I am not a monster.
My veins are the same
purplish hue as yours.
Pricked by the same needle,
an arrow can penetrate
my body, soul escaping
my still-beating heart.

I cling to your words.
I want to know your soul,
your deepest insecurities,
the smallest bits of joy.
I want to be in love.

The universe is a gallery,
each star a mosaic of art,
colliding and combining
to create beauty;
a masterpiece;
you.
I could look at you for eons.

*

I am not to be perceived
by capitalistic powerhouses.
Life is not a final boss,
requiring each day
to serve as a minigame,
collecting coins and
jumping blocks until
I reach the Bowzer.

I live for myself,
the sole goal of
collecting knowledge
and seeing stars
until my final breath,
at which I can say my life
felt complete once I knew
that every single person
I met had smiled.

I will not live by
checking boxes off a form,
stats gathered frequently
on if I’m living it right.
Because there is no right.

There are only idealistic fantasies
that maybe if I run fast enough,
I could one day hope to reach.
There is the rustic murkiness
of yesteryear attempting to
****** its claws on my soul.
It will not win.

This game of mine
may not be multiplayer,
nor do I have the cheat codes,
but I am having fun,
I am exploring the world,
and I will not listen—
never listen—to you saying
that I am playing it wrong.

Puchong
Uncle's home
Condo
Brother's home
S.P.
Birthplace/Parents' home
Places where I have lived long

"Nǐ fēn dào zhèyàng zuò me? Yěshì nǐ de jiā ma."
It's also your home, I am told.
Really? Tell me more, o mind reader.
What other feelings I should feel
Please police my thoughts , while you're at it.

Nay, no, nein, bukan.
None of these places are my home
There are merely residences
Which owners let me have a roof above me
The locations where my flesh prison seek shelter.

Yes, I confess, sometimes I do slipped up
And referred to them as "my home"
But what you do not see or hear
Is me mentally correcting myself immediately
This is not some subconscious wish;
But a mere force of habit that I seek to break

Ah, one day, I will have my own place.
A house, or a pet-friendly apartment.
But no matter what, or where,
It will house only my body
For my heart will not be there
Just as it is no longer any of the places above.

It was a Thursday when the doctor
gave news of the small child’s birth.

She was the first girl,
the entire light
in her mother’s new world.

Daughter of the mayor,
her name would
turn up in the local paper.
Letters would be written as
townspeople learned of the labor.

It was early in the summer,
birds pecked the dirt,
looking for worms.

The nurse was late for work,
as she was a helper
at the local church.

Times would eventually turn,
but for now, little Pearl
was like a dam waiting to burst.

The curl of her lips
showed her mood was firm.
She was a wave
that would soon be heard.

Quickly, she began to stir,
her eyes starting to blur.
Her mother worried,
feared the worst,
but all Pearl wanted
was someone to
nourish her thirst.

Years later, Pearl would sit,
searching a diner
while summer went quick.

Who was a tourist,
who did she know?

She was dressed
in a purple shirt,
and glamour radiated
down to her toes.

It was the third time
the waiter returned,
this time with Pearl’s dinner,
and the courage to earn
her number while the sun
slowly burned.

She drew circles in her journal,
finding peace among the curves,
and encouraged the boy
in thirteen little words.

The next week, she offered
him her hand,
and below the evening sun,
a new journey they began.

Oh, how a little ripple in the ocean
can create the biggest of tides.

I was never one for the water.
I was doing just fine on land.
But you,
you made me
an oceanographer.

You showed me to the fish,
and one by one,
I wanted to collect them all.
One by one,
I became addicted.

It was nuclear.
Like an atomic bomb,
you changed my world.
For the better. For the worst.

My exoskeleton was shattered,
and I was left to pick up the pieces.
I’m still here,
putting myself back together like a puzzle,
covered in grains of sand,
finding myself among the coral.

I’m hidden. I’m broken.
But you gave me my glue.
You fill up my seams.
You’ve taught me wrong from right,
you’ve left me more questions
then I could even think to answer.

I’m now a politician,
having to choose
which lies I believe,
which lies I want to believe.
What do I want to be the truth.

Because of you,
I’ve fallen into a world
I can’t get out of,
I’ve been thrown into
a wormhole I never thought possible,
like a dung beetle
I’ve had to scrape through ****
to see the other side,
and I’ve had to flush
my former self down the toilet.

But maybe I was never her.
Maybe I have always been me.
Maybe this is who
I’ve always meant to be.
Maybe I haven’t
even been found yet.

But I thank you,
I thank you so much
because now I’m on that journey.

I am on a ship
that is going to sail me
away to my future.
My neverland.

I, thanks to you,
will find neverland.
I’m so glad I lost the boy.

The toothbrush starts, “Enameled crooked crescents fence
a cavern filled by slimy growths and walls that tense.”

The towel ruffles, “Four protrusions rife with joints;
the fifth a rounded stump with sev’ral gentle points.”

“Agreed. The knobs and knuckles wear a supple coat;”
the loofah huffs, “it’s gritty, slick, and prone to bloat.”

The eyebrow brush retorts, “It’s two retracting domes
that cause a row of strands to flutter when one roams.”

“While ‘domes’ is right, I venture ‘jiggle’ as more apt -
along with perky, tapered tips.” the brassiere flapped.

The ****** giggle, “‘Bouncy’ could suffice as well,
but don’t forget the dampened folds and prickly swell.”

“Absurd!” exclaims the hairbrush, “More like brittle twine;
Entangled, oily knots that never quite align.”

“Not twine, but thistles bushing out in sweeping arcs,”
the razor sighs, “from paper that too clearly marks.”

A glassy voice laments, “Not one of them’s correct -
how easy this would be, if you could all reflect.”

A rolling ocean, a plea of pain, watch me
In shades of purples, browns and indigo,
Within shades of azure, slate and arctic,
I grasp within the walls if inseparable grief,
A capsule of destruction
Clutched, sculpted and caressed

Ashes have come to me in colours
And you came to me in memories
Faded ones where I could dream of
Beach waters that kissed my toes
And roads in December, deep in snow.
Skies of blue, mulberry-

A scarlet coloured scar, crimson rivers and bricks
Contorted with pain, ****** with metals like
Bronze and gold to shine, smile, dazzled with a
Little of cherry wine.

Burnt parchments and withered ivory,
Years of snow later, chiffon laced mistake
that tasted like poison I stowed under
My tongue, whispers of dearth powders that
Screamed of betrayal and hurt,
All the people who loved me
With silver pepper and creamy salt,

I walk away from them and scream into a
Void, a word that spells like love
Something flies out like miserable-looking
butterflies and I watch the people who
Love me burn, all the while whispering
Just please, never return.

white surfaces flash in fluorescent lighting –

this is no opus, heaving on cold bathroom tiles,

blood and grain against porcelain,

convulsing creature in all its grotesque obloquy:

bleary and snotting. four-walled, windowless, antiseptic vivarium;

life crawls outside. it thrives, it devours, it fortifies.

inside, here, it repulses. ****** effluvium of all kinds.

sharp shrieks of skin across glossed floor, tears soak

before the cliff of the jaw. nothing stays.

wiping drool off the sterile sink and sweat off my knotted back.

snarls choking into sobs, sobs gasping for air.

this is no opus; blackening from corners,

the repugnant vignette held between fingernails –

for the contagious odium of the resigned abhorrent

bleeds and drips and stains.

neglect and rejection strewn like pearls,

pearls, worth nothing, feeling everything.

a fly buzzes in the stark fluorescent light,

and blackness climbs in. blackness consumes.