I am unmoored.
Twiddling my fingers to the tick-tick-tick of the seconds
In an aged analogue clock, trying to interlock
The pen to my hand, and write a composition
On a national level, a silent, quiet afternoon
The shrieks of the girls irks me, I try to intervene
But the confidence in their voices pierces my ears, lost
In the labyrinthine aisles of this school

In reality, I have a firm grip of this pen,
Drawing a border around the outline of my home, sacred
Sanctioned to the only county
That can do no wrong
It’s paralysing, how specious
You told me to focus, but
My head can only form one image:
A giant fish flopping haplessly
The liminality of the good old days and outrage

How much will I be heard?
How will they be heard? I will not fall
Victim to the silence of safety much longer
The girls ring in my head, their voices never drowned me out
They uplifted words buried under rapid sighs
My ears get comfortable, hearing them laugh
Object, scream, cry, because they are care-free

It’s been so long since I have been provoked
I felt almost untouchable,
The flames upstairs tried to lick me,
I rattled incessantly out of fear,
But I am ready now, to shed another version
Of myself, and understand the vision
My people had for me, and shake this clean cage
Shrieking with the clanks of metal bars
Until I am free

I am a teenage girl,
I know I am still fragile, but
We are a bouquet of orchids,
Our petals linger in captivity
Refusing to wilt into normalcy to place a scratch
Or a dent into the spray-painted lawns and
Paid-for topiary
Until we are all free

This expired air is contaminated,
In geometric shapes with jagged vertices
My anger spikes, scratching the folds of
My inner arms.

Contained in a hotbox of a full belljar,

Focus,

Swallow,

Don’t you dare, look at me like that

Your mouth moves, saying a whole lot of nothing
I couldn’t think straight, how much you’re nothing
Like me at all,
Your visage is a paper tiger, claws neutered at their wake
Faux canines oblivious of their deceit, unworthy of a cage
Your imitated handwriting will never match,
Part of you chooses to believe your make-believe smoke screen
Then givers look into your bedroom, swollen eye bags
Nauseous with envy, disgusting

Across from you, ears cusped closer in your direction
My patience still holds ductile now,
But these heavy wrists are on their way through carpal tunnel
Begging for some method of release, growing teeth
This selection of defeat slowly reveals itself, adaptation
These bruised ribs look likes yours, I can’t expel them
I am drowning in this reflection, mitosis look-alike

Even though we’re sitting next to each other,
I wish to change,
Disband, unfurl into someone I want
Nothing like you at all
A stronger man than you thought,
My fingers grip the armrest, in hollow nods

I can write my problems in lines,
But I can’t push myself to understand the urgency
Maybe at this age, there isn’t any
But they push our heads so high up on our necks,
I constantly understand the future of my consequences happening
In front of me

Some fun would be nice to consume,
Like some toy to discard right after,
Rolling back my shoulders,
I am running away, but writing this poem
It’s a line you must’ve read before
It never revisionist, consistency
My eyes recognise this cycle tumbling into a disaster
Backsliding into old coffins
I can lie, it’s a break from the world I once knew

I don’t like goals that they asked me to,
Expectations is another version of me,
But we are separate bodies
On entirely differently decorated trajectories
They of course have more star stickers than me
They all crowd around what I am not currently
All I can do is compare,
And the disappointment,
Of everything I thought would be easy, comes back
To bite me back

When I try to get there, get to a higher self-worth
The seat belt around my hips tightens,
And I hold my jaw as I settle into this seat for how long
Until I forget more than necessary pit-stops
I gave it my effort and my time, but I still fall short
So what’s the point?
Time to drop
My dreams start to shift out of alignment
They’ll make a new shape
Birth new paths of possibility

But eventually, they give up on me
And I lie belly-up on the floor
Purposeless and out of use, as a machine
Dreamless in the hearse of my bed,
I refuse to leave
Can’t seem to see the golden, bright future you saw in me

Lost that passion in my eyes,
I am a husk of what I used to be
I can’t grasp anything tangible
It feels like everything fixed is disappearing on me

Teriyaki beef bowl
Tempting and savoury,
Umami flooding my tongue
Melting from the hot
Meat, wet and warm

A primitive desire,
The frazzle of a hurricane
Of neurons all, red and blue purple
Ritualistic revolving
Into the teal tiled bathroom wall, falling
Bursting out my chest, cell bubble beam
Stacking against the edge like dead birds,
Or weighted towels when I am tame
With my pink blood slowly dripping
Viscous pink guava honey,
Stirring through the bathwater
Indicating, plotting
Have I been clean or dirtied?

In saying that, I could follow my blood,
And by instinct, slug myself into the bathtub
Before breaking surface
And feel the warm water droplets glide down my body
Drip down my breasts and thighs,
There is love in the unclothed nature
Little soap to wipe down the pleasure
With nimble hands that could do oh so more

Why can’t we just stay in bed all day
And roll in the sheets, like the hills
Embrace me with all wishes
And give in to silk night gowns and sleep
With your bodily warmth inside of me
Pairing a city girl with neurotic tendencies
Why can’t we just forget and play
Reckless until we heave some sigh of relief?

‘Til then, I stare at the same stimulation
My dim, dusty screen
And leave you with virtually wet dreams
One day to lick your face
And make honey with my honey
‘Til I scream

When I heard your heavy bass strings,
My memory of an acoustic guitar was reconstructed
It soldered sore grooves into fingertips, how
My frustration collides into your guitar picks
But for me, it was a blitz, not a passion

The idea of growing up grows up as I grow up
Strangers hum different tunes, of that which we don’t know
It can hit your eardrums wrong,
Or melodies starts to merge
I never thought a heartbeat could, pulses disperse
Far ‘til the eye can’t see
Even then, we would focus on the puppies not the dogs
Every other person,
They slip quietly into the Earth
Never disrupted as far as I know, all one piece of them unharmed

Holding your blistered hands, our sleepy hearts start to bleat
For a new journey, to commit to home, permanently
Lyric starts to hold meaning, swaying in the breeze
Towards a shared bedroom layered with sunset dreams
From a freshly baked orchard
And the chorus of my fickle, fated future begins to grumble
For the distance between the brighter sun and the moon
To grow further apart,

So I can watch the light peek the netting of your veil
Your face above our shadow,
Spotlighting the notes that run on our staves, devote
A time when we were strangers in the back of our minds

I looked back, at the apartment on the hill
No course of action feels right, I don’t know what would heal
The broken part of me inside, to steal
Somebody’s heart before leaving abruptly for the night

Was I supposed to lay there? With the love of my life?
He felt so warm and soft at the time, a teddy bear
I can’t keep up with my irrational mind

It feels like,
My heart gets broken one week at a time,
By myself, I crush the remnants of hope in my hands
How am I going to survive? By myself?
I don’t see myself making it, but I don’t feel like
I have a choice

Driving away, I am certain, the stars stare
It was the wrong choice
I felt that in my hunched back
In my heart of hearts,
We wake up together, he is smiling,
He gives me a kiss, and I see his lips
Touch my forehead, but I don’t feel it

I want to turn back,
I want to go home,
But the wrong choice feels unforgivable
My heart is undeserving, and I have to go

I left him there, in his bedroom alone
My eyes glared at the empty spot,
Tired of running, but not ready to be close
I kissed him goodnight, before
Abandoning him at his house,
I abandoned my only home

My hamster scuttles through coloured pipes of their tank
Scratching the clear plastic with his penny paws, unscathed
Fumbling his pellets in his cheeks, he waddles his way through
Jogging in wheels that spin round, spin round, buried in bedding
I have sunk into the floor, my eyes fixed on him
I have watched him, there is nothing to do
He has stopped scratched at the walls, trying to escape
Cuddled up in a bigger comfy cage, I wonder how he can stand
The same, from the pet shop to a flat

Wrapped in dreaded webs of fishnets, they are carnivorous
Opaque walls strike nerves with varnished gloss
Titanium steel, or some other alloy, straighter than dental floss
Trapped in the tank of a maze, in the promise of meat so fresh and delicious
Barbed wire fused at the pelvis, growing sharper like Swiss army knives,
The smell of rust starts to thicken like congealed, spilt milk on the dinner table
A creature mirror of my body, follows a primal nature I have already lost
Defined pelvis, there is no place safe
Limping through distasteful rooms, that thing is dangerous
The narrow doorways are like office cubicles, unnecessary jives
The smell of death wafts through uncleaned vents, I am not able

Roaches crawl over these walls, centipedes slither across my eyes
I shiver and shake and squirm on cold floor, it has a sedative
My memory of sensation, warm touch that puffs up my stride
An embrace of a loved one, it lights the heart, it is all degenerative
Foggy in the funky stench of my own rot and decay

The heart beats relentlessly, beating out of necessity and pace
And I have disappeared without a trace, running away into the whitewood trees
Termites and fleas, I could scream, a cryptid chase on site it is going to kill me
Leave you, leave me
Overwhelmed with this phantom tax, that consequences have repercussions
Too much to change, tweaking routines everyday
As if an exit would present itself eventually, percussionist conductor face
The rise but it doesn’t hit
It's pointless, when the strand of thread is embedded in the yarn

There are no missing posters for the lost, they have withdrawn
Scissors cut forbidden materials and are painted in cost
Every second, a flat line, a flat plane
Does not follow my direction of a runaway, nor my grief

I’m running away from something that can't escape
Neither can I escape it myself, a spawn of neglect, upset and rage
The moment we pull ourselves out of arms from grips so soft
The worry gripes filled stomachs, an evening-walk dog
There is no more squirming, just stomach pain with no Panadol
Entangled in aching intestines, twisted like hamster cages

Gave birth to a daughter,
There is nothing more to say
They are a blessing to a family, society
There is nothing more

When my parents come home,
I would like to think,
That is what they see
I am but a daughter
A stranger,
My parents, I don’t know
My mother and father, I don’t know
Do they even recognise me anymore
What they see, or saw, in me
Is it long gone?

The maternal bond is the strongest,
Yet any force of attraction is weak
I am home alone, with four bodies
Standing with their own feet
Heart beating with different pace
And pitch of desire and dreams
What they want me to be, is it still beating?

All of me, is a quiet observer
Then a missing person, as I disappear
Into my safe space of a prison cell
Prisoner to work, and fear
What do I fear? I am afraid
My father, mother will disown me
Crastrate, scrutinise
I am no perfect girl, nor religious
Those secrets are hidden in drawers
Pictures of drawings of what my eyes see

I am no confrontational, until you already hurt me
And I apologise for my mental illness,
Scream and cry and leave home without you knowing
Your comfort does not comfort me
And I do not know why
I just want to go home, but we know
I am supposed to already be there, it’s a lie

So why can’t I just talk?
Be the daughter I am, seems to difficult
To bear, something seems wrong
Not in the head, but in my heart
Of a god, of your norms, I believe
And daughters grow up to be women
Who aren’t even free

Dear ibu,
Saya minta maaf kepada ibu
Saya tak tau, perasaan yang lantang
Angkat anak yang disayangi, satu saja
Yang mata besar, kulit ringan

Saya ada banyak ingatan,
Saya menyimpan, ibu juga simpan
Dalam loker yang dikunci
Di kerja, dalam kehidupan
Melestarikan anak perempuan

Membesarkan bunga,
Kelopak kuat
Dia menjadi wanita
Wanita siapa? Adakah ibu ingat
Wanita yang di hadapan awak?
Sudah tahun-tahun ibu dapat
Perbualan daripada perempuannya

Kelopak ditutup,
Terpencil,
Adakah ibu tau,
Rahsia ialah rahsia yang
Meneroka melalui merpati

Kita khaskan harapan
Untuk anak-anak kita
Oleh tu, semangat dan
Badan mereka dimau
Bertindih, tapi
Anak adalah anak; individu
Matlamat berbeza, malaikat
Berwarna-warni
Sayap yang berkelip
Hingga mereka menjadi belia

Atau, itu ialah sifat anak
Saya dilahir dengan mulut
Berhati-hati, berbuka
Untuk menjadi berpendirian
Atau itu adalah pendidikan
Yang merosotkan kepercayaan awak
Buku-buku ini,
Tapi abah boleh percaya walaupun
Diajar

Pemilihan saya, mengganggu
Saya mau untuk akur,
Untuk berbual dengan ibu,
Berdoa, ikut keluarga
Tapi tu tak satu saja
Hati saya dibedah, parut
Tidak dapat lihat,
Semuanya adalah cantik kepada saya

Tercekik hingga saya menjadi biru
Saya mau menjadi anak yang setia
Yang solat, jujur, sama rata
Berserak dalam bahasa Melayu, Jawa, Indonesia
Menjadi hadiah Allah yang ditau ibu

What dreams we sleep for when
We calculate in the morning to afternoon
The abacus is donated to another home
Another fresh pressed uniform soon,
The natural, clinical routine, unchanged
But always tweaked,
Naive shoulders shrug just like that

My bruised collarbone could nudge
To stiffen there and that
But what an exhausted heart has become when
Emergency emerges so theatrical
It becomes trivial, it tears
The news will never see
The middle, working class, breaking their backs
At 65, driving state-permitted cars, Jurong
Not dead to rights, you see them everywhere
But I can’t help, to blink
At a briefcase, backpack, boots
I get the chills!

Tightening the bolts on
Pedantry, loading up
A gun is a procedure precisely
No one wants to think about that
I am a writer, an artist
Our words into your ears, unnecessary
That’s why they hate poetry
But that’s what nightmares are made of
To think that a robot remains
A civil servant, that is all
Coarse they cause blisters, remotely
Holding up the papercuts overdue, clots

So when I’m 65, can you burn
My thick folders for me?
All I want to do is:
Write, draw, rhyme, paint, sew, thrive
When my honey
And I are ready to squeeze in bed
For life

Even the Sun retreats to her heavenly resting place,
And some of us drown in her tears accidentally
So distraught at our treachery, good grief!
Yet these strangers’ eyes are targeted at the sky,
But all we see is the weather,
The supposed, expected horizon starts to look a little blurry
As we march on further
Before everyone started running

My knees buckle under pressure
We do not budge, we just keep pulling our leg up
Coercing our burning muscles to step on highlighted lines
To push down with gravity, but gently without a sound
Invisible to our eyes
Crushing the cases of air
Under our feet, stepping on dust

They are uncaged, but so far
Their heads in a headlock
Locked contraption
Clicking, and nothing else for confined yards
Keyboards and computers,
And when you makeshift the key,
You forget your way to the cubicle with your name
When you trip on the automatic door carpet,
Out of the maze
Leave a daze but incredibly stranded
Like a fine hair when you bunch it up between fists
Tear it out in a blur of tears

An awl pricking cute little fingers on their handiwork
A newly hired mechanic fiddling with a piano tuning kit
A chisel is tangentially related to a lobotomy
Mathematically, a tangent cutting through a circle
I curl into my chest, heaves unfurling in my warm exhales
Dyslexic gestures, my tears are absorbed by this uniform,
Itchy patches of stinging red,
And I know they look at me, irrational baby
But I get somatically dizzy
Being fed my numbers

Stuff it down
What am I? A rottweiler? Doberman?
I wanna eat until I puke, I wanna puke until starving again
Trigger happy, I have been mistaken before
Appointment paper muzzles tied on those
Who melted through the shape box mold
Syringes for my uncontrolled instability
Flux on the fringe of benzodiazepines

There I saw me, in the reflective, metallic floor
But I smiled, there is beauty in the scorned, lost travellers
Creased skin, dented amorphous forms
Ever-changing in the unadorned
But of our own accord, a bunch of losing dogs
What does it mean to lose in this life anyway?
All I could do, run to the inverted side
Of the horizon

One exit, I’m trying to be scared
But it’s scarier than I’m not scared
Blank wall stares
Draw chalk on narrow halls, little girl
Is my nickname

We hide under the bed,
Cover our eyes with blankets,
Then cover our blankets with our eyes
After you feel sorry,
You chose to take out the trash
Because our mistakes are personally canned
But they all can see it
Please don’t stutter, I know what tissues
You steely throw away

And I can feel our bodies,
They’re aching, begging to be released
From the one buried underneath
The places we sleep, that’s what
Bad dreams have us to believe

Like walking through your house
When the bulbs decide to give out
The shadows decide to engulf the silhouette
Cast a copper-pale blue light route
Obscured, tangled twisted branches
Maybe a smooth handle but it’s sticky
Maybe a cockroach, pest
Eventually, we feel our way to the couch
And it has sunk into the rotting floor,
The void swallows up the majority
It’s cold, but it leaves me warm

Then you escape,
And the blackness had crawled through
Through you
You miss her, I feel the guilt of not saying,
She contemplates her forearms shiver
He’s fetal position
We cry to enlighten our sight,
Close your eyes

There are windows
Yet it is a basement bedroom

Limbs tucked in, a comfortable uterus
Under the blanket, legs kept closed
Quivering between my thighs, lust and gore
Red gently spurting onto underwear, is it a feminine curse?

Oestrogen’s body of work,
An egg is a precious little bird
To imagine any creature, a human can egg a house like that
What does the hen think? Does she grieve?
Her embryo splattered like paint
You can say the inflammation is well deserved
The moment Eve followed the snake
Or when the gamete was left to disintegrate
What does the womb desire on its own?

Is it our fault, or is it Mother Nature?
She only gives us her best
Epidurals didn’t exist during her birth
Afraid fawns and wilting flowers,
Warm waters and uterine lining sheds,
Pomegranates rotting in the bed

It hurts, watching your children die
Your children fight
Shot, in the paws several times,
The paws you valiantly populated,
The bodies you precisely stitched in,
With the chromosomes you saturated
The care, the love, is it not enough?

She is a full-time seamstress
Watching her patchwork burn,
I would feel sorry but I don’t personally know her
Looking down at the rusty water,
I feel like becoming a natural disaster
Utero ache, fruits of my labour
When the ovary of the flower becomes a fruit,
You reckon it hurts too? A favour
To pacify pregnancy pain,
I feel like being treated like an angel, lover
As we are all a child of Mother Nature

Pestilence encroaches,
Mold grows on church, Sunday morning

Neural network, mycelial pasture
I am, digging under fingernails and penetrating my skin
Disregarded, involuntary signature
Virus, virus, infection, monsterably fierce, piercing
Cockroaches

Break my ankles like a hornet’s nest
Put my misery to rest,
And pull out my intestines, organs raw and rotting
Seal them in a block of concrete,
Sacred geometry
Throw it into a pile amongst other piles
Anatomy textbooks are indiscernible to schematics in the eyes of tiles
Stick me in the shiny new building in the new district of whatever whatever
Immortalised through assumptions out of straight mouths that try to paint over clean
Perfect dental record strung up, washing laundry

“My body is a temple”
Apparently too exceptional, proportional his hands couldn’t be tamed
Genesis of sober coming-of-age
He ruins blessings that happen to come his way
Pluck my baby doll hair, again
Profanity again, I am no toy
Bruised purple from your six-year-old treatment unsupervised
Mouth sewn shut, with ribbons tightened
To cover up the injuries
Then tell me to pucker up, sucker punch
I was quiet because you were capable
Of unholy, violent things I witnessed like
A fawn in headlights
Vehicular manslaughter without the carcass

It is a wretched bastard, eye-scratching sockets
Fleece sweater straitjacket
Internal fuming famine, hatchet
Blue-black glue from the cold cuts of my limbs
Marking absolute territory like a grave, my grave
He won’t bring flowers, won’t do me a favour
Don’t, never visit my resting place

Some day, the rotten core of that cyanide pit
Will atone for its sins,
Apple cider vinegar, curse the flooding wind
Karmic handcuffs on wrists
Unrubbed dried blood under callus fingertips

Leave your books out,
I’ll read them while you’re out
Caress the margins, handwriting I presume
Fingerprints stained, invisible, but I knew
The light pollution swallows you up without a trace
I’m left to my own devices, and you’re not taking anymore space
Childhood books opened up with your doodles
Little Red Riding Hood, Little Babaji

My finger traces your shadow,
Please don’t go,
Presto chango
The worn-out light switch flips
Floor shifts into the ceiling
Walls ripple in agony
Windows sewn shut as a cold gust of wind breezes in
Jammed in,
Hazy shade of rain paints the curtains,
Void stuck in floorboards

All I can do is wait,
Eyes glued to the door, waiting
Can’t you leave early, and come back to me?
Is it more possible if I said please?
It’s dark outside, just come lay in bed with me
You wouldn’t have to worry
Too far, home is a walk away
Isn’t it?

Your perfume wafts from underneath the door
Already home?
But the living room is bathed in the silhouettes of trees
The scent trails out of the front door
My footsteps follow, that vanilla aroma drags on
What does it remind you of?
Memories I will never shake,
Picnics on your off days, gleeful vacations,
Staring into your eyes in restaurants casual enough to eat in
I’m glad we both like seafood

I can feel my flesh exposed, blood seeping from my cuts in pails
I tried to get up but my wounds made sure I failed
My entrails, digested by another creature, innocent in face
The woods is a dangerous place
Cautionary tale
I don’t know what I did wrong
I’m sorry for whatever it is
Maybe it is just fate
Why did this have to be the way I died?
Alone and cold, without you around
To kiss me goodbye

Greenhouse of budding belles,
My garden brimming with lovely beauties,
Fresh with fertilised soil and clean water,
Pretty little head full of cotton,
Kneeling in the flower field, in a dress fit properly
Ms Asmar’s accordion,
Music to my ears, the plinking of dew trickling
From the leaves from the watering can

I tend to her, on my own
Watching her grow, the pride encroaches my heart
Just love for her, and nothing more
However,
Something feels missing, a void left empty
That hurts deeply, I don’t understand
The murky hole poked with needles
That exists in my soul, my morale

You visited the field,
I wasn’t expecting you to stay for long
But you did, and it felt better
The pang of loss in my vessel
Dallas Texas and Julien Reverchon,
You enriched her with more colour,
The smell of peppermint permeates the air,
It felt so strange that the day you stepped in here,
An attraction to you was out-the-gate, so clear
It felt like you unlocked what was hiding under my skin

I feel the orchids blossom in my heart,
A river flows through blood,
To know that you want me in your life,
It’s fairytale to want to be your future wife,
A hopeless romantic, heart-breaking pain,
But when our hands hold each other tight,
I can’t help but feel alive,
Like the radiant pink of a sunset,
The strawberry moon glowing in the dead of night

I love you so much it hurts,
You stitched the hole I felt all this time,
But it birthed so much fear
I’m afraid you’ll leave me involuntarily,
I’m afraid you’ll toss me out, if it’s just a fleeting memory
I’m afraid of the cold.

It gets worse that I can’t see you darling,
I never know when you’ll disappear,
Leave me stranded, alone and cold
Like the way I started
What if you die? What if you hurt yourself?
In trouble somewhere, and I can’t pull you out?
Death anxiety so terrifying I just wanna cry
Curled in a ball, so scared and small

The tears try their best to console pre-mortem grief,
But all I want, your voice, your presence near
To physically be here, To hold you tight
To feel your heartbeat in your chest,
That you’re actually alive
Blood flowing through, flesh is fine
I don’t understand
Irrationality has a chokehold on me
So harsh to bear

I’ll be okay
Reassurance that you’re there
That you’re not gonna die soon,
That you’re not dead
I don’t wanna cry about it anymore,
Being scared
I know you’re holding my hand,
Patting my head,
Loving you forever and always,
Hoping you love me forever and always,
Even if it’s child-like to think

Do you like eggs? I thought of you while eating Maggi. My mind gravitates
Towards you, maintenance materialising as if your outline would disappear, gone
From my head like a false memory I imagined to satisfy that craving. Like Maggi,
You taste of umami, slightly salty. I come back to you as a comfort food,
I never get tired of, warm and flavourful bowl of consoling broth
Slurp you up everyday, I can never get enough
Al dente, noodles chewy I want it to be endless like an afterlife
Stretching to the end of the clock, a stopwatch
Waltz in our heavenly garden, ballroom dancing for eternity, timeless lullaby
Mother Nature watching, she doesn’t mind

Eggs remind me of custard. Custard reminds me of flan. Vanilla like a flower
Peeling back dripping with caramel all into a small pudding structure
A packet of dense grace and fluff, I want to kiss it on top
Of course, it reminds me of another cake of flaneur
My boyfriend, in his band t-shirts and his books,
Headphones in, listening to Elliot Smith,
Browsing the dictionary, word nerd artillery
To throw in a poem or his writings confessing his devotion
Your antics swirl me in a spiral of charm that I can’t help but get glued up
My marshmallow I hold dear and desire to get stuck

Starving, tangents, 遠く離れた
Salivating at the thought of him, a bouquet of buttercups, ikebana
Chocolate pansy flutter around turgidity and stutters
A field of coins shiny and clean, like the fountain of youth found
Your hands of gold suck the rot right out of my bloodstream, full of decay and Bacteroide
Eyes never lose their sheen, similar to that of an intricately carved vase full of lilies
Forest of kelp tickling me, and I run my hands through your hair and play
Candy kisses on Valentine’s Day, and kisses on your face until you’re lovesick
Bunnies on a warm day, my Totoro keeps me safe
A good egg to me, interlocking fingers in cuddly dreams and crepes
I love you Rafiq, vanilla and caramel

Message received,
Flip phone beeps in ellipses
Homeline rings incessantly
I can hear you without hearing
Your voice, it’s not my call
To be pinpoint on me

Out of sight, out of mind
But you linger in my temporal lobe
It’s kinda frustrating
Physical limitation
When my heart is a loaf

Reciprocation rests
On my hands, you’re so affectionate
It feels cruel to leave all your organs
Undressed, so give me time
To process, like an AIM
What I could do to show you gushes
Of myself you could hold close
Like a vintage locket, golden

June smells sweeter than other days
Cinnamon buns and warm lattes
Inside of the depths of my cartilage,
Chemistry folds in a sticky pale haze

A letter was all it took to get to know me
Circumstance is kinda funny,
If you think about it, serendipity
Presents herself in cracks of the periphery
Like an iridescent sheen of a portal, otherworldly
Let our skies collide,
Swirls of wispy clouds and strawberry

Lejos de ti,
kerinduan bagaikan benang berduri,
Jari-jari awak kupas kelopak hati
Menguntum kulit buah manggis
Cactuses grow in deserts, thirsty
For water, for contact and affection
You could make a succulent bloom lightly
With buds of teeny blue-hue flowers
Forget me not, you’re just so lovely
My needles are shed when we kiss,
I miss being around your air, your existence

Oh, can you hear the birdsong?
It’s like a stupid fairytale, we’re all warm
Cuddling in your room, the books
Remind me of you,
Caressing the pages, I feel the roots
Of your fingerprints, desires understood
Bubble blowing windows, we stand, stood
On opposite sides of the street, salmon school
Away, but our blood is donated everyday
Delicate body, don’t forget to feed your flowers

Falling into each other, our love
Is a forest of ferns, trees and weeds
Bathed in the pink light of Cupid’s doing
Stars twinkle in the face of metropolitan vice
We lay on each other’s bodies, stay close honey
In our alluring garden of Mother Nature’s bereaved
Next life cycle or another, I’ll remember
The glitter of your eyes when you speak of
Philosopher to my Biology

Bittersuite, we don’t hold a lonely place
Sacred just to recuperate from the external world,
Outside heavy doors,
Keeping safe under blankets and confined ceilings
Hot chocolate and clean kitchens,
Crayons and horror stories,
Research papers strewn over tapestry,
I can imagine living with you in a daydream
You’re a dream I want to keep,
Love and nurture,
Suit my maternity
Especially if we choose to have a baby

Everything was fine
In black and white
My eyes have always been wide
Deer in headlights
Mental regression, feeling right

Perversions, routines have deviation
I was an aeroplane on course to my destination
But the lever controls are jet lagging
I joke I’ll crash into the side of the mountain
Notes of my voice dispersed, detaching

Growing older, you realise
Fighting for your pilot license
Splits your brain in compliance
Of the superego death bed
Tatty carpets for tangled carpels,
No one died, but eventually

Who am I jostling today?
Sexual, emotional, physically decayed
It’s so exhausting to be a layman,
With social effort in vain
I don’t think it’s working up there

What are you even saying?
It’s all a big blame game
Like a meat cake,
Like you’re right and he’s wrong for craving
Stop being so analytical, let him have it

What happened to your heart?
It shrunk when you turned sixteen
Who do you think is in control for the most part?
The course prefers someone a lot more serpentine
Choke alter ego alterations, shopping cart racing

So I lay my pudgy body in bed,
Accept the sensations of orgasms, stress and physical pain
Let my fingers to draw shapes in the air
Untie old knots in shoelaces
Let myself freefall, dead direction

Night shift at the delicatessen,
Wash the blood, the markers dotting
The cut, the stiff, standardised slaughter
The finger slipped of the glove, testing
Tenderness, an indispensable metric

Throbbing lambs trying to scream
Shivering, before they turn into cold cut meat

The glass display case effervescent,
So is the outside
You are the vescent
You’re the vescent, do you remember?
But you’re just a vesicant

Menstrual cycle, manual bread slicer
Capitalism blade sharpener
Lambs swallow and it’s all over
It pricks at the sides, before inserting
Slowly into your cavity, tearing
I can fall, two feet in
If you make me
But you can’t cut what has been forever

Voluntarily, absent medical slip
Kept in the bottom drawer of my mind
Tuck in to the unveiling of a forever dream
Two feet up
The bakery, and I’m whisked away
To the creamy frosting wisps of your making
Where white stains with egg white
Sprinkles on my apron, wrinkling
A lamb on its feet offering cake

Then I remember, I’m a lamb
And you’re back at the butcher’s
Hung up

Within closed doors, secrets hide between
Chips of wooden floors
Whispers caress exposed skin like dog paws
Until I feel fuzzy with flush
Eyes raging with wishes and desires
Hold prisoner of a fantasy, adorable crier
Warmth pieces us together, pushing us close
A puzzle solved

When our physical bodies sink
Into your bed, we’re somewhere else
Pearls in an oyster, next to each other
Our limbs pretzel, joints twist around pheromones
Coils our vessels, drawing the treble clef, rose
Sunyi,
I crave the stave of the notes of your voice
Our hearts fuse, purple with starvation
Withers bravado
Disspells isolation
Carving the “letter + letter” cliche
The sappiness bleeds through the tips of my fingers
But it doesn’t matter, because you’re here
Forehead kisses plant the seeds of oleander

Our appetite never seems to run out
We feed each other, fervent lover
We can sleep here until the dark goes out
Nothing needs to be said, your silhouette
Is enough of a presence to delight
Your tears are mine, don’t be afraid
To cry, and laugh
Because I feel it too, and we can bear it
My heart beats for you

Like a strawberry blossom matures to it’s
Delicious form, your affection trails red
The jam to my peanut butter, butter to bread
It’s cheesy at best,
My soul’s core when you get to it
Your heart is a hedge maze, I will find the map to
I’m thirsty for your brain, passionfruit juice
Red spiders web through lilies when we swoon

I wish one day, you could be mine
You lean in and try to kiss me, but I didn’t realise
And then we try again and get it right
My lips bleeding and dry, but that’s fine
We hold each other until this sun
Falls and the sky dies
Forever anachronistic through time

Today today
Al dente
The good juice
My cup of soup
Your face tastes
Like a mango
My favourite fruit

When in doubt,
Jump right in
Supermarket
Shopping cart
Shoved deep within
The cheesy halls
Of my conundrum heart
Cortex in the lattice
Clueless

Bread bread
餅雲をむさぼり食う
Play possum with root
Honeydew tears
Geometric stew
Tender flesh
Teeth marks
Swear off blood
Like a shark

Crunch time
Cardboard cereal
Vomit in a bowl
Chair half-chewed on
Raw hands of thread
Dry mince pie
Sad day :o(
I wish I wasn’t alone

Fork in the words
Dithered by sprinkles
Of buttercups
Dyed kiwi-colour
Mustard
Before the soil clumps

Butcher my name
I’m dithered, moldy cake
Green eggs decorate
The sky’s walls
This is a box
No donut holes inside
So

Sometimes I have this intrusive thought
It makes me queasy, I always wince
When I look at my wrists, and the veins
Evident under my skin
I entertain the idea of sinking my teeth
Around them, and rip them out like intestines
Blood spurts everywhere like an uncaged hose
Like cutting wires with scissors, I feel the lightning bolt

The scales were pulled back, plucked
From my throat
Tailor’s taped a neat pluck of thorns
Tugs turn into strained croaks
Skin spiky, the needles seep into plump
Ripe flesh I hold
Tongue stumped on a stave
But it measures in scalars

1, 2, 5 seconds more
I have to put this call on hold
With a clench of 50¢ coins
And whatever clipped paraphernalia
I can see your footsteps,
So I hid behind the piano player
But someone shot him dead
So I escaped into a rabbit hole

Running my mouth on heels,
I slurp tea with polite bunnies
The green gentlemen hold my hand
Through forests of vivid trees
I wanna live here where the birdies tweet
Songs until they choose to sleep
Sewing dresses to sell second hand

I am a clown, the most tragic kind
In front of a kingdom so vial,
But when I drink the liquor of a strum
I start popping almonds like nuts
Pairs of eyes become measly pinpricks
Of cuts in the evening light
How divine, madly in love crazies
Holding hands, in a field, circle of daisies

The stratosphere looks like litmus paper
And cloudy emulsion in the sky
I don’t drink alcohol, but I handle ethanol
With my bare hands, and suddenly
My vision gets a little blurry
But maybe that’s my impaired eyes
I rubbed them a little while,
And now everything feels spiky

Lifted my head up, in the cold outside
My feet followed suit, floating up
Waving my hands, flipping in nothing
It felt like water in years,
The pool I don’t see anymore
Pushing my head under the surface
Watching the bubbles reflect light
The chlorine aroma loses its atoms
Faint vanilla takes its place

When your lips are touching mine,
I feel the place disassociate
My knees start to fall away
The pale blue, the soft sound
Of harp strings somewhere in the distance
In the air, with nothing else
Vanilla milkshake taste
Moisturiser on peeling skin

A slow burn rotation drive
I can feel you, your shoulders in front of me
In the front seat, shifting
Our bodies towards the Sun
Yet my hands are still pasty
I feel myself losing sight,
Soft cotton on a silver platter
And I start to cry,
It felt like I could see for the first time

This is a confession, at its purest form
But for such a guilty title for a poem
Seems I’m scheming, seething, almost stoic
Catch me, with my hands stained red, revolting

I would like for you to come closer,
Come closer, where your hands cusp mine
Slowly, air wisps around us like a stream,
Cold and eclectic, it rushes out of me
Forgive me, I am on a ticking clock
Locked inside a cage, cacophony
Bottom of the hourglass, time is ticking

Debilitating epiphany, until you extinguish me
Come closer, legs tied together in the grass
When our fingers touch, chrysalis form with
Our energy so bright, I feel my eyes melt like ice cream
This is a cemetery, I am a dead body
You tend to when you please
My heart’s stitches snip, unfold
Bloom bouquets of peach, coral lilies
Pluck and let the esters bleed
Lick your wounds like perennial fae on a journey
To powder their sprinkles on the tigress that is
Femininity

His skin is a cup of warm water
Kiss him with the warmth and affection I feel inside so
Luminescent it catches on fire
His way with words, his voice is a conductor of a train
On a rampage, I will use language without a barrier
あなたに見せるために
Bintang yang lestari, awak menumpukan ringan matahari
Kepada siluet diri,
Menggerunkan, hold me
From the horror of a cruel spirit, Cupid
Harpoons with pink edges, don’t try to fool me
I am not an idiot, they don’t exist

All of this to say,
Ribbons around my throat,
A chloroform chokehold
It evanesces into sweet syrup,
Leaving stains on my neck,
But the taste left is vanilla essence
Wrap your arms around me, call my name
Like a weighted blanket dream
Recounting ‘I love you’s like sheep

The decision is always there to make,
In my pocket is a ring, my heart on my sleeve
But you’ll never see it, my hand
This is how I disappear into a world flooded with dreams

No one else exists here, besides me
And anyone I choose at will
But they will never be real,
Consequences are not a defect
If you are the only one who feels

In my head, I wish, somewhere
Someone is worried for me
Because that means, they really care,
But no one will care if you don’t
In the first place

Don’t call me, don’t text,
I’d rather kill myself than get your help
I am a burden, as heavy as I feel
I know I’m not as flowery,
But it’s true to how I feel

I hate my emotions for you,
They make me confused,
I’m so insecure about love
I have really bad attachment issues

If I slit my wrists, cut you off
Air will stop for a laugh
On all fours, hysterical on the hill
Wispy vapour surrounds me, still
Knock myself out into grass
As I lose my consciousness

Ethanol in a vial labelled Q,
“Liquitex” acrylic medium named gesso, adds tooth
16 fl oz of water-based glue, sealer and finish
In my eyes, they clatter together as inedible,
But sometimes I wonder if it would be better
If they accidentally tipped over, and into my mouth

Crenation races through my head,
Tongue simmers in disgust, I think I had enough
Juice boxes overflow the bin, crossing fingers
For an ambulance

Preoccupied lips, tape on dried blood
Sucking the straw, I can feel myself drowning
My hands bunched in my hair, we’re at the start
Tears compensate the scale, but screams lost
Inside the head underneath the skull

Doubt is a hole in my wall,
Eventually it will punch away into an archway
Devoid of my strength and abilities
And I’m filled with hollow insides
Pumping candy onto a grey, parched tongue
As my eyes roll back and my skin cracks
Flies surrounding my cavities

When will this end?
Don’t call me when you can’t,
Drown my cortex
Indebted to fictitious cars on a Scalextric track,
On a losing bet
Getting blurry with every step
And I sink back into drowning, drinking

Week-old paint water on my shelf
Red stained bristles, white speckled strokes
Drowning is tender, liquid-fed coats
It seems so long ago,
Brush against second-hand felt

Greyish pale red, I try to see my reflection
In a way, I dread seeing my face
When you’re running into empty space,
A culmination of fog bleaches you pale

Branches entangle their knots, sing their sermon
Swaying in the breeze, wind stirs and strums
Bleak carbon copy skies of apprehensive veils
Trampled, straw grass prays for darker doldrums

Like plastic silverware in a dollhouse,
At night, on the floor but sound
Disturbing nothing, but that’s the thing
The pigment decides to fade after a decade or so

Murky velvet in my bloodstream,
I can then feel my pulse beat,
It’s a sip of cold rain, warmth of a touch
Delicate line where augury is through clenched teeth
Pink ripples through my skin

A guitar reverberates, in the distance,
Bedside manner so soft shaking red fists
Fall from exhausted rash wrists
I wish I could hold its hand,
Because I stopped laughing, but left
Blowing dandelions to push daisies

The oxygen just disappears when you’re near
The eggshells grow sharper
The follicles tighten
The pain darker, on my face
As you grow taller, I get smaller
I get more afraid

The worse I get, it stems from
Paper shields that drench in your
Cold words, they stab me right through the chest
I used to waste myself swallowing mine
And I still do, but this body grows heavy
The more I keep in mind

Our mother wants me to be brave,
I wanted to think I am,
But the night I started dreaming of
Swift switchblades sides,
I flinched for the first time in a while
My arms are so soft in denial

I crumbled so fast,
When you use your stupid monotone voice
Dead and lifeless, if I’m free
Even a no wouldn’t mean a thing
Drag me through shit for bare minimums
That you can’t hit wholesale, out of your reach
You need me as an arm because yours is weak

It hurt so bad,
When a boy showed me something so sweet
I wanted to choke him blue until he couldn’t breathe
Murderous tendencies, tear him limb by limb
Bury him and eat his skin, it’s so terrifying
That anger inside me projects onto others
Not picking fights, they tried to love me

I was an erraticist, run away
From the love I wanted, they decayed
Into two, I chose phantoms
They can’t hurt me when they’re dead anyway
The protection I hold so high, maybe it’s time
To wonder why I choose to hide from the
Care that he could provide

It’s been five years
Since I felt the drowning burn inside of me
The blood ruptures seeds
I could’ve grown, but nowadays I’d rather die
Than feed your ego

I’m trying to heal, and it’ll take me more than five
To feel comfortable with a boy but in all due time
I’ve never felt so vulnerable to my feelings I could die
But I don’t feel the need to please you anymore
And I don’t owe you anything despite our familial genes,

goodbye

Clock,
Since when did you get so impatient?
I was blowing bubbles with the shortest skirt
Never thought someone would notice
It used to be a distant dream
Because I knew what would come would hurt

Look at me,
I see your face everyday, a different pace of tick
A point of regret strikes my face, and it makes me sick
A castle I built for myself slowly regresses into bricks
Needlessly I tear myself away from something I love
Fear beseeches a hurt girl to leave, one more boy dearly missed

You can’t see her,
Fear cloaks the girl until she’s left lonely again
And then she wants to grab someone’s hand
Hoping they see the warmth she desires for
Before she disappears, into the air that impaired
It takes up space, and eventually fingers sprain

I’ve been running from the very thing I wanted
My heart doesn’t believe it for a minute,
That when they brush against me, it’s not out of malice
Fingers on my shoulders don’t reach my neck, enact vengeance
Flinch all the way to the bus and they would notice

Maybe one day I’ll finally learn the sensation,
When their skin is a cup of warm water
A hymn plays as their voice graces the curvature
Of my ears
I would write more, but I haven’t felt that yet

It skitters down the floors
And skedaddles up the walls
Bringing with it the smell of putrid
Sunken skin tight against its skin I’m
Shivering in my socks

Siking myself up to try to cage the damn
Thing is it can slither through any slim cage
Digests itself into a puddle before
To take some other angular shape
To autopsy me for the night, dead by the day

The metal stirs a cut in the fabric
Of the Sun, letting the light escape
Spill into the stratosphere and never make
Its way to the solar panels it screams
So shrill it transgresses soundwaves

Scrawls on glass, gnaws on doors
Claws so titanium they slit souls
Scythe sharp and calculated as nails,
Piercing something that is already decayed
Will just make it simmer

I can try to surf the valiant, adrenaline high
It will sink itself into the roots of cries
The more blight that sever nerves, shroud
Who I was, whom of which doesn’t exist
Not when it swallows

Metallic taste in the foam of toothpaste,
Fistful of blades of grass, vomit,
In case he swallowed the pills
A swift expulsion of a safety net

He was out of some box so
He locked himself in the solidarity of his room
Swaddled in the cruel camaraderie of illness
Buckled knees hide underneath a blanket of sheath

The first time he felt the chatter against the wind
His body spun to witness it
But his vision was a blur as it invades
So he told himself he’ll try again some other day

The missed calls emblazoned on his phone,
They bite their fingernails for him but he
Slithers through ties that don’t stick
Lights switched off to hide the sweat and sobs,
The moans and pets in sticky hands

Red in the morning, monsters under his bed
Touch that strings him along
Pulling at his hair, his teeth
He wanted that hand to caress his cheek,
Love him the way it feels like it

The bed of needles or the bed of pins,
It doesn’t quite matter, they’ll prick the same
When you go to sleep
Familiar ache, they turn to millipede legs
Sprawl over your visage to become a chrysalis
You let go, butterflies churning your stomach, migraines
Flinches from yesterday
You moved your arm, they make they’re way in
Eye reflexes clamp down, slow overdue demise
Hope is thrown out the wired window

I chose to shackle myself to this desk,
But it by far extends to the room, It folded
In itself, I just remain in the nooks, bated breath
But I can’t help it, if my head isn’t overwhelmed
With the invasive moss of paper, books
Mercury accrues in my lumbar spine I lose
My state of statue, crumbling through
The floor,
Into the sea, flail all you want, no one
Knows where you brought yourself to
Or convinced yourself of

Keep picking at the scab, see what you unleash
What bloody dog do you hide behind that sore spot?
What angel do you keep?
Tucked away in pen ink, lick it
Do you remember the taste of pride?
Envisage your expiry
Empty, the smell of carbon copies and vulcanised erasers
Stink, and you pray you won’t ever get used to it
So I sweep the prescribed ambitions
And flush

The agents of physical sensation,
They reach the books, the pen, the paper,
They caress the edge of words, birth marigolds
Embrace the petals, appreciate the cellulose
The slip of water through the fingers,
They stroke your cheek and pink glimmers
Intimacy’s subtle nature lingers

My hands’ dastardly teeth
Sporadically gnaw, they squeeze into fists
Nails digging into my wrists
The coerce of vexation transgresses
Discretion disintegrates into risk
Subterfuge, they tie ribbons
Into nooses

Their undomesticated wrath leave etches
That bleed pity parties no one’s invited to
Trauma I don’t understand chokes me blue
Tear stains push through vignette flashes
And I cry
I cry the murky sewage of my composition
My hands bury me in my regret

But I break
I break each finger, they howl smog
Crystallised routines rearrange, ebb and flow
Faltered warpath, asphalt sizzles on low
To leave behind puddles of chromosome
And I can only hope
Bloodletting my genetic disease proves fruitful

Were you like this before?
It’s been so long I forgot why we were apart.
But I never forgot the parts of you I adored
And they’re still there after these years, restored
You’re still here after you promised there would be no more cuts

“What about you?”
The puzzle pieces never lost their meaning,
They’re right where you left them, waiting
When I touch you, your skin’s so soft against my hand
Your inner turmoil, it condensed into a monster, waging

And a fight started inside me, I was scared
It stole my backbone, it’s claws dug so deep I bared
The consequences of giving up,
When bloodshed makes you feel liberated,
You start feeling like it’s the only way to shut your mind up

A bloodlust for my own, I was my vampire,
Until guilt sunk deep into wounds when it all dies down
I realised how dire
I kept myself, dehydrated, a disassociated tongue
Unblinking at the tragedy I watched, still crawling for some salvation

Spite, he made me lose touch of the body stuck
Next to it’s cruel hands, the television runs on end
Then I heard a sound tune in the distance,
And she wrapped herself around my scars, so refreshing I felt flushed
Of what I had before, a death wish and a thought pattern so dark

It couldn’t touch me anymore,
My inner demons and I settled down,
Our weapons, our maces and maims fizzled out
And in each other’s eyes, we sought forgiveness
We put it into translation, our doubts

It still resides in you,
And sweetheart, your arguments never stop
But we know that they’ll absolve
Our hearts are stitched together,
They beat the same rhythm, they hold boundless love

Take this as a love letter
I know you always dreamt of authors
I know you’ll think no one will ever read your poems,
But all it matters to me is that you do Amirah

That’s all that matters

I would say I’m a maraschino cherry,
My flesh is chewy, rot your teeth with how saccharine
Bleached in red and usually pitted of the seed
However, it would be inaccurate to call me sweet
At the core, cyanide pits their stomachs, they seeth

Seeth until they grit their teeth and gums bleed red
Stew until their stems lower their heads in shame
Marinate until flesh shock-absorbs heartache
Enveloped in trigger-happy cells ready to bite
Hands hit walls, legs kick to beat bitterness away

Resentment festers as ants crawl through my capillaries
Am I resigned to remain in a state between
Between sharp nails and soft socks
My protein is concentrated at the source
Polypeptide folds in on itself, slithering from
The sun

The chokehold melts in heat, and what is left
A mess of broken glass, tears of brine,
Empty inhibitions, strangers staring with wide eyes
It dies, my blood simmers down to viscous, shimmering honey
And then he gets to savour the cherry

I would hide the clock for you if it meant
The sun stayed and I stayed this way
But it’s in our DNA
To break and tear, until death welcomes its stay

watch keeps the time for me
It doesn’t tock, but it gets ticked off when it hits the hour
And struggles to conceive another beep
However, it always musters
A dusty pink Casio, but never bitter

Pedal to the metal, I really am
My hands,
If I go any faster, veins pulsate
He’s choking me so I loosen
The silicon, I trace the indented red grooves
They imprint themselves on muscles, scowl
My left hand flinches from deja vu

Shiny for-locker-keys-forks-screws steel dents
I look at my box
Cutter,
Wrist watch,
I wonder when

As 8760 hours go again,
Will these shackles rust away eventually
Grow sour, I corrode the batteries
The bark of my capricious carpal bones
They’ll calcify, not for a cage,
But a fence to hold the valley lilies birthed
From the fish carcass infested with lithium
From batteries

When it’s just whirring from the fan,
The clicks of Fred’s cut-out legs clashing the wall
The wind finding its way into my lungs
I inhale

Nothing comes out
But the release of oxygen loss, going down

No one to share my breath with
But my laptop
I push his buttons, Computer Boy
Switches buckle under pressure in my fingertips
The thing inside my fingertips I need
To get it out, to do something, to scour
And squeeze the soft plastic of faux fabric
When paper becomes cuts that linger
When leaves become liquor

Voices penetrate the walls,
But they don’t come from within
On floors wooden and glazed,
With a perfect 4-room flat
Slightly cramped, but it’s holding
Spill a cup of water on the sting,
Will the temperature stay the same?

Take a shower, will it feel better?
When it’s warmer,
But you can’t when you’re gutted out
So your bones just feel cold,
Even as it washes over your visage
It doesn’t make a difference,
To ponder if you really belong
Somewhere, some crevice

Where discomfort only tickles
And when I laugh, anxious, it doesn’t have to mean
Anything breeds a question
I hate roads, so a playground
Where tracks don’t sleep, but lights
Are off and there’s a sound
That rhythm your heart follows
And we can be