You realize, as you’re sitting on your bed, holding the phone you begged your mommy to buy just months ago, that 18 is so far from 17. 17 was so beautiful; with youth in all its glory and the future just seemed so out of grasp. And yet, you grow and while growing, you make friends that you share your secrets to when dawn peeks, you make decisions that could change your life unknowingly and you fall in love, a love that’s raw and free, a love you can only have at 17. But somehow at 18, you lose the friends through petty fights and those shared secrets were now secrets for strangers, you make the wrong decisions because they were different from the decisions you once made at 17, and you fall out of love, a love you thought would last forever because of empty promises you made when everything seemed possible. 18 is beautiful too, you realize, because you can do all the things you did at 17, but not the way you did at 17. At 18, you make friends and you don’t share your secrets at the wee hours of the night but you share your goals, your passions and funky music you heard on the radio that plays during the late afternoon drives. At 18, you make decisions you never did at 17. It’s scary at first, but you’re no longer 17 and at 18, things are different, you’re more mature and you hold yourself with confidence and you stand up for the decisions you make. At 18, you fall in love again, but not with a boy that reeks of mud and barely has ****** hair, instead, you fall in love with yourself. You fall in love with your stomach that’s not flat, you fall in love with your dainty fingers and you fall in love with the life you created that you never really loved at 17. The phone in your hand dings, it’s a message from a friend you thought you lost at 17: ‘happy birthday.’ The screen blackens because you know you can reply later because when you’re 18, 19 seems so far away.

A life of my own,
   where the light shins through curtains
   and remnants of rain on the veranda
   where we danced last midsummer
A little corner in the world,
   where my childhood dreams
   become the lens of reality now
   dancing in the limelight
   of an overachiever's dares
A coffee shop down the street,
  a seat unoccupied
  a muffin left uneaten
  a glance at the heavy door
  a coffee stain on the oakwood floor.

the station i stood up
slowly disappearing into the rusty air,
the carrier windows are big and bright
yet i still see the shadows
cascading down my back
the curtains flap and clap
in between i see fragments
it’s luminescent in my eyes
but it flickers in ambiguity
an enigma i have yet to decrypt

the cathartic breath,
burrowed beneath my lungs,
i hear it gasping, panting,
choking for air,
caged between my ribs
for i never let it free into the abyss,
it burgeons and flourishes
until any arrow that hits it,
will never miss.

my mother's words
always rang before
any step forward,
halfway down the hallway,
i realized;
my destiny was not
for her to write

the sun rose in the east,
only cries and wails
in white hoarded rooms,
where a new day starts,
and endings birthed,
and where the sun
sets in the west,
waiting for a better
tomorrow.

She tells me “write, and never stop writing.” She pauses for a second before continuing, “for the one that creates, never disintegrates.”

“I am nothing but a personified soul that spews out meaningless words.” I reply.

“And yet you give reason and feeling to consonants and vowels that once meant nothing.” She tells me, peering over me or is she staring straight into my cortex? I can’t seem to figure that out through her black beaded pupils.

you never realize how bright you shine until you’re engulfed in your own darkness

the white hospital room,
laid a ******* her bed
bruises, scars, scratches,
with lines and crosses
dancing across her skin
dried tears and
freckles dusted lightly
amongst her temples.
with wires wrapped
around her body,
he holds her hands,
afraid of letting her
go.

i see hills and the sun
but not the ones on paper,
with sunnies drawn on in crayon,
i see overlapping fields,
but not the one with daises and frills
i see them pass the horizon
i know i will never come to touch

rather than the pretty rose,
that was showered with
praise and poise
and sunshine smiles,
the mimosa plant always was
pricked by the curious calico cat,
curling into itself
and if i were to do the same,
would i disappear too?

tuck in, tuck out
the irregular edges bother me
the filling slowly peaking out
of the corners i have yet to mend
flour coats apoh’s veranda floors
as she tends to aunt jenny’s calls

tuck in, tuck out
she’s left me all alone
with the dozens of wrappers
still staring back at me

tuck in, tuck out
i look away and she’s back again
she takes the dumpling from my hands
fixing the bits and pieces i have seemed to miss
she laughs and picks up my other one

tuck in, tuck out
the lines by her eyes are deeper now
her reading glasses are slowly sliding down
she folds down the left corner for me

tuck in, tuck out
and suddenly i’m 6 years old again
at the soy sauce stained dining table
eating the last dumpling left on the plate

i hear sobs through the paper thin walls,
i feel the grief swimming
in my veins,
the lit cigarette filled
with nicotine and
chemicals, i inhale.
filthy tobacco
smoke clouds my mind,
blocking the colours
of violet of these bruises,
i exhale.
i look out the opened window, seeing a horizon
of stars and constellations,
constantly battling.
the moon, shining oh
so bright;
i stare at it, with
wisps of sadness
and despair
hoping someone,
somewhere,
will look back.

for the caterpillar
that never seemed
to blend in with
the butterflies
will bloom
more beautiful
than the flower
it stands upon

for the light,
that could never
reflect high enough,
for the first time,
has reached the peaks.

It’s your first birthday away from home. 18 was old school, full of firsts and fears of growing up. At 19, your last teen, you’re older now, firsts are no longer feasible yet no one tells you about your first birthday alone. Your friends at 18 are no longer the first you see when you the clock strikes midnight simply because they are not your first friends anymore. Your friends at 19 are different, older and birthdays are days you are born on, that doesn't mean they love you any less. At your last teen, you spend your first alone. You learn to re-love yourself. You no longer need the boy to text you at 00:00 nor your parents’ forehead kiss by the foyer. You no longer need a surprise cake nor the flashy birthday posts. You need yourself, who has always been there for you at your first first because here’s to re-loving yourself at your last teen, at nineteen.

my dearest darling,

when i die under the sun,
when the space next to you feels emptier,
when the carrier pigeons stop their run,
i want you to feel,
the colder morning skies
and the softer evening tunes.
i want it to hurt,
to feel bounded to carry on
to like other women and to think of me,
because at least i’ll know it mean something,
when the moon no longer shines over home.