love deficit

"I used to be a really nice person, back in high school," 
her voice shook as she stared at the ground, trying to find her words
"and I used to hate it. I hated that I was so nice."

---

oh sayang, sayangku
mengapakah beradamu
begini jauh daripada aku

hari-harimu tentulah dipenuhi
dengan riang dan lagu
tapi adakah ruang disana untuk
dengarkan pada kisah burung hantu

ataupun renung pada langit malam
dan kadang memikirkan aku


---

내 비어있는 팔이가 너무 외로워

Sherwood / my boss is a massive cockblock

I used to work in a small, family-run establishment that sold overpriced Malaysian cuisine to mostly European customers who, at some point, had either visited or lived or worked in Malaysia before. Needless to say, their target market was neither particularly robust nor diverse, but it was enough to keep the business afloat, which was good enough for them I guess. The Madam was a staunch advocate of Malaysian culture and ran the kitchen with all the brusque authority and expertise of a middle-aged south-east asian woman, while her husband, British down to his bones, ran the front of house operations. He was a staunch advocate of small talk and would engage in it as often as possible, eventually petering out in muttered conclusions like, 'Well, yes. That's life, I suppose'.

On the way to work, I would dally along the streets examining the neighbouring shops that populated the vicinity, fascinated by the vintage hipster stores selling vintage hipster clothing at exorbitant prices and the arthouse cinema that only showed movies that I'd never heard of and their neon cafe that no doubt sold similarly exorbitant coffees. These small businesses found their niche huddled up against each other; I wouldn't say they flourished - but they seemed to spring forth in great numbers and shared a tenacious quality, like a persistent patch of mold or a beggar by the side of the road.

I remember walking back to the bus stop in the late December afternoons amid hordes of city folk, wonderfully unique in every possible way, of different ages and agendas, walking at different speeds and in all different directions; I would bathe in their flow, basking in the chaos of the day, surrounded by Brownian motion. Each day I would watch the Christmas market take shape in the twilight as the wintry air danced between my fingers, licking at dry skin with its icy tongue, wearing down the fragile fibres with its frigid vapour. And then I would sigh to the orange sunset on the bus ride home, watching the silhouettes and lights roll past like credits at the end of a film.

the sound only Malaysian planes make

they sat together on a grassy knoll in the fading rays of winter's light when all of a sudden the boy's conversation halted, like a stream of water arrested by the abrupt diversion of its flow.
what     what is it    she followed his gaze into the clouds, trying to discern the object of his fixation
shhh he urged with a finger to his lips, ear still cocked to the heavens
for a minute, they were completely still; he, the attentive statue and she, his bewildered attendant.
do you hear that  his voice was hushed, almost whispering
what?

---

"what was that, by the way? that sound at the end of your sentence"
a look of puzzlement pinched her features for a moment, before being chased away by epiphany. a tender smile blossomed on her lips as she recalled the sweet weight of the syllable on her tongue.
"it's nothing," she replied, "just an old habit of mine."

obstare

so this is how we are born; not all at once, but gradually - by deliberate degrees and with much risk and difficulty

postpartum

There is a time and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die

one year ago, these words meant nothing to me

 ---

when my dad passed away, I felt some pressure / saw a need for me to step up and take certain matters into my own hands - but then I got carried away and started taking things that weren't mine to take. These unnecessary burdens made me a miserable person - a resentful tenant who distrusts his housemates to do the dishes - but once I gave them back, I found some peace

---

a clanging cymbal, a resounding gong
He quiets the storm; the tempest is gone

Telemachus

there are tiny spiders running up and down my spine
crawling into the dusty crevices of my unkept mind

---

Odysseus just wants to get home

---

I just got home from fencing. Usually, I enjoy the exercise, but today my heart just wasn't in it.

These days, I don't really feel like myself; it feels as if the real me is somewhere else - gone away on vacation or something, leaving behind nothing more than a fraudulent facsimile to fill in for him - a cheap knockoff or hollow imitation, painfully aware of its hollowness and terrified of being found out. He's not always absent though - occasionally he comes back to visit - just stopping by for a quick chat and cup of tea before he's off again to see more interesting places and meet more delightful people. When he's back though, everything is great; things just seem to fall into place, but it never feels like very long before he's gone again, and his absences tend to be dreadfully extended. Meanwhile, the bright echoes of laughter and joy that always seem to accompany him get drowned out and swallowed up by all sorts of deadlines and commitments, to the point that I sometimes question whether they ever really existed.

Sometimes, as I'm walking home late at night, my eyes will be inexplicably drawn to peer into the windows - illuminated portraits elaborating accounts of other worlds - decorating the gallery walls of dark brick and concrete that cordon off the lonely avenues on either side. Glancing into each room, certain details will capture my attention and appeal to my imagination - for instance, the sight of an oak chiffonier idling alone in the corner with white tubes of cosmetic cream laid out along the shelves, or perhaps the particular glow and tint that the light takes on from being filtered through a paper lamp-shade - and then, from these fragmented figments of vital information, I'd try to piece together, in my mind, a picture of what the actual interior looks like - but then I can't help but wonder about the sort of people that might inhabit such a space; I'd try to predict how their daily lives might play out; the sort of jobs they'd have; whether they get invited to many parties - in this way, I'd study these fictional neighbours, extrapolating their characters until I grew tired of them.

I'm not quite sure why I feel so compelled to sample and speculate upon these glimpses of other people's private lives; I suppose you could call it a mild form of inanimate voyeurism. But I think the real reason might be that I'm still looking for the real me - searching for him without meaning to - as if one day I might happen to peek through a crack in the curtains and catch him sitting there with a glass of drink in hand, laughing along with some stranger in a warmly furnished room, living some sort of comfortable and wonderful life without me.

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