The platform smells like skunked beer and rain,
a combination that feels almost romantic
if you tilt your head the right way.

I’m here because I missed the earlier one,
but maybe that’s the point.
Maybe everything worth waiting for
comes late, sticky, and half-empty.

I lean against the pillar,
fingers tracing someone’s graffiti confession—
MARIA, COME BACK.

I wonder if Maria stood here once,
tracing her own name in the dark,
wondering if it was enough to stay.

I hope she didn’t.
I hope Maria found something better
than this station,
this boy with a Sharpie
and a bad sense of timing.

I decide Maria is smarter than me,
that she’s already figured out
how to leave for good.

The train squeals like someone giving up
mid-argument, its voice cracking
just before the silence. I step inside
like a swallowed comeback.

The train jerks forward, pulling me with it,
an accomplice to leaving,
taut between the tension of wanting to stay
and disappearing into every local stop we make.

I press my forehead to the window
and watch the city unravel backwards—
neon signs blinking like eyelids,
lights flickering like answers
to questions I’ve stopped asking.

For a moment, I’m so full of joy
it feels reckless—
like daring a wave to pull me under,
knowing it probably will,
like I’ve stolen something precious
and can’t bear to give it back.

For a moment, I’m so full of hope
it feels wild—
like I’ve caught a glimpse of something
I’ve spent my whole life trying not to lose,
like maybe this train is taking me somewhere
I’ve been running from my whole life.

And then the lights flicker,
and I laugh—
because of course they do.
Because nothing this weird and beautiful
could ever come without a catch.

The train jerks,
a man drops a tallboy,
its amber spray spreading like a secret—
a casualty of motion,
spraying my boots,
reaching me before I can move,
because some things always do.

The rain streaks the windows,
the world pressing its palms
against the glass,
trying to remind me it’s still there.

And me? I’m here—
alive, for better or worse,
in this strange, messy moment,
with a Sharpie in my bag
and an urge to go back and write my name
like a flare next to Maria’s,
just in case she’s still out there
and she’d like to know I’m out here too.

This is what we do:
leave traces in places
we’ve long since abandoned,
hoping someone sees them
before they’re painted over.

Graffiti artist
sprays to say that “I was here” —
Ozymandias

Here I sit unbroken-hearted:
I tried to ****, and did, and farted.
Here I sit by fate or chance:
For *******, sitting's the proper stance.

two barks don't make a bite
but
it takes two dogs
to make a dogfight

underpass gallery
where urban Picasso's
tag the walls as their own
having never paid a penny
in tax to offer compensation
for their spray paint intrusion
or maybe a **** and *****
or just *******
freedom of expression
being let out from under
the thumb of authority
mum and dad
school teachers
social workers
this is their voice
crying out into the darkness
of the unknown hereafter
that scares the **** out of them
perhaps we should listen
they are the future
perhaps we should be down there
with them
some of us could do
with a bit of freedom of expression
let some hair down
while there is still some left
to let

sitting in a bathroom stall
writing graffiti on the wall
this little poet
is leaving an imprint
on a cafe bathroom
in the middle of perth city
i hope you read my words
i hope you understand my meaning
i wish you all the best
on your adventures
in the city

Some people: That's vandalism!
Other people: That's art!
Me: How the hell did they get up there?

Marooned within a span of finitude
We claim we are lost forever!
Our hearts beat violently inside our rib cages,
Trying to tell us truths that we brush off as myths.
We paint our houses and bodies with brilliant colours and darkest inks,
Hoping that it would make up for the ugliness we harbour!
We spin fantasies locked up in self-made prison cells,
Sidelining the hideous realities as not part of 'our story'...
We carry our vulnerabilities as a taboo,
(I, sadly, would not blame each one separately for it)
We have woven this illusion together with our cloudy minds.
If a bird could judge high from the sky
It would have made out the fragmentary lives we live in...
Inside a single fortress surrounded by high walls, yet violence if we traverse the margin between two rooms!
If and only if, we would have understood that it doesn't require too much a sacrifice to unite
That we can leave our homes simply plastered and our minds simply open.
Urged by a force to change, if only we had exposed ourselves to paint graffiti on that common wall that surrounds us,
Splashing ingenious shades of love and brotherhood,
Of a fluttering feeling of oneness and entanglement.
We would have laughed together, danced with glee and holding our hands together we would have escaped unto a better reality...
If only it was true, I wonder
How spectacular a place the world would have been !