are the tattoos I etched
to mark my recovery.

And boy, did it hurt.

The white squiggles at my hips
wink at me every time I look down.
Don't look down!
As if.
I swear, they conspire with each other.

I'll never forget the very first one.
Shiny. Indignant.
I hugged my skeleton and wept.

Now I've grown accustomed
not to the deliberate finality of dropping my gaze
mesmerized by my slow evolution,
but to looking up.

I look at eyes and mouths
instead of the impossible circumferences
above my knees,
the ever shifting law.

Stretch marks
are the tattoos I etched
to mark my recovery.

Do I regret them?
Oh, a little bit always.

But it's sure as hell a story worth remembering.

I take up more colour than I used to,
and these- these are the lines that will never be filled in.

I earned them.

Shock
Oh no
The world's let go.
The rug pulled out
And I'm suspended.
Silent screams and haunted dreams,
I cram a thousand words into my skull,
Hoping that the pain will dull.
And I see no one
Even when other eyelashes
Brush my brow.
2. Denial (Epitaph I)
There is only so long
You can gaze into the mirror
And insist that you see nothing.
Maybe if I try harder...
Maybe if I change myself...
Maybe if I abandon everything and risk...
Maybe she'll come back
To me.
3. Grief
words
just don't
approach it
4. Rage
I touch no one
And no one touches me.
And I will burn you all to ash
Because you can't be
Who I need.
5. Hell
There is nothing I want.
There is only this day
This second
This survival.
There is no higher purpose.
There is only revenge
And suffering and cruelty.
Turn and burn and learn
To sit stewing ugly in your hate
And wear a saccharine smile
On a lovely face.
6. Acceptance
It's not gone.
It's not fixed.
But might as well try
Since there are decades left...
7. Relapse
For a golden moment
In the heat of summer
You loved me like I deserve.
Like you deserve.
Like we deserve.
For a shining second,
I might have been
Your choice.
8. Fear
To know you're close,
Holding my hand
But looking about
For another to reach for
Feels like
Decay.
9. Denial (Epitaph II)
No matter how many times I make you say it
I cannot make you mean it.
Fickle and cruel,
You chose me and backpedaled,
Flailing like a drown-victim
On her knees in a puddle,
And snapped back, elastic band heart,
To reject me twice.
10. Shackles
There is nowhere I can go
Where I do not feel trapped.
Here, there, every nook,
Full of barbed wire and broken glass.
Tightrope walker
With a safety net of needles.
You know not what it is
To die alive.
11. Choices
Nowhere to run.
Few places to hide.
Can I choose
Each day of my life
To twist the knife?
To love a soul in hell
When I could like one
In paradise?
12. Anger
You don't deserve a love like mine
When you'd choose anyone else first
And lie to me as if I'm special.
Sometimes your cruelty makes me sick
And I think it makes you sick
As well.
13. Acceptance
You're gone
And you may never return,
But I would be lying,
An awful traitor to my soul,
Were I to say I'll love another-
Let me burn**.

I can't be what you want from me.
I feel it in your fingertips.
I see it in your eyes.
They look like fire beneath ice,
Behind glass,
Hot, melting, but water and fire,
They hate one another.
How ironic that your eyes
Portray your soul the way they do.
Did you feel it from me?
I shied from your need-
Greater than I could possibly fill.
Not quite true,
And the guilt stings inside.
But I quell it-
I know you'd never want my lies.
But what else could I do?
I can never resist giving when I can give.
It's my fault,
Weak in my compassion,
For failing to see that by loving you
I doomed you
To love me too.
You'll never be the most, my dear,
And doesn't it hurt?
It hurts me too.
There aren't many who'd deserve it more than you.
I can love you in a thousand ways,
And god forgive me,
I am so terrible at clarifying them.
And some of them
Are locked from you like treasure
And I fear they're all you covet.

I am a keeper of secrets.
Having none of my own, I have been given them.
Perhaps the empty space inside my mind
Where they'd reside did they exist
Calls to be filled,
Sends out beams like a lonely lighthouse on cold tumbling grey waves.
Perhaps its siren song draws people closer,
Clustering like gauzy moths around a flame.

That girl there, she is going to die soon.
She smiles and her friends envy her.
They know not that her sun is almost set.
Not a one suspects.
But I know.
Our eyes meet
And for a moment we share a light,
Private and white hot
Like a thread of burning silver stretched between us,
Searing,
Thin as spidersilk but strong.
And then just as quickly it is broken and there's nothing once again.

That one there thinks she's already dead, inside.
She smiles and the circle of people that hover about her like a halo
Ripples with laughter.
They do not suspect.
But I know.
I catch her eye and see the hopelessness,
Smile at her and she smiles back.
But even I cannot tell if it is real.

I am a keeper of terrible secrets.

Maybe sometimes
two of us
see in each other’s eyes
the chance
that romance works
on a level that
only the two of us know.  
And we are so frightened
this may be true
that we make excuses
and walk into the distant
shadows of lonliness.

sitting eating
rivers of Singapore life
flow around me, over me

forever drowning in noise

clatter of plates
rumbling traffic
the discordant wailing of ringtones

diaspora

cultures, colours, faiths
streaming together
oil on water

often you stare
‘ang moh,’  you mutter
'red haired devil'

you don’t like
to share my table
or sit by me on the bus

and yet

like water on the mountaintop
ever seeking the sea
with gentle persistence we live together

still waters of humanity run deep

Sticky hands-
the price of touching delicious things.

And no matter how I handle you...
from the spout, with a mitt, upside down,
you get all over my mind
you sneak your way into thoughts that
haven't even come close to you.

And for each drop of soap
an ounce of appetite comes to tip the scale.

A sticky heart.
That's the price of touching delicious things.