In their paper skin Under the burning sun Smile the paper flowers In bracts, pink and white purple or orange Colourful red, never fade or bleed Evergreen in their woody homes They fly with the wind In their paper skin
on white paper the ink sheds itself, destroys all voidness, writing appears, something is read, after your death you send it, to the living to always be told from generation to generation.
Indonesia, 14th April 2021 Arif Aditya Abyan Nugroho
You wash your heart with evening rain as waves of drowsiness hold out paper boats made of written dreams that search endlessly for a lighthouse to guide them home to you
you call me a coward for confessing my heart through a piece of paper rather than with my lips perhaps because ink dries much faster than these tears do acetone can disguise the truth at the tip of my ballpoint pen and paper may be shredded for these feelings to not exist
blaring down at me sinking me with fired density the Sun against watercolored galaxies I lift a hand to keep me afloat? To block out the rays. I stare up into the cup of my fingers the background makes it as though I somehow left fingerprint molds into the view I lower my hand to admire the work but it is not my hand, only birds scattering in uniform soft raven and charcoal against ripped blue paper broad of daylight, I stand in the middle of the world every inch of skin goosebumps rise to greet the warmth with a kiss.
To start your mornings with blood on your hands smearing across pages is incriminating and inspiring And you must know if you were to slice open my veins would also spill black fountain ink If you were to sever my tongue my hands would speak for me Go ahead and gouge my eyes I can still see And when I die I desire to be cut as a cadaver All the words visible under paper-white skin so they will know, too. I do not aspire to be a skeleton with brittle bones I want blood to pour with every pinprick of a pilot pen pressed on a page But blood makes people squirm Blood makes people gag so I intend to leave this world with a crime scene behind me. Let them shake and shudder for they know not the life they’ve lost They live in fear of papercuts and I carve myself open again and again And I will continue to until I bleed out and my ink dries up If it sounds violent it’s because it has to be The world could use a few more bloodstains Makes it more uncomfortable Makes it more interesting.
