What do you drink to get the purple out of my tongue? What do you take to forget? The picture
of white lady on the mirror chanting ****** mary. The video of being spanked. The layout of the patterns. It is all made into a trail. Wishing to cloak, I thought it worked but it was only a blanket. The blinking lights of the window.  It manages to ***** me and remind me of competition in traffic. The list. Lists. Numbered. Keep scrolling. Will it affect my life?

Needing to fit the box of a ten-year old, I sleep. Then, I post. That was not myself. How did this whole page about me belongs to someone else? I never drift before. Why, I wonder. Here comes the businesses. The banquets. Watching a flute get Tarzan'd by a piece of rope hanged across the room. Out of the blue, I found myself touring with a foreigner. What does he want from me? Is it wrong to think this way? He only asked me where I live and how I am. I stop. I feel the chills burning through my hands to fingers. The bones get cold, but do not when plugged by nerves.

I-I'm addicted? I need to sleep more. It's healthy, they say. It's fun.


When was the last time I had fun?


The more I see the light, the more I hate it. I bring the shutters down. Relaxing. Freeing. Pink flower keep falling. Peach flower keep shimmering. How come I never thought of it before? Now back to sleep. Wait, I can't sleep anymore. But everything's so festive. Are the photos not alive? But they frequently chatter. To me. And you---no me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Branded into these pixels of prizes and sporks full of dramatic dressings. What is meaning again? I kick the blanket out of the bed. I threw my pillows on the other side. It's hot. Everything's so hot. My air conditoner is on max---what's happening?? No, sleep!

It does not take long for me to gasp for air. I keep denying it but it is always in the back of my mind.

The only answer is to get out.

I try by slowly lifting my legs and down to the floor. Do I really? Now? This is the only answer. I repeat thrice. I'm getting old.

A wind caresses my cheek. I forgot I was even in a house.

Dream's over.

my mum used to joke
    that my eyes would turn square
if i looked at pixels too long.
i remember the scare
that my pupils would bend
into inky black stamps,
and my retinas bleached
from the machinery glow.
that i would wander the streets
only for children to point
and scream
while their own mothers tutted
'you still want that playstation
for christmas?'
now i'm grown up
and that vision has died,
as the streets are all littered
with others, square-eyed.
i can imagine their
xylophone skeletons as
their fingers tap fast
on the tiny blue screens;
it's no wonder we aren't
very good with
eye contact.
so
i'm sorry mum,
we've all been entrapped
in this pixellated blur
of technological time lapse.
and i guess all these
square pegs can't fit
into the round holes
that they used to be,
in a world that we cannot
remember.