I've always been in a hunt on a perfect teh-peng.

Toastbox's
& Ya Kun’s are my favorite.
I never drink that perfect combination of iced tea, sugar and milk since I got back here.

I cross around the city,
I went to almost every Singaporean's and Malaysian's restaurant in here,
But nothing can compare to Yakun's
Or even Toastbox's.

I know,
It's only a glass of milk tea,
What makes it a big deal.

I spent 3 years living in Singapore.
& almost every day I got a glass of teh-peng everywhere I go.

& 3 years for me is enough to learn and know which teh-peng is the best;
which is the worst.

Now, it's already been a year since I left Singapore.
& truth to be told, I already forgot how it tastes.
I already forgot how it always makes my day.

*How can you miss something, that you already forgot how it was?

It's been a year since I wrote my last poetry.
You can tell, how sad,
how uninspired,
how broke,
how am I such in deep, deep sorrow.

I always see myself as a nomad,
I always up to a new place, and new adventure.
then why when I need to move from Singapore,
I can't stop the tears.

I live on 40th floor of an HDB near Holland Village.
The market where I always buy my roasted chicken rice
and my teh-peng is only 3 mins walking distance.

If I need to go to my University, I will need to walk around 5 mins to the bus stop and catch bus number 74.
It's not that efficient because the bus will go along Buona Vista and Dover. But I don't really mind because I love sitting on the bus, listening to my playlist and let my mind wander.

I'm taking Marketing Degree from SIM Global University, one of the Top Private University in Singapore.
I will never forget the classes, the lecturers, my friends from all across Asia, my Indonesian friends, the canteen, and of course the projects and exams.
I will never forget that around 3 pm, me and my friends will go directly to the canteen on the Blok B and buy Kopi Peng together.
Oh, and sometimes we also buy chicken-popcorn and chicken-seaweed.

Around 8 pm, if we haven't finished our project, we will directly go to Holland Village, and chope seat on Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.
We will stay there- sometimes just to hang out and laugh together and sometimes we really really concentrate to finish our project until 2 am.
I still remember there was a moment when I'm really stressed out with project, and I cannot smile anymore.
With my oversized tee, shorts and hoodie, I go to the barista there, ordering iced Caramel Macchiato,
He tells me, "would you smile if I give you marshmallow?"
I smiled, and he gave me a cup full of mini marshmallows.

Sometimes, when I got no money left, I will order the small cup of iced caramel macchiato. but he free-upsized me, and I will still get the regular ones.
I miss when the life was so good to me.

My friend and I have our favorite diner, Char-grill Bar that has the best Chicken chop and teh-peng.
I swear until now, I still miss the taste of it.

I'm not a club-kinda-gal. I prefer bars.
So when I want to get a little tipsy, and I want to get a nice beer and talk,
We will go to ******* or the other local bars.

There was those time, when my friends and I feeling active, we will rent a bike around Changi,
but most of the time we prefer went to Starbucks and gossiping for hours.

There is a Bingsoo place behind Bugis Junction that opens for 24 hours. Usually, after we study on the National Library near that place, we will grab something cheap to eat. Then have a long break at the Bingsoo place for a nice chat before we take Uber to get home.

I once joined the Dragon Boat team from my University, well it only lasted for maybe 2 or 3 meetings until I gave up.
But for around 2 years I was the Student Representative of my University. So I lead the Campus Tour and go to Secondary Schools around Singapore to promote my University.

I will never forget the rainy days,
when I don't need to go to a class, I will curl up in my bed, ordering McWings and Iced Milo from McDonalds, or Swiss Shroom from FatBoy's, watch a lot of romantic comedies or youtube, and not showering the whole afternoon.
or when I have class on that day, I will run with my navy blue umbrella and navy blue slippers to catch the bus.

I have a member card on the Gardens by the bay, I always spend my alone time there,
or if not, I will be on the top of the Esplanade, where I can see the panorama of Singapore.
from the very left side, you will catch the Singapore Flyer,
then in the middle, you will see the Singapore Art Science Museum and Marina Bay Sands, Singapore's CBD Area, then the Merlion, the majestic Fullerton Hotel, lastly it is the Esplanade.

Almost every single day I go to the mall.
I don't why, but me and friends always, always go to the mall to watch movies or rent PlayStation, or I don't know- sometimes we just have nothing to do, and just hanging out together.

I was living in Singapore for 3 years.
Singapore gave me a heartbreak that I never forget;
Best-friends and a lot of friends that I cherish;
A new opportunity that gave me a life lesson;
A love that I know it is true;
A home that I can never imagine;
Memories that I can never forget;
A life lesson that God wants me to learn;
and a very grateful heart that my God is my provider, as He never ever leaves me.

I will never forget that I always have my pocket knife in my hand, especially when I walk alone in the dark.
I will never forget the friends it gave me,
I will never forget how frustrating it is to have no one by my side to count on,
I will never forget the city lights that I see from my window.
I will never forget that it all so beautiful.

well, Life goes on whether we choose to stay or not.

I will never forget those moments,
those routines,
that I thought it would last forever.
Well, like The Wise Man said,
"All good things must come to an end."

P.S
9th January 2018
10:41
*(Singapore Time)

Alone into Rainy, twist a Dai clove, pattering rain, wind lingering foot Yuhuan, lengthy dark gray rain curtain hung plaintive, oblique rain splashes dusty track marks, those rainy season, those day's dependent, those nostalgic every night in this late spring rain, scraping completed my cold lonely, rain turned into a long and narrow alley Resentment, thwarted flows into atria, cool diffuse through the apex. Do not turn around in your mind of the day, I count, chatter thoughts of you, and for your Ai resentment, Acacia entanglement, filled Chu pain, no know what to say, but unfortunately does not help, once the owner of the rain falling, once clouds drifting sea oath, I never touched your warmth, sigh Lane is a rain: Wife - Why shallow edge. (yiwu export)
Came alone intersection, waving a monotonous right hand, held in our left vague shadow, the breakdown of the raindrops bounce dust, Red rain, your shadows, swaying like a willow in the rain erratic, like a hard rain exhibition wings flutter Ling heavy, like rain, pedestrians hurry hurry ...... once Pengguo footprints Bingqing appearance of your hands, had led a faint in the rain blessings Juyi Peng broken tile rain dream, comfort our goodbyes, we pay homage to the past. Acacia is the way the dust, whisk Yang is confusion of resentment, lost pain.
This year's rainy season to refresh my mind, I view Acacia dream dreams, the pain, resentment cut into the rain, stuck into the soil; tears into the hands of deep stone, sank; to have a bunch of rendering painful injury worry text buried in the memory, so that resentment heart of the sea to swim, let the pain out of the bone marrow, dusty track once marks, wound treatment desolate, firmly stand in Kuwata, enterprises no longer envy sea water. (yiwu export agent)
Let love and hate, love and hatred, grace and resentment, thinking and pain in the rainy season falling, drifting in the rainy season. I left alone a pool of water, the flow of soulful call. (Yiwu buying agent)

Like a cloud of dust on a stormy day,
Everything will soon come to pass.
Be it the peng of hunger in one's body,
Or the wealth people die to amass.

Like the beautiful flowers that bloom,
And Like all the hummingbirds that sing,
The sweet melodies I hear from my room,
Everything here will soon become nothing.

Like yesterday and the day before that,
And the stars that shines brightly at night,
Everything here will soon be gone in fact.
Naturally extinct by time without a fight.

Just like the infinite nature of our universe,
Everything here follows a natural procession.
We can't hasten neither can we try to reverse,
The expiry date set up at the time of creation.

Like time,like death and nature itself,
Like the day, like night and everything,
Like dad,like mom or my very self,
We'll all pass away like we were nothing.

I want to wake up in Singapore.
Open my window and feeling the hot Sun on my face.
Thank God it's a clear blue sky. No haze, no anything.
Just a really hot Sunny day.
I order dumplings, char keow teow and teh peng in one of the hawker place.
What a pleasant breakfast before I walk into a local coffee shop to sip a glass of iced Caramel Macchiato.

I want to spend an afternoon in Volendam.
Feeling the ocean breeze & the Sun on my face.
I want to eat fresh Seafood platter & a bottle of beer for my lunch.
& walk around the local shops & buy cute souvenirs.
I will take a break and sitting by the deck. In quiet.
Even everyone around me is pretty loud.
I think I will live here when I get old.

I want to spend an Evening in Rome.
Just walk out from the Vatican, and now I'm in Rome.
I want to ride my bike to the wondrous Fontana di Trevi
I will get there before the Sun in down so I have the chance to take photos before everything gets dark.
I'm not going to throw pennies on it. No.
I will only see the magical statue & lick my Gelato over here.

I want to spend a night in Paris.
It never be my first love,
but when I step my foot for the second time,
seeing all these beauties, I fall in love.
I fall in love with their arrogance & their ignorance.
It would be a cold night, with a little bit of drizzle.
It's what they always said right?
Rainy midnight in Paris is always magical.
I will get a nice dinner near the Eiffel Tower,
leaving myself in awe,
sipping my red wine,
before I finally walk to the Icon of Paris.
Maybe I will take a boat tour, maybe I just will spend a night at one of the parks, looking at the Tower.
Before finally, I walk to one of their antique yet beautiful shophouses.
& call it a night for today.

i just have to deal with something
i just have to deal with something
my father would tell me as a child
then he was gone for hours

like sun in the night he had vanished
he used to go away every evening
while years were melting
and he always did the same:

my father would play the piano
my father would play the guitar
my father would sing and drink
my father would meet a woman

years were melting and i grew up
an hour here, two hours there
peng, now you're eighteen
a delinquent without a role-model

zoom, how fast time had passed by
rivers of oblivion in my father's eyes
he looked at me like looking into a mirror
he talked to me and only talked about himself

my father never really raised me
i am a lion you know, i have to be strong
feel me or not; go away or stay; be hetero or gay
nothing of it matters: i am my own daddy

fatherhood is a matter of interpretation
each father is flawless and full of flaws
my father was absent and never tried to stay
now i am a father, struggling with my demons

Lazima uchoose, dooh ama doze
Lazima uchoose, respect alarm ama uisnooze
Lazima uchoose, ujitume ama ulose
Lazima uchoose, ujibuild au *****

Izi ndo vitu hamtaki kuambiwa, izi ndo the truth
Mnataka niseme life ni smooth but Leo siwasooth
Sherehe Sheria ndio inamaliza mayouth
Ukilewa vuguru, Hadi hunaga matooth


Daily unadial pedi ukidai Mali
Jipende buda na for sure utafika mbali
Imagine ukiwa diani ukiorder wali
Si lazima buy iyo jumu expe ati ju ni Kali

Picha ya Kenyatta Kwa walanje ndo unafaa kusaka
Jipe goals Ka Sancho, salah au saka
Mulla mob, nine lives Ka paka
Usijitreat Ka trash we si takataka

But anyway maisha ni yako
Chaguo ni lako
Ntaachia apo ju naskia mtu Kwa mlango
Am sure ni peng Fulani utoka pango

chimeras from Greece and penumbras from China,
or perhaps the old and fabled great land
that was free from Communist party dictates:
currently hell-bent on undermining
the great Kata and Kana
                 カタ          カナ...

hell... you can't even find the right sort of reference
via an encyclopedic disambiguation
on the internet that might link a chimera
to a penumbra - there's only the scientific ref.
to this mythical creature...

lucky for that i have invested in a private collection
of books...
from chapter II: equalizing assessments of things:

the penumbra said to the shadow, 'first you were walking,
then you were standing still. first you were sitting,
then you were upright. why can't you decide on a single
course of action?'
the shadow said, 'do i depend^ on something to make
me as i am? does what i depend on depend on something
else? is my dependence like the case of the snake's
skin or the cicada's shell? how would i know why i am
so or not so?'

you can most certainly look up the scientific
posit for what a penumbra is... since there are three
variations on the word...

a. umbra - from Latin: shadow... a word borrowed
to detail the existence of umbrellas...
b. the penumbra: a partial eclipse -
     e.g. the scythe moon of Islam
and who would have thought that the "star" on
the flag is actually the planet Venus...
i've seen it sometimes... how the moon is seemingly
gobbling down Venus...
c. and the antumbra of a solar eclipse...

but i like the idea of the mythical creature than
all that governs the explanations of the celestial bodies...
described as the shadow of the shadow:
a faint dimness around the edge of the shadow,
although the name literally means:
the walking of two roads / neither of the two...

just like the ancients discovered the boat
and the oar... before discovering the wind and the sail...
just like the ancients discovered
the process of fermentation: first from fruit
then from more complex carbohydrates
like wheat and barley and potatoes... how did they?
i'll tell you... come autumn when the apples were
falling and so were the grapes and no man
was picking them up... a bear or a stag stumbled
upon them and started binging on them...
hours later he was stumbling drunk
having a jolly good time...
                                becoming comedian when
otherwise would be ferociously attacking the man...
that's when man first experienced a bear-hug...
from a drunk bear...

can't we perhaps lend our modern ways to
the ancient of days -
                                 because Noah wasn't while
the Ice Age was?
                         and wouldn't that have caused
flooding in the region of the Mediterranean region?
what of the ancient civilisations in that region?
perhaps the climate wasn't as it is today:
perhaps it was more humid...
and that's why they thrived... while some of us
descendent from the northern parts of
the European continent endured the cold, ice and dark...

perhaps if we stretch history as far back
as the birth of stars and the existence of dinosaurs
we can expect to find that the desert of Sahara used
to be a great mountain range equivalent
to the Himalayas... after all:
geology is 1 + 2 = 3
i.e. pressure + time = geology...
space is irrelevant after a while: since there's an abundance
of it... sure...
like there's an abundance of water: wet, salty water...
but there's plenty of it... like there's
enough space: albeit a vacuum... without any
gases that might support life...

oh the poetic genius of Moses... i want to take over...
i need to carry something... throw some ink
into the fire... and then watch it scribble something
back...
i rarely cry...
   but even i'm brought to tears by the genius that
i'm currently experiencing...
didn't i tell you that there are creatures akin to angels
and demons? very neutral creatures...
sort of ugly Cupids... i call them geniuses...
i'm sometimes overcome by one...
      and unlike Ovid's - abortion was practiced in
Ancient Rome... i've already read about his repulsion
to it...
           and my idle hands can't let go of a script...

what a world it could have been,
                   had certain things hadn't been displaced...
of a love for a land where i've only come across
fellow countrymen i abhor...
                unlike a tightknit community of a diaspora
of Hebrews or for that matter Arabs...
   what idiotic people we are and were...
to entertain the idea of a democratic aristocracy...
to elect kings from foreign lands...
having elected a Swede we brought the wrath of
his elder brother into our lands by way of the Deluge,
perhaps we ought to have elected a Turk!
i imagine a Turk would have been a better
ruler: having escaped the tyranny of his father's
harem of ******* and eunuchs!

^待 (dependence - loosely, to wait, to attend to,
just as the great bird Peng depends on the wind,
so Kun qua Kun depends on the water -
structures of complimenting dependence
and independence -
stretching further into theism and atheism,
a cohesive world order of dichotomies...
                a world of acknowledgement
         and affirmation (certainty) mingling with
a world of doubt and negation (denial)...

Meghan McCain
is correct on this one.

The Chinese elite raised
on repression, torture
and butchery, carry on
with repression, torture
and butchery.

But Big Money talks
and the IOC plays
a game of let's pretend.

And Peng Shuai?
Her ****** is probably
first on the list for when
they harvest her organs.