about your happiness? When are you
going to come and grab it?

There is a secret dream where I just want to be alone.
I will look at the sky; it is afternoon,
but my mouth will still feel like morning.

Most of the time, I do not know.

Sometimes it rains quietly
in my ears and I
cannot say it properly.

It is like putting string
to the neck and fogging
mirrors. Lots of mirrors.

It is like waiting for
the arrow to hit.
Only that it keeps on coming
and the distance steadily grows
until I die from trepidation
alone.

sunset

we are five minutes late
to the setting sun.

now all that is left of the burning sphere
are faded lines of magenta
and the rest is dark.

five minute ago we were
occupied by each other's breath

but now we sit and twine our hands
and realized we have found
the stars.

Birthday poem: to my mom.

With each year that passes, I hope
You feel the fortune of your age;
Celebrate what you have gained
And let go what you have lost.

Say that you have loved and
Know that you are loved by
So many around you;

That you have touched
The lives of others as they
Have touched yours.

Say that this year is to celebrate
All the experiences and wisdom you have
Collected within your years.

And so here’s to another year
Of learning and living and loving
To the fullest.

I love wrecks.

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
Until they forget that they are horses.
It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
to slice into pieces.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means
we’re inconsolable.
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we’ll never get used to it.

"Scheherazade" by Richard Siken, taken from Crush (2004)

..........................................................................................................................................................................

I read and fall hard for these.
Wrecks to me are like drugs I could get addicted to without ever getting arrested.

Quoting beauty

tell me that there is a place in this here and now, this year and century, this wide fucking world,

for visionaries who have cocktail tea parties on balconies. for scholars and raconteurs

who make each other dizzy with debate and live atop ever-growing piles of literature.

for poets who seclude themselves for countless hours at a time to mull over a single sentence.

for gypsies and road warriors who sleep only when their bodies collapse in exhaustion, but never defeat.



for vagabonds who indulge in behaviors that cut ten years off their lifespans

and add ten paragraphs to their life stories.

-Anonymous

................................................................................................................................


I have always recognized beauty in grief

golden

there is nothing beautiful in gold,
he decides.
All are reflected in yellow, sickly glow,
like old people
or sick babies
or powder that burns
and suffocates.

rain.

will it
rain
tonight?
it is too warm to pull up the blanket
but
i don't want to
wake up
with
cold toes.

four years

four years that rolls on the tongue
seems so light and easy.

nine letters, two words
and one syllable each
whichever way you say it.

but four years that rides the train of time;
four years held within our hearts, our hands
four years intertwined between your fingers and mine
(by the way, is also forty-eight months, a hundred ninety-two weeks and a thousand three hundred forty-four days; all long, solid words and too many syllables to count)
is four years too short, too grand.

Runaways

What if we have gotten on the car and sped off?
What if we had stopped in the middle of nowhere;
Build life
out of the air and water and earth.
The sky is blue no matter where we land.
On this very spot, or
the other continent.

my katharsis

I have always recognized beauty in grief
so beautiful it disturbs the fibre of my being
makes it weep and curl.

it is a very thin line, I know.
therefore like a bad marriage there is no
real separation
only irreconcilable
differences.

Backtracking #6

Backtracking #5: his love

his love is like the wave
of the sea
never ending
moving with the wind

his heartbeat is the wave
and his love, the sea
boundless, serene

his love is like the wave
crashing upon her shore
returning
to a lover's embrace.

Backtracking #4

I
We live in a world where love
Is counted on machines
And credited on plastic
Where human lives are measured
By bullets through their hearts
And the tears their children cried—

I.i
Where parents bury their sons;
Their temples kissed by guns
Where mothers smile in pain
And lovers cry in vain
Where one man’s dream
Spells death for thousands others
Poverty for another million
And orphanage for countless children
Where in glutton and greed we exist
Forgetting compassion, love, mercy.

II
Let us run from this city
Where love is a blasphemy
Let us go where our hearts lead
Where we’ll find ourselves freed
Where the sunlight falls through our windows
And nothing is obscured by the shadows
Where we can live out today
Say goodbye to yesterday
And eagerly awaits tomorrow
Where we smile for joy, not in pain
And cry for sorrow, not in vain
Where dulled spirits flourish anew
And in hope we grow, both me and you.

Backtracking #3: Lovecolours

To her,
The colour of love is painted red
Like flaming fire,
Or caressing velvet

To him,
The colour of love would be gold
That reflected the sun, the moon
Precious and beautiful to behold

For me,
My love is coloured
By many hues;
Red like velvet, or fiery flame
Green like fresh leaves;
Bruising purple, a mark—
And magenta like Apollo descending
His blue throne in the sky
And cotton white,
And yellow like
The pot of gold
At the feet of a rainbow.

Backtracking #2

These idle, unmoving days---
Stay now.
These days when the sun yawned from the foothills
I stay lying down in my bed
Between the four cool walls of my room.
These days when the sun rays peeked through the window blinds
I sigh and shut the blades tight.
These days are made for sleeping late;
And waking even later.
These days are for staying in bed well past noon;
These days are for dreaming, writing, waiting
And longing for the moon
(But never touch it, no).
These days are for anticipating nightfall
When the stars would come dusting
The black blanketed universe with glitter
(And then the moon will come)
I shall lift the blinds and open my windows wide---
Untangle my limbs and fly
Embracing the night sky.

Backtracking #1: Because my love is like a red, red rose

Because my love is like a red, red rose
It wilted
Two or three days after
I bought it from an old lady across the street

The green leaves turn yellow
And fell
Like autumn leaves
In the middle of my room
And the petals
Dried up
And crumbled
To dust.

Because my love is like a red, red rose
It was never meant to last
Like every other thing
In this damned world.