My mother once said:
No one is born turtle-shelled.
It’s the world that distills us into
resilience—pressure folding us
inward, like soft fruit behind
a spiked rind.

Inside, we are tender—
even the durian has
sweetness.

Her inner tides rose
quietly—
and in the moonlit
water,
her face blurred, yet
shimmered like something sacred.
She laughed, even in—unrest.

The moon saw her—better than
she did.

What if I pulled a rope
from the moon’s quiet rear,
hung a wooden seat—
and swung through the dark
like it was mine to hold?

as if the cosmos— had kept
a seat for me.

He stirred her moons—
left them pulsing like distant stars.

Do we marry only to
proliferate new earths?
And to make the soil
speak again?
Do those blood-filled sacks
women carry—
ventilating tiny breaths—
define real love?

Or is love what remains—
when nothing is born?

Just because I wear the
name 'woman', doesn't mean
I'll bare myself to you—
like the moon offering
herself to the night.
I'd rather remain—an
unopened bottle of wine.

I am not a pour—
I'm a preservation.