In my life story you'd be the heroine.
You'd have chapters devoted to your hip bones,
And verses about your scent.
I'd write run-on sentences about the musical notes of your laughter
And paragraph after paragraph about the way you looked first thing in the morning.
I'd invent new poetic devices to describe the feel of your skin against mine.

In your life story I'm a sentence, the bare minimum.

Unravel your secrets.
Open up your mind,
Watch your wrists, they pour regret.

Unravel your secrets.*
Allow yourself to unwind.
But little girl, do not fret.

I will not betray you.
For I have secrets too.

I was hungry.
So I ate my dog.
Uncooked.
It's flesh got stuck between my teeth.
Which is good.
I can still taste it now,
when I am hungry.

the night we watched two candles burn,
it was moonless and starless and
that accentuated the fires.

i remember you said,
with the breeze combing your hair,
that our love was just like two candles.

i agreed, as it seemed then
the flames of our passion and desire
were similar to the candles - restlessly burning.

we kept silent after, admiring the symbols of our love
both their wax bodies melting in rhythm.
you said, we will be beside each other forever.

and a poetic couple we were, i noted how
the melted wax conjoined the two candles
and you said our love brought light to others.

the flames extinguished simultaneously, shortly after,
and in a unanimous duet, as if pre-planned, we whispered:
'till death do us part'.

last night, it was me with two candles
though, with a gleaming moon and a dozen stars
that stole the attention and outshone the two.

and while the flames still faded simultaneously,
it was extinguished only by the saltiness
of tears belonging to a broken lover

and the mercilessness of your absence.

sometimes, i sense myself spilling
my youth from a fragile glass jar.

other times, i conclude it's just me storing
up for frantic spending in its decaying days.

but mostly, my duties occupy the space -
this intangible commodity squeezes for place.

such metaphors would have been absurd and
bizzare to the shrieking children of the kampong days

my grandparents talked about: climbing trees that rusted
with rambutans, ankles dipped in mud burgeoning with

self-invented games, a bedlam of clucking chickens fleeing
unsuccessfully, dinner for a hut bursting with extended family.

nothing i can identify with: neither a similar event, nor
a familiar atmosphere of wild abandonment of youth.  

i exist in a time where parents knock on rooms to bring their
students nutritious chicken essence, with a stack of expectations.

what's so good about progress: when our roots are saliva-speak,
when our youth and beyond are spent before it's expiry?

much like acclimatisation, i am ashamed to reveal that,
many times i can feel alive only when i adhere to the routines in

this city of expectations.

Can my poems touch you?
Can they make you feel?
I tell you what I think is true,
show you what is real.
How could my poems touch you,
maybe make you kneel,
if when the day is through,
even I can't feel?