chinhooi-ng - Hello Poetry

Sunset burns in my eyes like a piece of nostalgia not yet extinguished at the border of steel and soil shadows stretch long become a silent giant bearing the weight of all these years standing still in the fissure of time at the street corner where town meets countryside I remember the sparkling beach waves murmur in foam lapping the shores of memory on the other side it's the roar of bulldozers the arousal of city’s neon sinking into a soft sofa is what many dwellers here call life two souls twist in the night loneliness heavier than our skeletons two unfamiliar thoughts pressed in a momentarily illusion breaths synced like a metronome falling and rising searching for any place to land wind tapping the windowpane bringing the paleness of dawn behind us who are numb to the passion mountains stretch on silent and strong lifting a vast sky beneath it all is the weave of city and country the tangle of dreams and reality and the countless footsteps of the faceless setting out again, fading down the hall in the morning faint click of a door sealing off the shape of a little comfort.

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Jun 10, 2025

Jun 10, 2025 at 8:13 AM UTC

chinhooi-ng

Condo life

Sunset burns in my eyes like a piece of nostalgia not yet extinguished at the border of steel and soil shadows stretch long become a silent giant bearing the weight of all these years standing still in the fissure of time at the street corner where town meets countryside I remember the sparkling beach waves murmur in foam lapping the shores of memory on the other side it's the roar of bulldozers the arousal of city’s neon sinking into a soft sofa is what many dwellers here call life two souls twist in the night loneliness heavier than our skeletons two unfamiliar thoughts pressed in a momentarily illusion breaths synced like a metronome falling and rising searching for any place to land wind tapping the windowpane bringing the paleness of dawn behind us who are numb to the passion mountains stretch on silent and strong lifting a vast sky beneath it all is the weave of city and country the tangle of dreams and reality and the countless footsteps of the faceless setting out again, fading down the hall in the morning faint click of a door sealing off the shape of a little comfort.

45

When it rains, some people run a little tucking sighs into their collars my knuckles tap lightly on the backseat window shattering a string of clammy question marks you said, we met too soon before we’d learned how to love and now I’m grinding restless days sharpening them into matchsticks waiting for a sunny day to strike some sparks the rain, keeps stitching up fissures while the city slips and slides in puddles our conversations hang like wet clothes dripping on the laundry line awaiting the next sun to dry and turn them into transparent answers.

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Apr 15, 2025

Apr 15, 2025 at 6:42 AM UTC

chinhooi-ng

Self-service laundry

When it rains, some people run a little tucking sighs into their collars my knuckles tap lightly on the backseat window shattering a string of clammy question marks you said, we met too soon before we’d learned how to love and now I’m grinding restless days sharpening them into matchsticks waiting for a sunny day to strike some sparks the rain, keeps stitching up fissures while the city slips and slides in puddles our conversations hang like wet clothes dripping on the laundry line awaiting the next sun to dry and turn them into transparent answers.

18

She lived in my inbox, a constant pulse of memes and midnight thoughts, fragments of her days in a city I’d never walked a movie recommendation a reminder to sleep early a nudge to wake up and try again. Even from miles away she found a way to stay close weaving herself into my new routine as if distance was just another setting to adjust. Her life moved forward in photos and captions shared glimpses of places I could only picture I watched, I listened, I responded but slowly, the messages thinned, the spaces between them stretching wider until silence settled where she used to be. Yet even now, some nights I still hear her voice in my head: “Go to sleep early” as if she’s still looking out for me somewhere beyond the screen.

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Mar 3, 2025

Mar 3, 2025 at 10:14 AM UTC

chinhooi-ng

Texts from her

She lived in my inbox, a constant pulse of memes and midnight thoughts, fragments of her days in a city I’d never walked a movie recommendation a reminder to sleep early a nudge to wake up and try again. Even from miles away she found a way to stay close weaving herself into my new routine as if distance was just another setting to adjust. Her life moved forward in photos and captions shared glimpses of places I could only picture I watched, I listened, I responded but slowly, the messages thinned, the spaces between them stretching wider until silence settled where she used to be. Yet even now, some nights I still hear her voice in my head: “Go to sleep early” as if she’s still looking out for me somewhere beyond the screen.

23

Red for economics, green for English, white for ICT your files stacked in my hands, pages filled with notes in your careful script I never needed to ask; you just lent them as if sharing knowledge meant sharing a part of you. A classroom of seventeen, but I only counted one. I traced your desk with my fingertips, opened your pencil case just to see what colors you carried, what secrets lived between the erasers and sharpies. We worked in groups, side by side but never quite close enough. I stole glances when I thought you wouldn’t notice, but maybe you always did. Maybe that’s why you smiled so easily, why you never pulled away. Years have stretched between us, but high school still lingers like a cozy dream I wake from too slowly. Your files, your laughter, your presence in the last row they live in me as if time forgot to take them when it took you.

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Mar 3, 2025

Mar 3, 2025 at 10:06 AM UTC

chinhooi-ng

Classroom of ours

Red for economics, green for English, white for ICT your files stacked in my hands, pages filled with notes in your careful script I never needed to ask; you just lent them as if sharing knowledge meant sharing a part of you. A classroom of seventeen, but I only counted one. I traced your desk with my fingertips, opened your pencil case just to see what colors you carried, what secrets lived between the erasers and sharpies. We worked in groups, side by side but never quite close enough. I stole glances when I thought you wouldn’t notice, but maybe you always did. Maybe that’s why you smiled so easily, why you never pulled away. Years have stretched between us, but high school still lingers like a cozy dream I wake from too slowly. Your files, your laughter, your presence in the last row they live in me as if time forgot to take them when it took you.

26

She was August, I was February months apart, but tied by the same number Eleven, like a thread linking distant days, like Pepero sticks she loved, thin, sweet, and gone too fast. She was the girl who handed me slippers in the rain, who lent me her red, green, and white files, who sat in the third row while I sat in the first, but somehow, we always found our way to the same place. She was fries on one eventful canteen day, laughing about weight neither of us really cared about. She called herself Snorlax, but to me, she was Eevee full of possibilities, always shifting, always bright. She sent me memes, told me to wake up, to sleep early to try again tomorrow She saw Natsume in me though I never watched Gakuen Alice to know why Maybe she saw the quiet fire I never named. She was there, and then she wasn’t. Distance, time, then silence life pulled us apart like a ribbon unraveling. But somewhere in the space between eleven and eleven she still lingers.

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Mar 3, 2025

Mar 3, 2025 at 6:32 AM UTC

chinhooi-ng

Elevens

She was August, I was February months apart, but tied by the same number Eleven, like a thread linking distant days, like Pepero sticks she loved, thin, sweet, and gone too fast. She was the girl who handed me slippers in the rain, who lent me her red, green, and white files, who sat in the third row while I sat in the first, but somehow, we always found our way to the same place. She was fries on one eventful canteen day, laughing about weight neither of us really cared about. She called herself Snorlax, but to me, she was Eevee full of possibilities, always shifting, always bright. She sent me memes, told me to wake up, to sleep early to try again tomorrow She saw Natsume in me though I never watched Gakuen Alice to know why Maybe she saw the quiet fire I never named. She was there, and then she wasn’t. Distance, time, then silence life pulled us apart like a ribbon unraveling. But somewhere in the space between eleven and eleven she still lingers.

27

I remember the rain, heavy on our umbrellas, the scent of wet earth as we walked, silent, yet knowing. You handed me the slippers first, a small kindness that opened a password door in my heart. In our classroom filled with murmurs and pages turning, you sat in the last row, your glasses catching the fluorescent light and time, your hairband keeping time with your movements You were a tomboy, you said, but to me, you were softer than the world allowed. A quiet building, an empty hallway, fries shared between words that meant everything and nothing The pull of something unspoken led us up the stairs, past the classrooms where fans hummed to a moment that rewrote us. Afterward, we laughed in daylight, separate yet tangled, our conversations shifting between equations and longing. You had friends; I had you in the quiet. And then time carried us away, first to different cities, then to different lives. You reappeared in pixels and midnight messages, a voice from the past steadying me in my new world But distance is a slow tide, pulling even the strongest memories apart I spoke too much, stupidly shared too much, or maybe just enough, and you drifted again, this time with no promise of return. Now, I hold you in flashes the rain, the fries, the hush of a stairwell, the echo of a name I can no longer address.

0

Mar 3, 2025

Mar 3, 2025 at 4:12 AM UTC

chinhooi-ng

It started with your slippers

I remember the rain, heavy on our umbrellas, the scent of wet earth as we walked, silent, yet knowing. You handed me the slippers first, a small kindness that opened a password door in my heart. In our classroom filled with murmurs and pages turning, you sat in the last row, your glasses catching the fluorescent light and time, your hairband keeping time with your movements You were a tomboy, you said, but to me, you were softer than the world allowed. A quiet building, an empty hallway, fries shared between words that meant everything and nothing The pull of something unspoken led us up the stairs, past the classrooms where fans hummed to a moment that rewrote us. Afterward, we laughed in daylight, separate yet tangled, our conversations shifting between equations and longing. You had friends; I had you in the quiet. And then time carried us away, first to different cities, then to different lives. You reappeared in pixels and midnight messages, a voice from the past steadying me in my new world But distance is a slow tide, pulling even the strongest memories apart I spoke too much, stupidly shared too much, or maybe just enough, and you drifted again, this time with no promise of return. Now, I hold you in flashes the rain, the fries, the hush of a stairwell, the echo of a name I can no longer address.

32

A girl with a crush every pure thought in her heart she buries deep until she misses the warmth of spring the romance in the summer and the fall season comes only to realize that love is gone the days when she didn't have the courage to say the words bloom in regret black blue grenade shrapnel wound seems an eternity when she carefully peels back memories wrapped so tightly in time she starts to see a scintilla pink and odd a clutch of stars dark red and blinking every bit as pellucid as the teardrop coalesced in her eyes.

0

Apr 6, 2024

Apr 6, 2024 at 7:15 PM UTC

chinhooi-ng

Pomegranate

A girl with a crush every pure thought in her heart she buries deep until she misses the warmth of spring the romance in the summer and the fall season comes only to realize that love is gone the days when she didn't have the courage to say the words bloom in regret black blue grenade shrapnel wound seems an eternity when she carefully peels back memories wrapped so tightly in time she starts to see a scintilla pink and odd a clutch of stars dark red and blinking every bit as pellucid as the teardrop coalesced in her eyes.

26

The bracing raindrops dripping onto the wooden trellis then hitting the stone table i happened to have just woke up when dusk is brewing quietly outside the windowpanes vestigial sleepiness dissipating just as gradually the fluorescent light that's turned on stings my sense of taste for a second and i hear the sounds of a busy kitchen the summer heat is gone for now i kept myself occupied all afternoon checking and reading on my phone if time could stand still I'd actually like it to stay like this people are in a smooth peaceful mood it seems like they were years ago it also seems perhaps it will happen again like years from now.

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Oct 21, 2023

Oct 21, 2023 at 8:12 AM UTC

chinhooi-ng

Rain-speckled sunset

The bracing raindrops dripping onto the wooden trellis then hitting the stone table i happened to have just woke up when dusk is brewing quietly outside the windowpanes vestigial sleepiness dissipating just as gradually the fluorescent light that's turned on stings my sense of taste for a second and i hear the sounds of a busy kitchen the summer heat is gone for now i kept myself occupied all afternoon checking and reading on my phone if time could stand still I'd actually like it to stay like this people are in a smooth peaceful mood it seems like they were years ago it also seems perhaps it will happen again like years from now.

25

The temptation to belly-flop on a raked pile of leaves long-awaited greetings foreign yet a familiar city semi worn-out platform it's oh so simple ordinary to know you but it has made me think back on every autumn day i contemplate the happiness that extended from nothing more than chance acquaintance i want to hold onto that sweet corner of my mind you came in fall does it have to be a scene of fading greenery why do those red leaves look weirdly teary my disheveled state of mind at the present time can't afford to be challenged or tested though i love the autumn recklessly including its solemn austerity mahogany melancholy all in honor of the pretty lady i met you and inordinately liked you in that old part of the school you came my way and it sure was an autumn day.

0

Oct 20, 2023

Oct 20, 2023 at 3:45 AM UTC

chinhooi-ng

Just an autumn day

The temptation to belly-flop on a raked pile of leaves long-awaited greetings foreign yet a familiar city semi worn-out platform it's oh so simple ordinary to know you but it has made me think back on every autumn day i contemplate the happiness that extended from nothing more than chance acquaintance i want to hold onto that sweet corner of my mind you came in fall does it have to be a scene of fading greenery why do those red leaves look weirdly teary my disheveled state of mind at the present time can't afford to be challenged or tested though i love the autumn recklessly including its solemn austerity mahogany melancholy all in honor of the pretty lady i met you and inordinately liked you in that old part of the school you came my way and it sure was an autumn day.

37

Standing on the overpass i stop to look away the endless stream of cars sprinting from under my feet dusky yellowish lights start to illuminate the night the city is beautiful at this time yes it sure is as the autumn winds blow coolness grows the heart feels barren for no reason though stars in the sky twinkle once in a while each one is an unknown dream each one is too far away a drop of rain fell from thereabouts i saw it so i reach out it touches my cheek slips out of the corner of my eye then in a trice It floods the cityscape.

0

Sep 17, 2023

Sep 17, 2023 at 7:18 AM UTC

chinhooi-ng

Overpass

Standing on the overpass i stop to look away the endless stream of cars sprinting from under my feet dusky yellowish lights start to illuminate the night the city is beautiful at this time yes it sure is as the autumn winds blow coolness grows the heart feels barren for no reason though stars in the sky twinkle once in a while each one is an unknown dream each one is too far away a drop of rain fell from thereabouts i saw it so i reach out it touches my cheek slips out of the corner of my eye then in a trice It floods the cityscape.

22