You came into my dreams last night.
I can't recall the details
but I remember you.

Do come again.
I shall be waiting.

*I will...
to sweep you away.

The crows spent the entire night on your roof.

They have swallowed the moon, and rested on the curtain. Soil and death lingered on their feet, as if ready to take their final clutch.

I flinched as you lifted the lid. You can almost imagine me down here, I suppose, yellowed by the hanging street light which warmth had abandoned after fireflies found a sanctuary in its suspended cold feet. I'm afraid I can only last until morning, but I will still love you until then.

Please, leave a gap on your window.

Let the breeze enter; I will part the wind
and I will slip past your curtain.

I will lie with you
and we will exchange battered whispers.

I will alter the stars
and we will dismember the hours.
We will defy infinity.


**We will disappear.

They came again, last night – those women in black suit contrasting the sheet on my back.

One of them was holding a tray; the other was pushing a cart. All in all there were three women, one with a tray and one with a cart. The sight of the clattered metal made me shudder; the coldness crawled from my neck down to my spine. It was rusty and ****** and somber in that dimness of the endless corridor outside.

I, however, cannot tell those things inside the cart. I wouldn’t want to. No one will believe me. If I do so, they will hurl me in that room then wrap a cold, unfeeling machine round my head and fire indiscriminate gunshots. No. I will not. I cannot. They wouldn’t believe me. They will chain me, call me mad and electrify me while guaranteeing nonsense.

But it happened, really. It happened. They pushed my blanket down and my robe up, its edge touching the base of my chin. And it was very cold, and very rough, and very sharp, that metal the woman dragged on my chest, on my skin.

It was very rough.
And very cold.
And very sharp.

And she was too strong, the other woman in black. Her left hand covering my mouth I could barely breathe, her right keeping my arms at bay while she dragged the metal on my chest, creating this curve and that slice.

And my skin burned that kind of thin burning consuming not just a tree but the entire forest with all its silent secrets.

"I don't want this to end," he whispered.
"It will end," I exhaled.

Inevitably.

I am holding you tightly to my chest,
my beating heart.

My ears pressed against the fabric of your clothes.
(No, you don't wear any clothes when sleeping)

Sorry, I will, for you,
when you arrive.*

So, my ears then,
pressed against the warmth of your skin.
Your heart beating my name.
You humming softly,
looking out the window,
watching the poundings of the rain.

Career, in his mind, is just a 20th century invention. My admiration seared when he admitted that he doesn't want one. So unlike a typical human being, that man. Four months later, they found his lifeless body in the Alaskan wilderness.

I could have married him, you know? I could have run away with him beyond the edge of the world - two hunted individuals leaving the stereotypical expectations of this stereotypical society. We could have had children, you know, whose names would be very strange, like the sound of the ocean in its sheer stillness or the explosion of its raging waves.

You know what made him beautiful, among all the others? His act of defiance. Most men that ever existed are coward *******.

December arrived
and knocked on the door.
And I slumped on the chair
and stared at the ****.

While the afternoon is glum
I would draw my chair
and write my verse.

I would choose the words carefully.
I would calculate the space.
I would blend the atmosphere in all perfection,

and I would prop its truthfulness
until it is strong enough to stand beside your name
under this overcast sky.

In the corner of my room
stood a mirror
that had witnessed
our countless hideous crimes.

Even now,
I can still smell
your scent
lingering on the bedsheet.

I can still hear
your gasps
sitting in the air
like tiny atoms

composing my flesh
which had grown so
accustomed to the warmth
of your skin.

In front of the mirror
I stood
and the last thing I remember
is the tempting sneer

on the razor's edge.

Body,
please rest.
You've been tormented by Mind
all day
all night.

Please,
lay down
and lay still.

There's so much words
suspended in midair
and I have to select

only the greatest.
Understand that I only want the best for you
and nothing more.

I tremble
as I extend my arms
and choose the words,

the marks,
the phrases,
the sentences,

the scars,
the hearts,
carefully,

afraid that I might pick
the inappropriate star
for my weaving.

I want you to be the most beautiful constellation I will ever create.

As the ocean
sat on your tongue
and waited to flood over me

you've disarrayed the stars
and draped them
on my skin.

My exhausted blouse and your restless jeans
are the sheer reminders
of our unimpeding infinity.

And as I locked
your waist
between my legs

The world quivered
then burst
into a series of flicker and flames.

This is how I shall remember us:
We crave a love so deep
the ocean would be jealous.

Dear You,

Elope with me on a fine summer day.

We'll ride a random bus and hope to end up somewhere strange and unfamiliar. We will communicate in strange languages; laugh at silent jokes. We will lie under the stars, talk about distant islands and let the night hear our secret happiness and endless regrets. Because we're the vikings and we will never be defeated.

We will reappear under your blanket. We'll turn off the light and make love under the faint glow of the moonlight until the inconsolable heat of the afternoon. We'll flicker like a fire, we'll perch like butterflies. I will hold you the way I hold my pen - you can be certain that even after the last drip of the ink, still I will never let go. In my stories, I pledge to make you immortal.

Because you will never age for me.
Nor fade.
Nor die.


Until we defy immortality,
*Me

I would very much like to tell you
How my last night went through.

It was raining, that time.
Distant ramblings of thunder
And constant slice of lighting
One could almost capture
And preserve in a bottle.

I would have, if it’s possible.
And would have handed down to you wrapped in a cloth and guitar strings.
To remind you that whatever might happen in the morning
We have lived everything we could.
This night, tonight.

From the coffee shop’s window,
I watched all these unfold
As the raindrops dripped and draped
And my hands scribbled your name
Barely readable on the tissue.
But it was still your name, nonetheless.

So that’s what I did,
While waiting for the rain to cease:
Stared past the window
And thought entirely of you.

No.
I'm fine.
As a matter of fact,
I'm happy. And perfect.

Yes,
my hair's uncombed
and my clothes are ragged
and I live everywhere

Under the table, sometimes
framing infinity.
Or on the edge of the precipice
conquering literature and flying

Or somewhere in the street
scattering the everlasting tunes
whilst letting the wind dismember
the feathers swirling round my earlobe.

It's my choice.
I refused to inhabit the life of conventionality.
On a fine summer day,
if you prefer, you can

Run away with me.

If words can make you immaculate
Then I will not speak for a thousand years.
Until I have captured enough of them
To stitch and wrap round your neck
Dangle down your chest.

It will be the colour of the sky, that thread
A pendant molded from the solitude of the clouds at night.
Drifting and swirling and wavering then bursting
Countless incoherent constellations.
They will be scattered on your hair and shoulder,
those stars.

When people fall in love,
They write poetries.
Perhaps,
a little like this.

Once upon a time mermaids exist.

And castles.
And princes.
And villains.
But never witch, and princesses.

Silverleaf stands above the bricked walls of old shops where hopes were traded for a three year memory.

The old shops breathe on the path made of leaves and twigs and wishes. It ascended to the tower that looks up to heaven forever, to the turrets which the clouds never abandon, to the place where the prince lived. With his wicked uncle.

His mother, with a hair the colour of winter and eyes where dreams lay, died after childbirth. His father whose veins were made up of stars and heart of sandcastle, was murdered in his sleep. And he, the prince, like his parents, will inevitably be killed.

When the time comes.
After he had been crowned.
Before he rules the land.

As he was young and the air was crisp and the day luminous and everything the shade of honey, the mermaid found the prince. Her scales glitter in the sun like crystals basking in summer glow. Her hair was dripped in promises. Her eyes the shade of lilac, of verse, of those people whose world has been swallowed by the sea.

She said hello to the prince.
And smiled.
And the prince fell in love.

As everything does.
Before it falls apart.

The prince went back beside the cave wall, on the stone, to meet the mermaid, day after day. He told her endless tales about burnt maps and oil lamps and treasures and pirates and chivalry. He promised her great lands, and gold. He said he'd build a vast ocean inside the palace where she would live, after he had married her. He said they would have children whose name would be the name of the remote islands, of silence, of the distant worlds and secret happiness. It was the place where he looked at her, interminably. And kissed her. And made love to her. In summer time. On the stone.

And in that moment, I swear they were infinite.

It came. The prince was hailed as the king. The greed to be fulfilled. The uncle to do the act. The death to arrive. The prince to breathe his last.

So with a sword made of glass and unicorn's tears, he stabbed the prince and twisted his heart and snapped its beat like a flower's stem. In disbelief the prince moved back. In triumph his uncle laughed. The prince's hand darted in his pocket, felt the flusk, parted his mouth, exhaled her name and locked her memory in the bottle. The prince fell down. The bottled broke and scattered themselves like confetti. His heed fluttered away from his palm, into neverwhere.

He stooped low, the uncle, and carried the dead body of the prince to the cave, beside the stone. And owned the palace and ruled the land.

The mermaid emerged from the water, held his neck, pecked on his cheek as if marking him hers, and took him to the place where every second never ceases.

And down
And down
And away
they

went.

It's a bit funny how the greatness of universities
from being the very institution
responsible for the cultivation of the critical mind
has been reduced to a mere store
retailing false assurance
and bits of paper.

What if the cure for cancer is just lurking somewhere,
somewhere in the head of someone
who happens not to have enough funds
to purchase the commodity
and privilege of education?

Swifts, on a fine morning in May, flying this way, that way, sailing around at a great hight, perfectly happily. Then one leaps onto the back of another, grasps tightly and forgetting to fly they both sink down and down, in a great dying fall, fathom after fathom, until the female utters a loud, piercing cry.....


of ecstasy.

So still
I can almost hear
the hands of the clock
painfully fading

and your footfalls,
between us,
slowly stretching away.

Just to let you know,
I will not be here
in case you trail back.

Moving on also exists in my vocabulary.

Is sitting on the bench
while forever stretches
on the road dividing you
and her.

To begin with and probably my greatest contention, I want my time and not their wage. That money is just a piece of paper that will undoubtedly aflame when put under the scorching heat. It is my skin that I want to burn. I want to see it red, feel the biting sting of the sunrays. The scars will serve as proof of my existence - that I have lived my life, and I have lived it well.

2. I do not understand the logic of mindless submission in exchange of titles or promotions or empty regards. More important are my fellow human being, and corporate world demands lots of trampling and oppression from the people executed to the people. Mindless submission could lead to ******. I prefer humanity than any corporate position and greed.

3. Why should I confine myself in the office if I could have the whole world? Life is out there. And it has to be conquered.

4. Borrowing the words of John Keats, I want to fill my days with more delight than fifty, or even thousand years of common existence could ever contain.

You are
the bitter taste of coffee --
a lump of spite
and insecurity in my throat.

You murdered everything
long ago and turned us into rubble
yet you have not really moved on
from your paranoia

and cowardice
and bitterness
and hesitations
and poetry

that reeks nothing
but unrequited love
and cheap hunger for
pathetic attention.

You may hide behind
your computer screen
yet you cannot arrest your insecurities
from transcending these digital borders,

polluting my coffee
and forming this lump of spite
in my throat
demanding to be noticed.

Please, do us both a favour --
dissolve yourself into nothingness
and do not, don't ever
live once more.

As the police
arranged their shield
You stood upfront
and raised your fist.

Your demand
for humanitarian reforms
was answered by beatings
yet you resisted

and struggled
and clenched your fist
and waived your flag
as thousand marched across the streets.

Stones trailed behind you.
I'm glad you're not the type of woman
who burn a life
in the bar

in apathy.

Rain.

Please, cease.
Just cease.
Cease beating the roof.
Cease falling off the leaves, or the tree barks.
Cease kissing the pavement
or the people's skin.

Cease hoping
for hope sits on the first row to disappointment.

So please,
please, cease.

Just... cease.

Even the windows had acquired the moss. It sprawled on the pavement, the moss, with all those leaves, fallen barks, soda bottles and old hapless notebooks. The pane was shattered, its edge towering, watching time and absorbing solitude.

The **** on the front door was damped and covered in rust. From the roof, stray veins dangled and decided to suspend themselves in mid-air. Scattered on the pavement leading to the entrance were glittering kisses and shards of glass. A shadow from the past lurks apprehensively – hiding behind the wind, bending below the grass.

They say it was sleeping down the cellar. I never found out. But in the middle of it, a chair has been deserted – broken and abandoned.

The hinges creaked as l slipped my foot inside. I shivered at the face of desolation as my leg touched the corner of the door. The passing time ruined the flooring; stray plants and bleeding flowers sprouted the space and occupied the place. Sometimes, at night, fireflies light this void and drown themselves in ecstasy.

Sawdust fluttered carelessly round the stairs that ceased breathing halfway. The steps have retained the sound of the shuffling footsteps. Even the birds fear this spot, the windowpane had lost all its former glory and shining reflections. The edges of the glasses hang loose and proud, captivating than summer, sharper than words.

I moved close, bended my knees, placed my ear near your half-opened mouth and listened to the sound of your breathing. Your hair draped down the side of your arms, half of your face is hidden away from me and I wonder if you’re calling me in this dream, exhaling my name

Over
And over
And over
And over

Leaving traces and creases on the sheet as I staggered my way back beside you from the labyrinth of this captivating decay unfolding on your very palm.

And comfort me
why some poets
are not as beautiful
as their poems.

Until I dissolve
among the series of old verses
and forgotten scars.

My affection for you
will rise above
the corruption of heavens
and drought of all the seas.

Find him commenting in some poetry site. He is the one who has an avatar taken some 8 years ago. He usually floods people's notification with likes, sometimes comments, encouraging them to pen more and appreciating how talented they are.

In his page you will see old poems which record the details of his life. The happiness, the pain and the longing, the failures and the regrets, the endless hope and the secret dreams.

Layer by layer, he will take you in the various avenues of his past while constructing the future he imagined will exclusively be for the two of you. Certainly, it's not the tomorrow of the moon and sun and stars, shining and splendid, but it's not the tomorrow of ******* either. Because the guy who writes has the courage to face the truth and defend it no matter what.

Date a guy who writes. Sometimes, you will find yourself arguing with him about drugs, and you will find him comparing weeds with make-ups or coffee in some car accidents. You will find him absurd. You will call him stupid. He will call you a dunce. He will walk out. But when all is said and done and frustrations had subside, you will see him retracing his steps and staggering back to you. Yes, that's my man.

Be with the guy who writes. He's the type of person who remembers the details of you and never forgets. He even knows what your breathing sounds when you sleep, the sharpness of your every inhale and the gravity of your every exhale. And he could write about it. In sheer metaphor.

He gets paranoid sometimes, the guy who writes. There are moments in your life, nights like this, when all the worlds are asleep including the moon, when an idea must be coined and placed on the palm of your hand and handed to him as soon as possible, lest it would disappear.

In this kind of situation, do not ever give a hint until the surprise has been wrapped. Because he will press you to talk about it, insist his desire of knowing what it is about, accuse you of being difficult then claim that you are merely trying to annoy him. He can be obnoxious and suspicious but when everyone sees you broken, beyond questions he will find you beautiful.

Date a guy who writes because he has the will to stay and the strength to maintain his loyalty -- through the ups and downs of life he will never give you up. To him you are more than every poetry that has ever written in human history. To him you are greater than literature and far larger than biography.

To him, you are more than the stretch of the ocean to nowhere and the bend of the river in the mountain. To him, you are more relevant than the reality of everything and at night, before he sleeps, he will look at you and you will see in his eyes the infinity of forever in various forms.

Dude! It ***** to be you. The ******* love of your life, you see, is prettily living her ******* life in a ******* kingdom by the ******* sea - with a man she just met in the gymn last Saturday - while you, you have your ******* left hand flat on your ******* parchment as you bury your head on the edge of the ******* otherness and curl your right into a ******* fist containing various worlds and stretches of forever.

Apart from curses, I have no other vices. My life is incredibly dull, you see? You have put me here atop your ******* tower overlooking the ******* ocean on my ******* own and then ******* killed me eventually.

How dare you composed a masterpiece out of my death you ******* *******!


*Your ******* Annabelle Lee,
to loved and be loved by me

Why do you have to fall
and break your self
on the cold, cold
pavement?

You said that I should work. You said that I should work hard. You said that I should save some penny, so I would have some, for the future. So, in our sheer effort to earn a living, we have practically forgotten how to live.

I guess, I must say ******* *******. In the first place, I am not even sure if I would still be here the next minute. Why should I worry about tomorrow?

Why should we care?


*Your Individualist Daughter

This morning as I stroll along, I passed by two security guards carrying guns that could practically shatter
a person's head in a single bullet. Between them stood an ATM being refilled by a bank associate.

This is capitalism:
**An era when paper has more protection and value than human lives.

How about him,
on the other end of the world
while I,
on the other side of the world

lay on my back.
The sound of the rain crushing the roof
blending with the music he plays
which traverses in my headset.

In a hurry,
the legs of the ant traversed the length of the electric wire.
Half way,
the animal hesitated,

turned round,
met my gaze,
ceased walking
before finally walking away.

It must have understood my plea
to be left alone.

She bowed her head
and picked up the questions
which fell on her plate.

The fork was marked
with doubt of otherness
engulfing the atmosphere

as thousands hands
escaped from
the thousand rooms

while the walls
and the picture frames
and portraits

and windows
and tapestries
and candle-sticks

exhaled her name
and shook and screamed
for her to run.

You see,
the border of her dress is stained
and is filled with sand.

Your voice on my hair
Your breath on my skin.
The arch of your spine.
The void in your mouth.
The flood on your tongue.

They say it's beautiful,
but it's not.

Dearest.

Forgive me.
I have spilt my coffee
on your working table.

But Mrs. Crestfold was back.
She entered the door
wrapped in harlequin clothes,

danced,
then walked straight to where I sat
whilst I was writing the manuscript for the opera.

From her pocket,
I saw her withdrew
a bowl containing

a freshly cut heart,
buried in ruby
and bricks.

She said it was yours.

Tonight,
in the midst of
barren buildings and deformed mannequins
I will meet you again.

And we will dance.