xvi. where do you go when your house isn't home?

i ******* crawl out of my body, swim infinite miles of the ocean, stretch my neck to the skies, replace my head with the moon. i ******* yearn for your presence, try to break the mirror with my weak stare, can't go further, fitting room doesn't fit whatsoever, all the buttons escape from my ***** and hair falls like tiny dandelions in a rainstorm.
i grow potatoes in my mouth, when i speak i smell of my root, when i am on my period i talk about stomachache at dinner table, when i search for space my tummy is the balloons at pingkan's 8th birthday party which i couldn't bring home. blow the candles i forgot to make a wish for a moment the fate seems seamless, bright red lipstick, brown mascara, outfits i can't ever wear to school, or to be honest, not anywhere because when i try to walk, every step is a ******* hysterical cry, when i use my toes every cell in my body violently shakes.
my house isn't home. my house isn't home. my house isn't home. my house isn't home. my house isn't home how do you know that? how did you barge into my clichés? how dare you claim something that even i won't bring myself to think about?
i ******* crawl out of my body, not as soon as possible, i do it right now, right ******* now so i know the years i've spent trying to nourish the flesh i don't really own are worthless, the years i've devoted myself to my worldly lover are the ones that have been consuming my tiny soul, if you ask me now of course no one is satisfied, no one is satisfied until i don't want to call you mine anymore.
i ******* crawl out of my body.
in a desperate attempt to make the hideous pleasing to watch, i sell blindfolds on the street, i light the matches in the rain, i dream of dead grandmother and christmas feast. i turn into a cold statue, i left the tenderness for stupid microorganisms, my divorced bones blame me for everything i did not do. i used to do the right things now i just do nothing, it's ******* useless anyway, i can blink five thousand times and still believe that time is what the clocks and calendars say. (my grandmother was a buddhist.)
i ******* crawl out of my body. i don't want to experience this anymore, i am not into this kind of thing, i long for your presence, all i've got from this building is an infinite count of absences. my body is a building, it has no level, no room, no door, no window, no furniture. my body a giant concrete boring box, i do not even live there anymore, nobody lives there anymore, they are all gone to a poppy field in the middle of nowhere (actually somewhere, only that i am not invited). i ******* crawl out of my body, did that answer your question?
i ******* crawl. out. of. it.

Can you reach me and touch my skin,
Can you look me in the eye and heal the dead?

Warm nest, lots of worms
What am I to hope to be found?

Warm coffin, lots of flame
What am I to hope to be found?

You can say my name as if
It is the core of my existence

You know what to call me, right?
Now nothing else really matters

this little girl
has grown, you know.

not in a cute way, though.
she has grown
like a gross building, soon
abandoned, but never to be haunted.

this girl carries no mystery,
even with her eyes
she stares blankly like a puddle.

she still dreams about the sea sometimes.

this little girl
is still a little girl, only now
her body is inflated and
the pure thing is a bit spoiled.

this little girl has never been
fine anyway.

i'm sorry i forgot to not trust you
it's my fault

I hold my breath
I stop my heart
I make it all up

I am lazy, not sick
I've never been in an emergency
I make it all up

I derive it all from the media
All the things I've read and watched
Huge inspiration

I try dark, it is cool
I try blade, it is sharp
So hip, I am not insane

I am bad at driving, not reckless
Some nights I try to be good and stay
Inside a plastic bag, pills down with soda

when i look at my profile picture on social media

i know what ugly
looks like, at least better than
this disgusting face

that's why i never use my own face for more than 2 days

it isn't my fault
that i am repulsed by my
own body and mind

what else do you expect?

i am a sinner;
this is how i should be, how
i atone my crimes

i have an appearance matching my very soul**

it is written all
over my skin, ev'ry sin
and condemnation

The heat is trying to leave me
I feel so cold
And helpless

Will you leave me too?
If I say I need you
And I want to be with you
Will you cut me off?

I don't know how strong
I can be
To step beyond the boundaries

I don't know how real
This dream is
Or is this a nightmare?
Whatever, just don't wake me up
If this can't be real

Will you push me away?
I wanted to tell you
If I could just be
With you even just for a day
I'd be okay

******* mom
stop tryna reach me
I'm not talking to ya
I'm not answering
whoever calls
from home
*******
family, each of you knows
just tell 'em the truth
we're falling apart
& it's my fault
or if it hasn't been, it will be
******* mom
I'm not returning any call
'cause if you hear my voice
you'll understand
we were once best company
now strangers in a convenience store

iv.

i've seen the sky & it isn't blue
i've touched the sun & it doesn't burn
i've tried to taste the space, all those planets and stars
but the night falls upon your lap
asleep to your thighs that are lullabies

when it's dark i can light a
candle & drink the wax
with the can of my first beer,
how stupid didn't i realize
it was your mouth all along.

when it's night i can wish
upon a shooting star & bury the
remaining flame in
my neck, like how you
did with your breath.

let me hold your hands, taste your lips
one last time. press your body
against mine, one last time.
dig me like a child
even if it hurts, or feels gross.

am i too heavy, am i trying to
pole dance on a mcdonald's straw?
i shouldn't have gone away
even if you'd told me to,
i should've clung to you oh

even more, even more.

i'm terrib
ly sorr
y. i only hang out w
ith you
so i would be to
o drained to do
anyth
ing *"s
ill
y"

i breathe. salt in my lungs, heavy
red in the back of my throat. my
mouth is an ocean, the river
flows from a mountain eye right
through a cracked lip. you bet
some used to grow in there
now it's just another grave
like a town full of ghosts
haunting each empty body
they can't ever have. how
frustrating. my mouth is
an ocean, the bottom lip is
its beach, where you have to
pay to play on, and. i told
you, it's not worth it

you be the songs i
downloaded ilegally
and never listen.

do i ever have the time to?
i'm drowning in
oceans of music

i got to rip.

in a parallel universe
you love me
but i died

there is dust,
on my heart,
that is you.

the next days
will only
make
you layer.

like the cake,
mille-feuille,
only that's
inedible.

human's feeling is
a universe
that has
no limit.

you are so close
yet so far
i want to touch you
but i can't

i'm trained to love the rain
but the wind goes from here to where you are
i cannot handle this
it won't go back

didn't even try
i'm slowing down
it happens so fast
like the sky

First my falling grades
Second the gravity
Now we can't even feel a space

Am I breathing underwater?
Did I come from a dark place?
We can't make them understand

Our love left undiagnosed
We're being stared at like a car crash
Far in the desert no one relates to

♢

Never end what makes you happen
Let it end you
Smooth and good and nutritious

♢

You are the plate and I am the food
I've always despised mouths, you know that
You would never ever let me go

Wherever I go
I can't escape whoever
Resides in my head

everyone else is so done with 2016
but *******, it's only the 17th monday

and today's not the last day, i suppose
so would you come back, would you stay some other time?

you're the one who makes breathing bearable
and life possible to be content with

though it tastes sour on the tongue
each word i gulp back is sweet in the throat

so i try to hold a secret deep in the deepest forest
and soon enough you catch my eyes like wildfire

i had hoped today actually was not the last day
but if it's not, would it have been different?

every time i remember your voice, your gaze
it was apocalypse

lend me a home,
or just a shoulder to lean on

is more than enough;
those two things
i can't do by myself,

no matter how badly
i try to believe:

for the heart is in my chest,
i am my own home;

for i already have two shoulders,
i won't be needing another.

but my head is too heavy
because of these sour clouds, my neck
might accidentally break.

do you want to see death?
i have plenty of them
scattered in my eyes--just
look beyond my irises,
you can't
stab my soul;
she is far behind
the flesh and bones
that slowly are turning
yellow like teeth--the yellow
from my skin seeps into
even the darkest of depth.

my head hurts like cotton candy breath of a unicorn, beneath the rainbow in food poisoning glitter. we all talk like neighborhood fantasy, green grass and red tulips on the way to our houses, we can show our teeth to each other. let a pause take its time when sunday comes the day comes in blessings. do not fear for i am with you, forgive them for they know not what they do. mother, behold, your child. child, here is your mother. can you not? go find death before you die, conversations do not equal exchanging words, they all have to do with childhood dreams and granted wishes. which are nothing. look at my feet, they are the one closest to cinderella's only that i have calves like a horse and thighs like pumpkins. my biggest regret would be a decision if i decided to put on the label miracle, despite the raging womb of mother blows a fetus out of question. all motherhood is the same, only that i was born from a waning moon. be proud of your daughters, in a worst case scenario they probably take after you.

Lit the silence, what once
was damp
now burned. I
sleep in wildfire,
keep my mind as straight
as an Asian
daughter.
As soon as the sun
goes up, HCl
too. Even my tears are
acidic.
I cry for no reason
and laugh because I feel like
crying. Present it much. Staying up late,
I haven't got the
time to worry.
My
lioness is
taking her rest
in my chest,
on my shoulders and the back
I give her a ride.
What a lovely day.

fire is wings
to free the body
deny the soul

close your eyes you still can't listen
waves crashing, crushing phrase by phrase
heartbeat, a storybook, only without a plot
stomach growl, head falling to ground
a body with the most denial
gravity in your ears, did you find a root?
believe me when i say i'm soundproof

wish for no space between liquid and solid
aqueous girl, scared teeth can't sing a song
in a box, bones and hair
flesh twitching covered in tears
you can't stand, eyes fixed open
here's my control, i'll give it to you
how can you be so real?

Leak
Hear the toilet cries
Escape from her, the heart knows
But the ship has sunk

Whirlpool
Choked with saltwater
Corrosives in tropic lungs
Breathe the sun, be fine

Float**
Ice cream on soda
We were born waterlilies
Can we swim? Can we?

It doesn't matter.
The chest is for the unknowns;
Mine is torn open.

I'd like to meet you
tomorrow. Sunday morning
in a dying church

I escaped the warmth
so that I could see. Your eyes
are looking at mine

I would like to wash
your face. With my tears that soon
would turn into blood

thank you control for leaving me instead of life, should i be grateful for something that doesn't leave me even when i don't know anymore how to fight for it? at least something stays with me. though everything within is withering & i'm like a hollow shell only that i can move freely according to society. thank you society for giving me free will and free air. my lungs are tired by laughing at your jokes, now they are the jokes themselves. the only thing healthy in my body is social construction or else i can't walk in peace. i still hide when i eat. do you have anything else to say? i'm writing notes

these words, i wanted
them to be read. but maybe
even that's too much.

can i be a bird, mimicking the wind?
can i forget my lungs, can i leave the heart beating?
can i have the wings, flying through
the pain of all worlds?

at night am i a blinking eye
curling on death's palm, trying to sleep?

can i be a bird, lost in a city?
can i make a home, can i give a try?
can i have the wings, flying to the moon
where all children belong?

at night am i a boy privilege
crushing my soul, confused at the silence?

can i pray to god, can i do something?
can i believe in love, can i breathe your words?
can i be a star, can i be a cross?

carry me, i'm tearing up
for the grief, for the loss

carry me, i'll bring you
to where we were
before

if i had died last night,
would you blame me for an entire day
and the next day pretend i hadn't had existed at all?
that's what usually would be happening,
so when i die i try to live,
when i died i swear i tried to live.

my body is stronger than the ocean,
healthier than hospitals.
i've never felt safe in a hospital.
that building reeks of regret and i
spent my childhood breathing in its air.
you know, everything
that makes me want to die is learned.
school didn't teach me how to unlearn,

i taught myself to drown and dad me to swim.
he doesn't know swimming is a scar.
i, too, didn't
until i remember the sisters,
the classroom,
everything strange remains strange for me.
i ******* want to fit in.
don't tell me to stand out, i don't even
stand out oh god i'm ******* outcasted.

i do not fit in,
either too large or too small
i'm just a weird piece, i
can't complete your puzzle ******* i'm so sorry

i didn't mean that.
i have shoes glued to the ground.
i'd have to speak softly to them,
you are the ones that keep my feet on the ground!
but my feet know the truth,
my feet have known everything true since
the first time they were dipped
in the kindergarten pool.
i ******* want to fit in.
can you tell?
i, like this, want to ******* fit in?

ok i'm sorry i didn't mean that.
i didn't die last night and case closed.

survivor is the romanticized side
of everything
because it gets better
but often gets far worse

& until we are the number
& we become the percentages
3 out of 100 vulnerable
to mental disorders

marital rapes & ****** &
****** abuses
we've tried to cry
but lullabies far louder

you, the sand on your skin,
your hair, salty drenched in ocean water
and smells like tropical flowers.
the strands stick to your face,
as if trying to cover the beauty in
your eyes, they have seen
kindness being slaughtered, justice shattered.
more than anyone's, yours are the oldest of eyes, yours
make wrinkle appear on your heart.

xv.

###
how do i survive
with metal hangs in my jaw
and plastic melts in my eyes,

both are lacking
what a body is supposed to have:

balance,
balance,
balance?

and with balance they never mean
everything goes the same way

in the same day,
the same pace,
the same face,

the same chemical formula to and fro
all over the place from tip to toe.

balance is never anything they mean.
it is never the thing it is supposed to mean.

it is not the seventh cranial nerve,
nor the sick tongue nor the dotted gum.
not a moon instead of a head,
nor the medicines,
nor the warm water,

nor the faces they make to know how it feels like,
(spoiler: they still don't know, they can't ever possibly
with heart as hard, no desire to learn,
no passionate dreams mentioning equity,
not once does it cry about what intersects with the music
they play so skillfully)

###
it is not the misplaced lips,
not the nonfunctioning left side,
not the one smaller eye nor the other bigger eye.
you cannot tell what i was born with.
you keep guessing wrong

that i was born with angry hands
desperately trying to hide the void where
every sincere smile is overthrown
and each tooth has their own problem for me to solve.

all the days you are a persona and i am the property:
i have been busy preserving what's inside,
carefully guiding my cells in place,
while you cheerfully break it
little
by
little

because of what appears from the outside:
even from the inside i can tell
i am ****** up so very horribly,
and with that alone, every adolescent can
pull a great show
of thousand jokes.

you saw me
scattered
on the ground.

between
my pieces
were cheerful puddles

of the rain from your face
& the soap i used to
wash

my mouth.
i sweat a lot &
it's still so cold.

sometimes the teeth
aren't helping us much
to say the unvoiced-

to
untangle the tongue
from

what we don't
sincerely
want.

My heart bleeds
for the fire
in your arms
W*here it rains
non-stop
from my face

didn't i tell you?
we cannot escape darkness
while avoiding light

even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted*

to sylvia plath

dear sylvia softness i feel, firm in my bones
i stand like crooked smile my lips wear everyday
everyday, every day is madness to death, to resurrection and back to the start until you find something new
tender and kind i cannot talk, lump in my chest and head
fingernails are just as boring as eyelashes, they cannot be ugly
unless you are more than 'just sad'
i dream of a place full of rainbows and plants
dear sylvia
the smell of grass that casts darkness away
but actually it's ocean that makes the nights bearable
dear sylvia
dear sylvia saltiness made of quiet tearless cries
let's just let go
dear sylvia drown in the blue of the soul
accept the universe seeps to your flesh and drown
drown until there's nothing left to remember
dear sylvia
where the home is
that's where the home is

THE LETTERS ARE MY BREATH I CANNOT CATCH, I WAS KILLED IN MY HOMETOWN AND IT MIGHT BE ANOTHER TOWN OF CATS I RAN AWAY FROM. I HATE TRAINS. I HATE WHAT I CANNOT TOUCH. FLICKERING. FLICKERING AND SCATTERED. WE ARE ALL SACRED IN THE NAME OF EARTH. BUT EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT. EVERYTHING IS SCATTERING AND FLICKERED. UNLESS YOU.
YOU SHOOK ME LIKE NO ONE ELSE.
YOU SHOOK ME LIKE NO ONE ELSE IT'S ALMOST LIKE A LULLABY. ARE YOU MY FATHER? ARE YOU MY FATHER BECAUSE YOU WERE BORN LONG BEFORE I EXIST? ARE YOU MY FATHER BECAUSE EVEN YOU ARE YOUR OWN FATHER? TAKE CARE OF ME. PLEASE. TAKE CARE OF ME AND TALK TO ME AS IF YOUR TONGUE IS A BOWL OF MILK.

iii.

it doesn't matter
how i wear my body
anymore.
if i can't give you
a pleasant sight,
i can also eat
your eyes out for you.

My heart is shattered as i recall the way you kissed me.

You used your tongue as you realized that looking at each other's eyes was a little bit of a burden. you didn't deny it. but about the things which were too much, you didn't tell me. you only told me to act as if nothing had ever happened. after you saved me from myself and you cried because i hurt my own skin, now do you still think it is possible for me to forget that? maybe you can do anything but i clung to you until i numbed my fingers. my fingers purple and rotten ******* i swear i didn't mean to let g*

You let me drown alone, so i did. nothing was your business. i drowned alone and nothing honestly had ever been your business.

Wide glass window
in front of you
above a sleeping city
remote from your heart.
It is a waste
for you to shed tears
on such fabric
you know not for very long.

Are you going home
tonight?
The road has lost
its arms
to keep you safe.

You float around my
Head like a fly attracted
To dead rotten things

i Let It Consume me Like i Am Some Rice Porridge, So Easy, So Easy i Slip Into The Throat And i Warm Its Belly, Only To Have All my Nutritions Absorbed, Gone Forever And i Can't Ever Be With Them Anymore And Now i Feel So Cold And Groggy Or Maybe Just Not Wanted As Much As How i've Always Known. One Day i Am In The Toilet But Not For So Long Because After It Finishes i'll Be Flushed Into Nothingness Not Even my **Smell Remains And Toilet Is Now Citrus-y Like Before Again.

Home is far away in the future that is for me like the heart-throbbing, very-first gamble and between the most extreme and the exact opposite side. Either way I find it intriguing but at the same time I want to stay at the same time. I, I want to... stay.

I'm not saying where I struggle now is the most beautiful and pleasurable and that's why I don't want to move, although I also am not saying that it is so painfully ugly it may fit me rather perfectly. Uh-oh, none of it matters, actually.

I just shall never leave. I mean, I'm dead from now on. I am preserved nicely in a body that will grow when I swell, that will shrink when it is running out of me. And there will come a time when skin kisses bones, my, my, lovely are my bones!
Oh!


I'm fine like this. I think I'm fine like this.

God- aren't you
tired
pretending to be something you
are not?* she whispers in a quiet
voice, popping the air, gently, like
soap bubbles. "You churn
my stomach
everytime I try to talk."
She thinks it's quite unfair
because she feels the same way.
You are trying
to change the subject
into something it wasn't.
"No, I
am not. Everything
has been the same from
the very first beginning."
Now, now, now look at you.
Look at what you've been. Look at you!
she cries, maybe
a little too loud for someone who's been so
close
to anything airtight.
The other person sighs.
(If sighs have color, this one'd be pale gray,
with no transparency in it.)
"I have been like this
all this time
from the very
first, the very
first
beginning."
Of course she has no idea
when the hell was that.
There's no concept of such
in her head, in her life,
if that's what you say to address a being.
I'm tired.
"You said it." I did.
She did?! Her eyes widen. Her face reddens.
The other person can hear her heartbeats.
I am not! I am not! I'm! I'm! I'm not!
"Pretending to be something you are not?"
That's not what she was saying.
That's not what I was saying-
Yeah, I mean, no. Not like that.
"You haven't changed."
She did. You just don't know.
"Nope. Not even a bit."
She blushes.
You knew.
The other person.
The other person smiles,
"I did." The other
person
did.

Sadness is like the stars, and happiness the skies. But atop you just dead flowers and dried tears, keeping you warm are maggots and shrouds.
No one has any idea, your heart beats in perfect harmony.
Let it be, you let it be.
That's the closest to the air you can give, although it can only grow thinner. Dear oxygen has left you for good. Your rotten lungs can only grow more sour. Your throat severely wounded and your own mouth tastes like vinegar.
That detailed twist in your abdomen. Right. Your body is soundproof.
You can't even remember the ****** scene.

I remember somewhere
in the depth of your lake-like eyes:
fresh ropes, high places, warm walls.

Everything I've tried to recall
from the comfy, tender-looking voice
still floating like clouds below the scorching sun.

I imagine so: you
are more than a metaphor of poetry,
more than a life in your body, you

are a son lost in your own prophecy.
I now know how a mother must feel,
how a mother must feel about the fruit of the womb.

These blue-green petals of your existence
softly wrapping my fingers and sloppy neck;
it is almost as if my skin is precious.

xiv.

The heat is
heavy and a
gold,
though different from wha
t
I learned in high sch
ool.

I stopped sleeping
with the lights
on. I stopped wa
king up to a smooth,
even sleepiness. I
stopped admiring sunrises.

In high school
there were girls and only girls.
An all girls school
wasn't that much
extraordinary. A
lot of
people don't un
de
rstand, bo
ys were not practical un
til
you want u
s pregnant.

I wish we started being extinct,
right here and
now. I wish we
started earlier. I
wish
we
'd start at all.

Back then
I drew a lot.
I wrote some
things I can't
write anymore, nev
er ever
    ever
   ever
  ever
ever
ever