she lays limp upon the sea
foam mattress
gasping for air amongst the swarm
of tubes entangling around her body

i am across from her
a handful of popcorn held
together by a rubber band

is it within my own selfish desire
to keep my love afloat?
or shall i submerge
her gently into the ocean
of infinite nothingness
?

i open a poetry book
to softly narrate
her last words to her.

do not go gentle into that
good night.
old age should burn
and rave at close of day.

and as she slips away

rage. rage against the dying
of the light.

she tremors.

hey, ma. it's been a while.
i don't know if you remember
the sound of my chirpy voice
anymore.
it still comes up, every now and again;
when i'm baked beyond my brains
when i had just cracked the rankest pun
when i'm tangled in a boy's arms, lost -
lost. just like you ma.

i wonder where your mind takes you
when the ringing in your ears doesn't seem to go.
when you dissociate into the otherworld, and
the lashes of your
third eye sweep me away from your vision.

i thought the power of the universe was
supposed to be
abundant.
yet i have lost you to the vortex of your gods -
the same ones that leave
only the wind
to rock me to sleep.

ma,
i am pockmarked with your bad habits.
i lose touch with reality
myself, looking for the warmth of your
recognition.

i guess space is too large
for me to find your meditative corner.
or perhaps
i'm just looking in the wrong spaces.

space is nice because you have
no weight on your shoulders.
i miss the feeling of having
no weight on my shoulders.

when i grow up, ma
i want to be just like you.
lost.

i must be some sort of permanently exhausted pigeon;
claws clinging to the telephone wire
drearily blinking my way through
the morning meeting of the aerial acrobatic society.

i am a seagull swarmed
amongst the chirpy conjecture
of these early birds;
and my soul caws an honesty,
a wail, a howl, the truth.

i am a tainted swan
grittily paddling myself through the marsh
we call this world,
a lone observer of the acrobats,
the stickiness of my feet keeping me
flightless.

and you are a swallow;
redbull wings migrate you to warmer climates.
you hear the seagulls
but listen to the pigeons.
you notice the swan
but her murky shallows are too icy
for your liking.

and you are a chicken;
blind beyond your own free-range vicinity.
you catch the pigeons as jet planes,
and the seagull's whisper is alien.
you don't know miss swan.

I am plastered with minimarts and motorcycles -
a street so overwhelming to the senses,
but imprinted on the backs of the hands of
Mr. Yamamoto, Craig Miller, Agus Gunawan, and Sergei Ivanov.
What were they running away from again?
A tattered - sinfully boring - machine-repetitive life?
The thing about me is; even though you trash me
with cigarette butts and remnants of your sour past,
I am only a taste of tradition -
a façade before the secrets of the Gods unveil -
and you can bet that two October bombs won't dull my lambent.
In any case, you must purge the storm of serpents
before you sleep, and step into
the silence of monks.
But remember, the distance between your soul and mine will never change. Ever.

When I first fled my hometown,
I was told there was a separation:
a continental drift that dragged me by the wrists
and it was as if i was a ballerina that twirled
away too swift, so deep in desperation.
It was my fault, I say.
Home looked like marble tiles and candelabras on mahogany, so grazed with grandeur
solemn servants and chauffeurs
a prison echoing empty space
prim and proper, neat and tidy, dental dexterity
and a library of unsealed books i don’t read.
When I first fled my hometown,
I was told there was a separation,
but i had dreams too big to fit my pockets,
and living at home was essentially sedation.
It was all my fault, I say.

When my home shrunk
into 228 square feet-
stretched out 8821 miles away,
I was ready for reparations:
Ready to cocoon myself inside
for 28 hours, to be locked up in my little tower.
I’m free now, I say.
Home looked like my only dish,
unwashed for three whole days
sheets one solid colour
white walls
pantslessness
and an entire shelf of unsealed books i don’t read.
I rise to the setting of the sun;
water boiling in a kettle, and
i make instant noodles because there’s never
a place more silent and shielding
than home.
I am free now, I say.


When I bought a place of my own,
Home was just the right temperature
but too many cluttered corners.
my mind exhales
A pair of incessantly open arms await me,
and i get shamed for the books i lunge around
but don’t really read
there is no spit in my face
but there are kicks at my back
i am learning
that all the freedom in the world doesn't keep you
from the prison you hold in your own mind
i am learning
what a home feels like
for the very first time

i open my eyes to sunshine and orange juice
and the morning breath of a lover so oblivious to misery
our souls sing in flawless harmony

i am finally home
*and my mind exhales again

you are my alarm clock,
the vertical curve on the corner of my lip,

but you are not the urgent tap against my skin,
not the creases between my brows.

you are a tabloid magazine,
a stifling bank of encounters,
but not the ringing repetition
of electronic dance music.

you are a pair of socks with stains on them,
the warmth of the sun licking my back,

but you can never be a filthy fingernail,
and you will never be the bottom of a single serve of whiskey.

i wonder how
these love poems fade,
slither like snakes
from my mumbly mouth
and into your soft ears.

you are ten thousand miles away.
and i wake up to your midnight,
but there is no smoother sound
than your wholesome
hearty voice
whispering
"what's for breakfast?"

there is no time.
for when you are tired -
sweat dripping from your small forehead -
it is time
for the wind to pull me out the door.

so rest, little dove
close your eyes.
you know so little of
how deeply mine heart cries.

black liquorice.
a man walking me with his hand on the small of my back.
chilli-flavoured chocolate.
being called "exotic".
salads.
my long beautiful hair (it's a trap!).
eggs in the morning.
making myself look "pretty".
foie gras.
bleu cheese.
macarons.

i am an apricot,
dried and vacuum-packed amongst chunks of cashew nuts and *******.

i am a cigarette,
wrinkled and cracked with ashes so rank and how the wind whispers my bones away.

i am a stick of magnesium
extingushed halfway -

and i will never burn again
for you have swallowed my spark.

my name is my mother's strength

my name is an extension of my dad's best friend

my name is a sanskrit darling

my name is a literal gift from god

my name is the key dangling around my neck*

my name is a hair tie

my name is a broken input chord

my name is a ***** pack tied around an old man's beer belly

my name is my name

my name is my name

you know her clandestinely -
your hands seize her cracks and crinkles
as if she was yours to form, yours to grip

you dust her with your powdered purity;
it is the same ivory colour you wear across your back.
your hands caress her the way she desires

she flows
she inhales
she rises

and she's yours to keep warm.

dear . . . sweetie,

the projections of your essence is the type
to cook up a future of you;
of the home you call your heart,
or how you let it spill across the metal table,
just to knead it back together to construct wholesome smiles.

yours is the form of communication i've never known,
a presence that haunts me -
as the scent of your perfume lingers at the back of my tongue
as i taste a sweet fruit,
or how your stories speak to me
as my eyes trickle such mundane appliances around me.

you have taken not my heart, nor my soul.
you have extracted from me fragments of my time;
where i find myself caught in the air, mystically
hearing the songs that were stuck in my head when i first met you.

you are the soundtrack to my little death.
you are always right in the corner of my mind, just as i want to see you:
half-baked, smirking, and vulnerable.

i am a coloured picture
printed in black and white

you've trimmed my edges
i am just as round as all of you

they look at us and they see
a sea of like minds, like faces, like appearances

do we like it

i want to be a wild heart swinging
in the oblivious rhythm of movement

i am not a tool to negate your discomfort
i am not here for you to caress my conformity

ever since i could form a thought-
i knew of this phenomenon called god.
at least that's the name it was given.
but i could never think of god as a person,
a figure to look up to and
are ultimately afraid of.

god was never my best friend,
never something i devoted my life to
nor someone i gave anything up for.

god was the force that willed the plants to grow
upwards from the ground.

god was the recklessness that pushed me to forget my reasoning
and follow my gut.

god is how you can make sense of the past,
how your heartbeat and inhales and exhales
synchronise with the ocean
how you know what it means to feel electric.

god is what made my wrists stop bleeding at the right moment.
it made my father cry when he saw the flaw in his production.
god is what refused my angelhood
and allowed me to breathe
and live.

i still had time to grow.

so i prayed.
i surrendered to the magic of the universe.
i gave it my undying loyalty.

you may have the energy but i am the platform
i am the stage you trickle your toes upon
the strength you call for when your fiery-coloured life needs
air

breathe me into your wildfire
and when you are lucid
remember to take me with you to shield your roar

i want to be the only world to taste your inferno
exhaust me with your combustion, it's okay
even if my skin gets burned, even if i return to ashes

i will see you rise.
i will take your blaze as a warmth.
for your spark, i will forever be
**insatiable

the ache for home lives in all of us,
the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

here lies an unexplored current-
in its motion is a stillness;
in its havoc is a calmness.
it is nothing, it will always be bursting with its nothingness.

a child comes; stomps on the shallow waters,
feeling the striking cold water against his skin;
the fiery sun searing his back.
what do i feel, what do i feel?

emptiness goes unrecognised,
and the balance is created from within.
splish, splash
tune me out as i touch you, and take a part of you with me

the child rolls in the sand-
pressing the damp handfuls onto his body.
he tricks himself into believing that he belongs somewhere-
that he belongs here-
clearing up his mind-
as he tries to become one with the ocean-
as each handful of sand
teaches him that his home is inside him.

the ache for home lives in all of us,
the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

i will give myself to you inch by inch.
i will make you bored of that same inch.
i will make you crave another.
i will touch the same objects that end up haunting you.
i will make you prefer the sound of silence.
i will give you enough space to fabricate a future for us.
but not too much so that i can see you just one more time
leaving you so very confused with your bits and pieces of shattered ambitions

and then you won't see me again.
you'll forget about the pain i left in your chest - slowly, and with effort

until you see me again, happy.
or am i?

your absence is a lingering sensation -
a persistent reminder that i will be waiting
forever;
for you to come back home.
where have you gone, ma?

every time i'm hungry,
i will wait in the kitchen for you.
i don't know how to cook, ma.
i always thought you'd be around to show me how.

and even though my room is *****,
i will clean it up for you.
***** and span, just the way you like it.
i will brush my fingers over my table to see
if i've left any dust
the same dust you left, ma

and even though you faded away
i found it impossible not to grip you tighter towards me;
and you slipped, ma.
when will you come home?

as i recall the joyful tune
of your whiny voice:
complaining, complaining
i hear my heart whimper
it quivers, it quivers
it brings me eye to eye with the mirror
as i inspect my memories;
the same scars you call my mistakes
the same extensions you cut off

i've got more:
more blunders, more experiences
more love, more pains
dear god, you know nothing

i will reclaim my youth
and refuse to surrender to your dissatisfied jokes
how can you possibly know what it means to be whole,
when your purpose is to pick up the slices;
the shreds that i can sparingly call
my happiness?

so whine,
loop your futile tips and tricks,
attempt to fix me.
do it all over again.

**i am perfect the way i am

Exploring hands encounter no defence;
Recollecting endeavours drives her to a dry pain
Throbbing, throbbing
Hamlet's hamartia discards her to *the lowest of the dead

His vanity requires no response;
Her life on the line and he's got nothing to lose.
  So much more the eye can see
Caressing, caressing

Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass;
  Leave me, carbuncle:
Words she has never been able to utter . . .
Loudly, she thinks it
It doesn't translate
Shivering, quivering

Brittle monster bestows one final patronising kiss
  I must exercise some form of self control

Hardly aware of her departed lover,
She lays in a yellow blanket;
Phosphenes in the emerging light of day.

i know, that when you step out:
the sun will shine brightly on you,
fire will sweat to ashes as it meets you,
and flowers will melt to a pulp to respect you.

never, never know what it is to fall.
tread lightly, sweet soul;
for it's a trap, and the sand falls the tighter you grip it.

**this world belongs to you.

here i emerge, resilient as ever.
i am ethereal. i will spawn my soul.

i will love you here, now.
you will see me not as flesh and bones,
but as a series of frequencies;
blue, giant, intense, fluctuating,
or
red, a dwarf, calm, stable.
aloha - most clearly with my eyes shut.
for today i am a star. today i'm with the star.

As the light and shadows of overthinking roll over,
And the yellow raspberries start to doubt their realities,
I'll be here - owning nameless cats and refusing to buy furniture;
Lusting for the life I thought I had, green-eyed and sadistic.

Let's take a selfie. TRIPLE CHIN!

As you swipe for filters,
And draw a ***** on your friend's face,
I'll be here - fighting the urge to be useless;
Tapping and holding for fake friends.

Selfies. We've been afflicted with this terrible, god-awful disease.

And as you post a shaky video of your boyfriend driving?
And laugh at that joke you know you didn't find funny
I will be here - throwing my circles of seconds away.

**Three, two, one.

Two sides, four faces.
A god of some type, enraged.
Three eyes open, five hearts broken.

How the man who taught me morals
Went astray . . .
and I can't help him.
He won't let me teach him
The very same things
That he taught me

So I breathe through the filthy air!
Reminds me of a home;
One that is now liquified.
How bitter it is to swallow fire . . .

I trail through the tracks;
A horse amidst a mess of baggage.
Unsaddled;
To trot on
Into the fine truths of this world,
This one we call our abode.

i still slap my soul,
and drown myself in allergy.
it's autoimmune, me against myself
and i don't know who's winning.

Terbatas; terkunci; sendirian.
Mataku menyerap gambar-gambar di dalam lingkunganku,
Dan sekali-kali saya menemukan tanganku mencoba bergenggam
Masa depan yang punya saya;
Mungkin hanya di pikiranku.

Saya adalah seekor kucing kecil di pingir jalan;
Diabaikan, kotor, jelek.

to delete this **** poem

i don't wanna see it anymore. pls send help. ;_;

She's wheat-skinned and coarse-haired;
In a fair and lovely world. This woman embodied
Perfection; without ever journeying on a quest to seek it.

All the other girls understood themselves,
Each and every bit of them. She simply
Forgot; to look in the mirror, to be aware of her singular quirks, to be daunted by the schools of swordfish.

In the tribes of North Africa, communities banged drums and danced to please the Gods.
"Allah, Allah!" they'd temporarily yell to foot-stampers who seemed to invoke the spirits,
Those who took breaths of transparent inspiration and truly,
And truly, lived in that jiffy.

The entirety of her life was an Allah moment,
For she never ceased to be lit from below, and lit;
From within. Her monochromatic soul shined a spectrum,
And she was perfect, because she didn't need to be.

This is me.
The purest form of myself, in front of you today.
I'm a timid, analytical creature, sitting at the corner, just observing.
I am terrified to be standing here right now.
But this is also me, triumphing my fears and doing things that knock me off my socks.
"Wow, she must not always be her true self," you may think. Is it true, though?
I am not trying to put words into your mouth, or trying to make you think that I'm full of myself.
I want to share.
The idea of one's true self does not exist.
My essence lies in the fact that I really don't know who I am right now, or who I'll be in the future.
What if I knew who I was?
I would probably stick to being this timid little girl - hindering myself of all the possibilities that could shapen my personality.
My point is that timid me is me.
Confident me is also me.
Profane, rebellious me is also me.
Concealed, or raw; I am me.
I am the encompassment of all my personalities.
I may be a ***** with you, and I may be too liberal with you - but I will, still, always be myself - no matter who I'm trying to look like, sound like, or smell like.
This, is me.

I've always enjoyed thinking about the reasoning of our existence
Man was made in God's image
Then came woman to comfort man
Which u did by the way. Thank you
If eve never ate the Apple, man would have been immortal
So most men blame women for not making us live forever

But she did anyway
It made God decide a place in the heavens for us
So in a way, even the first woman knew exactly what she was doing
She did an exceptional job

What is me
What is this place I'm living in
I've begun to doubt the reality of the world
It's an illusion I've developed
During the days I've spent in straight limbo

I'm afraid
What if i wake up and mourn a lost dream
I can't go back to the white
The pain, the solitude
How can I remain in this beautiful illusion?

hi

You see the light at the end of the tunnel
But we keep pulling it away
You will have to live though your fears
Every single day

I never go to weddings
I'd usually end up using my magic girl power
Chasing the boy
Who asked me to catch him
And here's the catch;
"If you can."

I never go to weddings
I'd usually end up sulking away
Ignoring my frenemies
As I scorned at grown men
Leaning against the bar
Obviously wondering why,
Why,
I am not having any fun.

I never go to weddings
I'd usually end up sneaking out
With the guy I've been exchanging stares at
We'd talk all night

I looked forward to weddings, though,
I never go to weddings.

My habits didn't change
Once we snuck out to the nearby pool
Took off all our clothes
And I was photographed, stark naked,
Amidst the chlorinated stupidity

I never go to weddings
They're too uptight
I held up a glass of champagne and yelled,
"And ***** you!" to the man with a blue portrait
Of me in his wallet
As he kissed his bride for the third time

I never go to weddings
I'd usually end up being a bridesmaid
Wearing a ridiculous outfit
Smiling through the pain of my own singularity
And realising that no one really celebrates the couple for them
We are selfish

I never go to weddings . . .

the cursive clay-graphite goes on
   as my heart melts across the sheet of paper.
      never ceasing, history repeats - and is forgone
         as our bonds seem to turn into vapour.

how many words do i have to write,
so i can exhaust the eraser?
*i'm not a water-slide

We share our deficiencies:
A haven of sorrow and fury

Friendly - they say hello
In mischief and spite.
Warm or cool under your feet
They swerve near nonchalant districts
And foamy lips

Destructive - they leave without saying goodbye
A routine they developed
Over the series of washed up regrets
And maroon sediments

Attached - they stick like superglue
To the pang they forgot to tell you about
They leave and take a part with them
And inevitably imprint themselves onto you

We share our deficiencies:
A haven of sorrow and fury

The words of a person speak out
More than they do
Not their faces
Nor the minutely noticeable habits -
They don't realise they do

Chocolate. One that's amplified,
That crawls up your spine
As you tilt your neck to the side

Coffee. One that wakes you
To the harshest of realities

It's my fantasy.
I like surfing.
Starbucks.
I dare you to flirt with her.

Stop speaking,
I'm giving up on myself

I'll run with flops on my hands
Reminding myself of
Why I started this in the first place

he got them in a box, over Christmas
and he wore them everyday that week
the pyjamas, they were blue and white
oh how cozy he was each night

at age eight, the world was his oyster
and he dreamed of hanging bridges
the pyjamas, they made him fly
oh how, how he soared so very high

he tucked them away, as the flowers grew
and away they were kept year by year

the boy still closed his eyes, though
he was led into a world, by himself
the pyjamas, they were catching dust
this world, a place oozing with lust

he glanced at them, as the flowers wilted
and glanced at they were, year by year

it started a crack in the boy's voice
Peter Pan was now fictional
the pyjamas, were still there for him
but he, took each day with more grim

he opened the box in his closet, as the flowers grew again

it was a metamorphosis
you could even tell by the hair on his face
the pyjamas, they no longer fit
and now he, had a reputation of grit

he tucked them away, as the flowers grew
and away they were kept year by year

his son received something similar, over Christmas
the little boy hoped for a video game
the pyjamas, still blue and white
held less significance at night*




it was time to throw his pyjamas away
he burnt his child-like innocence, as
his memories - slowly - became dull, and grey