i smell like diet pills i might've
gone to therapy and lie, she said
i was doing great. everyone says that
but my parents   are me. i'd rather
chug mcdonald's cola and forget
the taste of *****. i miss
my parking lot. i miss
staining the car seat

my father says i am going bald
i say you haven't seen the most of it

let's see how this turns out
i dissociate my way
to the future. no one knows why
i'm crying. no one knows i'm crying
i can't stuff a vacuum
i can't let bleed a dried out
i can't breathe  my mouth is bad

who knows there are things
worse than suicide -- i do
and i'm doing it
because no one is letting me die
everyone is so ******* selfish
why can't i be?
my life has gotten significantly worse
since eight years ago
the thoughts of killing myself
has always been my only solace

i'm so sorry that you don't matter
nothing you say or do
would ever soothe me
you can stop me
truth is, you're the one who stop me
over  and over
again. what atrocity
to drag one no longer fit for living
hope  isn't a morphine
it's just a playground
for adults who had unhappy
childhood

the world is spinning
footsteps
people keep breeding
making money, spending
getting a job, dressing up for the boss
trying not to get *****, get ***** anyway
losing weight, gaining a tenfold
changing mirrors
dropping out of school
never leaving home
trying to escape the hands
always got caught by the eye
the walls are covered with ears
there's nowhere to run to
i'll always be found out
as if i did a some kind of grave crime

how dare you not have mint chocolate chip available on my birthday, do you know how many years i and my mother
wait
to have the mint chocolate chip ice cream of our life? answer me, baskin robbins

although i know her eating such sweet flavor is only a figment
i can't wish on my birthday candle
the only birthday candle i got
was from a sushi joint
mother, i didn't get a single present
not even now, not even tomorrow
i'm going to
the future with my boyfriend
he's called dean, also god, also gpa

all i want is to die
my boyfriend's real name is diploma
i wonder
if i'd ever want to date a boy
all i want is to die

answer me, baskin robbins
do you also want me to die? you've known me
for all my life
i don't remember
i don't remember
the joy of being born
mother, did i laugh when i escaped your womb? did i even smile?
you must've been aware of that
right
i want to go to a baskin robbins outlet where they have mint chocolate chip

xix. but if i were to die by my own hands (my honest dying note would probably mention my uni life) would he turn a blind eye like he always does or would he erase me as if i was never there? i'll never know because i wont die just because i want to. i'll never know, of course, because i'll live and graduate and i'll be the one who forgets him, not vice versa

the only reason im here is to run away & i failed, so i keep seeking for ways to flee, i keep fighting my own shadow. why would anyone study their soul out just to get into the so called best uni in the country that is far away from their home, i wonder as well. my intention was not to study, i wanted to die. im breathing fine. sometimes i get too excited it's so uncomfortable & when i fall it's a dry and dusty abandoned well, you know that my vision stays in the ground. doesnt the soil look lovely, i wonder as well.

the only reason im here is because i am alive, i dont know why it is so obvious to other people yet it's an epiphany to me. i shouldnt be alive today. i shouldnt have survived 2014, let alone 2015 & 2016. it's almost may and now i start to think how nice it will be to be old and have more space for peace rather than keeping chaos as a pet.

this is embarrassing, sure, but sometimes i think i need to feel embarrassed. do you get what i mean, because i kinda dont. anyway, if this is something i can be proud of, i'll without any doubt brag to my parents and post it all over my social media. ive never liked bragging online, but if it's so good i'll think so hard of why not and still not get any good answer. it's a curse for vain people to get trapped inside a body with low self esteem. (fact)

maybe i made a mistake when i entered this uni. all i could think of was death, i didn't think i would be alive until halfway to graduation. now i dont worry about when i'll be able to die anymore, i just worry about when i'll be able to properly study just like the student i used to be. i just worry if i can graduate on time, i just worry if i can graduate with honor. how naive this kid is, i hope she remembers how she totally ruined her grades last semester. (no i dont mean thats the right pronoun i just go with the flow)

there is no flow, of course. why am i saying these things on a poetry website rather than on my rant blog, i wonder as well. i worry about the future & now all the pictures have me in them. i have many regrets about the past but they are a part of what makes me myself. (certainly not a claim that i have a clear sense of self) as for the present, i dont really like being here. i still feel like it will feel so great to not exist at all. but im breathing in anticipation. is it believable, my looking forward to the future, i wonder as well.

xviii.       i   grow like a pimple

only that i       stay

permanent stain, perhaps


concealer

xvii.

my dear neurosurgeon
failed to find my eyes,
he only looked
at my mouth, my
left jaw,
whine a little,
and gave me analgesic - i f

orgot what's the na
me - that replaced my f
ace with the mo
on. it's moon face. still

present until this very moment
just because my body wants to
remember. i
maintain my diet like there's
no tomorrow but actually there is &
boy did it
grace my stomach with a

crying gift, an angel's tears,
an angel lives near the volcano
everything turns sour.

i wasn't hurting at that time.

now i am. turning not only
my face to the moon, my whole body
is the moon, even my
fingers are the moon
but they are the crater part so
when i touch a boy he

disappears - when i
touch a girl i disappear.
i've never wanted to be a boy,

only some nights
i am so fragile i become masculine.
it's not that i've never felt
feminine, i do, every time

i am catcalled i do, every
time my father kisses me like a jewel
i do, every time my brother
treats me like a marionette
i do, every time i'm seen as angry i swear i do.

my mother is angry all the time but
that doesn't do anything about
her womanhood - her husband
still sees her as a good, and yes, the eyes
of a man
are like the sun, nothing at all
like mine.
my eyes are the only part of me
that is not the moon, that is pluto.

i've been to so many doctors
i am very sure it's not
the minds nor the medicines.

it's funny
that

my dear neurosurgeon
didn't even graze my skin -
the only time a knife
tore my epidermis open

it was a slim box cutter.

i've been to so many doctors,
i am very sure.

xvi. where do you go when your house isn't home?

i ******* crawl out of my body, swim infinite miles of the ocean, stretch my neck to the skies, replace my head with the moon. i ******* yearn for your presence, try to break the mirror with my weak stare, can't go further, fitting room doesn't fit whatsoever, all the buttons escape from my ***** and hair falls like tiny dandelions in a rainstorm.
i grow potatoes in my mouth, when i speak i smell of my root, when i am on my period i talk about stomachache at dinner table, when i search for space my tummy is the balloons at pingkan's 8th birthday party which i couldn't bring home. blow the candles i forgot to make a wish for a moment the fate seems seamless, bright red lipstick, brown mascara, outfits i can't ever wear to school, or to be honest, not anywhere because when i try to walk, every step is a ******* hysterical cry, when i use my toes every cell in my body violently shakes.
my house isn't home. my house isn't home. my house isn't home. my house isn't home. my house isn't home how do you know that? how did you barge into my clichés? how dare you claim something that even i won't bring myself to think about?
i ******* crawl out of my body, not as soon as possible, i do it right now, right ******* now so i know the years i've spent trying to nourish the flesh i don't really own are worthless, the years i've devoted myself to my worldly lover are the ones that have been consuming my tiny soul, if you ask me now of course no one is satisfied, no one is satisfied until i don't want to call you mine anymore.
i ******* crawl out of my body.
in a desperate attempt to make the hideous pleasing to watch, i sell blindfolds on the street, i light the matches in the rain, i dream of dead grandmother and christmas feast. i turn into a cold statue, i left the tenderness for stupid microorganisms, my divorced bones blame me for everything i did not do. i used to do the right things now i just do nothing, it's ******* useless anyway, i can blink five thousand times and still believe that time is what the clocks and calendars say. (my grandmother was a buddhist.)
i ******* crawl out of my body. i don't want to experience this anymore, i am not into this kind of thing, i long for your presence, all i've got from this building is an infinite count of absences. my body is a building, it has no level, no room, no door, no window, no furniture. my body a giant concrete boring box, i do not even live there anymore, nobody lives there anymore, they are all gone to a poppy field in the middle of nowhere (actually somewhere, only that i am not invited). i ******* crawl out of my body, did that answer your question?
i ******* crawl. out. of. it.

xv.

###
how do i survive
with metal hangs in my jaw
and plastic melts in my eyes,

both are lacking
what a body is supposed to have:

balance,
balance,
balance?

and with balance they never mean
everything goes the same way

in the same day,
the same pace,
the same face,

the same chemical formula to and fro
all over the place from tip to toe.

balance is never anything they mean.
it is never the thing it is supposed to mean.

it is not the seventh cranial nerve,
nor the sick tongue nor the dotted gum.
not a moon instead of a head,
nor the medicines,
nor the warm water,

nor the faces they make to know how it feels like,
(spoiler: they still don't know, they can't ever possibly
with heart as hard, no desire to learn,
no passionate dreams mentioning equity,
not once does it cry about what intersects with the music
they play so skillfully)

###
it is not the misplaced lips,
not the nonfunctioning left side,
not the one smaller eye nor the other bigger eye.
you cannot tell what i was born with.
you keep guessing wrong

that i was born with angry hands
desperately trying to hide the void where
every sincere smile is overthrown
and each tooth has their own problem for me to solve.

all the days you are a persona and i am the property:
i have been busy preserving what's inside,
carefully guiding my cells in place,
while you cheerfully break it
little
by
little

because of what appears from the outside:
even from the inside i can tell
i am ****** up so very horribly,
and with that alone, every adolescent can
pull a great show
of thousand jokes.

xiv.

The heat is
heavy and a
gold,
though different from wha
t
I learned in high sch
ool.

I stopped sleeping
with the lights
on. I stopped wa
king up to a smooth,
even sleepiness. I
stopped admiring sunrises.

In high school
there were girls and only girls.
An all girls school
wasn't that much
extraordinary. A
lot of
people don't un
de
rstand, bo
ys were not practical un
til
you want u
s pregnant.

I wish we started being extinct,
right here and
now. I wish we
started earlier. I
wish
we
'd start at all.

Back then
I drew a lot.
I wrote some
things I can't
write anymore, nev
er ever
    ever
   ever
  ever
ever
ever

xiii.

Kisses, tongue and hickeys
Growing ******* pure as a saint

Curious skin, curious chirps
Sins bright as a sun

Secrets in the nights, regrets in the thighs
Can we unlearn something once it has been done?

Lips barren and unmoved
For wisdom is more valuable than rubies

Cheeks pale as a paper
Written down, your name

xii.

big hips; small hips and long, skinny legs
people and the worlds inside them
pointing at the screen
which movie should we watch?

the last time i watched movie alone
was divergent
it was an insane ride
and my parents picked me up
knowing i had lost a thing
but they didn't ask
and i didn't tell
i was ***** by poetry

-- i am holy
just like lilith, eve, and mary --

watch out i am trying to heal
so what if i am romanticizing
illness! i am not ill
enough
to lose

my eyes see clear
anabelle, tickets sold out
the people; in hijab, in short skirt
in high heels and slippers
their faces
i see them clear

it looks the same like that friday
just feels different
it has been months
a relatively insane ride
so cathartic

my land may well be a big cathedral
or some sweet mosque
with all the gods
praying to each other
with cold soup in their tongue
and stale milk they offer

to the homeless like us, you know
home isn't really the walls and roof
that keep you from rain and sundust
home is the rain and dust and your sunburned hands and the acnes on your face and
the wounds on your knees
you got when you were learning
to bike