I learned my first lesson in love when I was seven years old, sitting cross-legged at the kitchen table while my mother chopped garlic and told me that no man would make me happy. The year I turned sixteen, I lost my virginity at three in the afternoon in a claustrophobic studio apartment, to a tall twenty-four year old I had met just the day before. After we finished he asked me for a dollar to do laundry, and I said that I didn’t have one, and he kissed me on the forehead and told me to hurry home before it gets dark. After that I spent my time learning the shapes of men, the shapes of men smoking on the sidewalks and the shapes of men straight on the other side of the bed at midnight. The feel of men when they held my hand and showed me where they wanted me to touch. The feel of each man, all different and all the same. I learned the taste of cheap wine they gave me before they undressed me, learned a new language of just yes, please, and thank you. I learned that in the morning some men will hand you a cigarette and pretend to know your name, and some men will make scrambled eggs and pretend to know your name, and some men will remember your name while they’re politely asking you to leave. The year I turned sixteen, I met a man with terrible posture, from a place that seemed not so far away at the time. The first time we touched, awash in the static of the crowd, that was when I felt safe for the very first time. The first time the shape of a man made me feel safe.

I love you
not because
you're good looking

I love you
not because
you're caring

I love you
not because
you dote on me

I love you
not because
your smiles are sweet

I love you
not in lust
of your crevice
or orifice
or skin

I love you
because
without you
I feel

incomplete within.

Settle your head on the deep, green grass,
For I'm about to take you on a journey that will last.
Wipe away your tears,
And chase away your fears.

Stare into the sky,
Do you want to fly?
Do you want to fight;
With all your might?

Do you want to prove them wrong,
For making you look anything but strong?
Do you want to carve your success,
And show them your progress?

Do you want to win,
Even if emotions slam you down with a pin?
Do you want to live,
Even if nights make you want to walk off a cliff?

You need to win this battle.
Not against society,
Not against your neighbour.
Not against your best friend,
Not against your boyfriend.

You need to win this battle,
Against the demons in your head.
You need to win this battle,
For yourself.


For once in your life, put yourself above everyone else.
*It will make a difference.

I. Parade Square

I can still feel the blisters from the hotplate ground,
the tar off my marred body,
imagine my acid sweat coercing my eyes
to burn with an perverse, masochistic
fire for this
torture
my tongue could never profess.
Running or sprinting blind, and
then a rumble above, force open my eyes to
watch the undercarriage of the SQ A380
hang low like a
ladder.

II. Swimming Pool

Usually we swim here,
or get cooked by the sun,
but there was once we pumped eighty
because the FT was bored and wanted to go
home,
early.

III. Cookhouse

Pre-dawn,
we sit down half-asleep,
milo in hand,
a lump of oily I-don’t-quite-know-what on my plate.
Every table a section-full of once-boys
taking a glimpse at the outside world through flat rectangular
window panes that hang from the ceiling.
At 0600, Channel News Asia plays the National Anthem,
and I wonder why we don’t sing it
anymore.

IV. Range

It is going on two months in this foreign land
Two months of having not shot a single picture

A single snug trigger-click, snap-shot
Burst of colour – bang! – picture

Tangy black three-point-eight-two kilos that
Hang off me like a corpse-like appendage

Two months of wading through picturesque scenery
Lilac cirrus sky, or the sleeping shadows of silhouetted trees

And no chance to shoot any photos
But the picture of simulated ******

As I point and pull, hear the
Trigger-click of my camera go

bang.

V. Grenade Ground

When I picked up the little
inconspicuous
olive thing, and placed it in the pouch
next to my left breast, beside my
heart,
I couldn’t help but ponder
if that was how the Bali
bombers
felt like, moments before they
died.

VI. Beyond the Sphinx bridge

This is another world;
a world filled with so many dark
memories
I cannot write about it.
I would have saved you from drowning in your
waterlogged grave, except
I was drowning
myself.

On the long ride back
to camp,
I gazed into the distant twilight, thinking,
we may sit in the
same
tonner, but in actuality
we all find our own roads
home.

VII. Coy Line

When I shower I close my eyes,
feel the slow trickle of water from
the broken showerhead, and
imagine myself in a hotel villa, or
one of those luxury hotsprings.

When the lights go off I lie back,
gaze out at the orange floodlight that
shines through the panes,
illuminates my teary face,
darkens my world
to a quiet, uneasy
sleep.

VIII. Ferry Terminal

Every book-out
I let the man scan my card,
puff up my shoulders
and catwalk down the dock
with a sense of newfound authority.
I’m a civilian now.

Sit and hear the low rumble of the ferry
get louder and
louder
like a plane on the verge of taking off;
like a soul on the verge of
escape.

Yesterday

a momma dreamt
of rocking her little girl
while she read sweet stories
of a fairy tale world

a father dreamt of smiling
while he shook his sons hand
the day that little boy
became an honorable man

a big brother dreamt
of the day that his mother
would finally bring home
his new baby brother

Today
a momma's rocking
her precious little girl
afraid come tomorrow
she'll no longer be in this world

a father is crying
while he holds his own hand
for his perfect little boy
will never grow into a man.

our children are dying,
at least seven a day
their siblings are lying
saying they'll be okay.

tubes like little serpents
cover their beds
they’ve little to no hair
on their sweet little heads

September is here
now our voices will be heard
our words will reach
every inch of this earth.

-ARI

I write when I'm happy
I write when I'm sad
Once I've written all I can
My heart fills with a wave of tidal oceans,
I feel glad.

I write words to inspire,
some words filled with desire,
as long as the message is clear,
I want to open up your mind, eyes, ears
to see what I've written
I want the whole world to hear.

my writing you see might make you sigh,
make the depths of your heart touched,
make you redden with burning anger,
or simply make you cry a river,
forgive me if I offend you in my writings,
my aim is for my words to be reached.

as long as the message is clear,
I want to open up your mind, eyes, ears
to see what I've written
I want the whole world to hear.

that's why I write.