I'm having TWG's french earl grey at the moment. Unlike the permeable membranes of Lipton or other regular teas, TWG's teabags comes in an actual woven sachet.

It reminds me of a sagging, dripping wet hairless scrotum.

Father

There’s a stranger in the hall
He sits and smokes his rolled up cigarettes without
Contemplation.
He holds the remote control,
lifts it to his tired palm as with Prozac he would.
I don’t believe there’s anything worthy of attention on screen,
really,
But he’s riveted and melts into
fictitious characters at most,
football matches and fouls
-impossible are these imaginary television roles.

The stranger has sat in an old wreck for a chair
For far too long;
Tobacco and pheromones staling into cane,
Living and non-living,
Aging and withering,
Letting Technicolor inspire his inert campaign.

I think the stranger would like to talk.
Perhaps once in a while when
he’s got something more significant besides
‘Pass me the coffee’
Or muttering ‘Shit’ after sneezing.

Stranger’s got his pulse affiliated to
failure and depleting existence
chained through his veins.
Life’s annuity never went beyond
the paid cigarettes, and the old cane chair,
and maybe a divorce from that crumb of a marriage.

7 years he still sits there and stares,
Cigarette in hand and brain with cracks.
Trying his hardest to pretend I’m not really there,
even as I walk through the door
through these years
and through television re runs,
wearing his blood like a curse in this life.

Traffic Light II

The traffic light bore an eternity at
the juncture
headlights bled into similar warnings,
the traffic then
is now the never ending articulation of honks
and flashes
colors and exhaust ash in my head

I do not seem to notice the red light you emit
among this peace
Red (danger)
Red (warning)
Red (do not proceed)


By now the green man comes on
and by now my smoke echoes my nasal cavities
floats easily to my blood brain barrier
It is now in the shape of a noose and threatens to strangle
my brain's heart with it

Traffic Light I

Your name explodes as a dramatic exclamation mark
At times,
a sandy whisper
at times
a blinking red man, that teased to turn green

Thomas the Obscure- Maurice Blanchot-

Just as a man who is hanging himself, after kicking the stool which he stood, the final shore, rather than feeling the leap which he is making into the void, feels only the rope which holds him, held to the end, held more than ever, bound as he had never been before to the existence he would like to leave

Maurice Blanchot, Thomas the Obscure

sometimes, endings have no endings and nights have no mornings.
my dreams are made of air, and my body's made of paper

Transparency Can Be Obtained at the Counter- Jonathan Lim

Transparency Can Be Obtained at the Counter
said the sign
so i stepped up and asked for some
it was easier than i thought.
she didnt even look up-
her heavy perm weighed her down perhaps
her eyes downcast but the lashes stood proud
her fingers fumbled busily through fashion
or possibly food

'How many shits you want?'

No more less than i've had so far,
i thought

But didnt say so-
im not so insolent
and she seemed too tired to care

i thought too long
and missed my turn
she rolled again
'How many transparency you want?'

in another place i would have said

'Just enough to need no secrets
to live in the light
to act in the open
and sleep under the stars
without qualm or wolfworry
sufficient to look through each other's eyes
and see the them inside
and the me them sees
To speak clear
not caring to be heard
but to have spoken
to be like waterglassair
not colored like childmarbles
or tinted rose or syrupy sweet'

but that in another place only
there that day was her
looking like she didnt care less what i thought
perhaps no one had asked her for transparencies in a long while
and they were dusty
filmed in i dont care
coated in god alone knows dont ask me i said already
i dounch know you still so kaypoh why dont
you leave me alone somebody pay you to kachao me is it my life
guailan lah please leave me alone

stop looking i transparent is it?

and she wasnt and didnt want to be
sitting there as opaque as she could make herself
undeniable as a mountain
unhurtable as the sidewalk we splatter
no seeing through her
no thorugh way

the queue was stretching longer
filled with lives shortening

hurry up
were they wanting to buy transparencies too?
wish they luck

'Two shits. Thanks.
Keep the rest for yourself.'

She didnt look up.

- Jonathan Lim, "Transparency Can Be Obtained at the Counter" from Capsule

'If I ever feel better, remind me to spend some good time with you,
You can give me your number,
when it's all over I'd let you know.'
Phoenix, If I Ever Feel Better

imagine there are two or three ways to make you...

Facial Punctuations

I have two commas for eyes that are either
openly inverted or
blinked closed depending on the maturity of emotions
My nose is an exclamation mark
a vertical dash- slides a way down,
abruptly finishing in a tiny stump for nostrils

My mouth is a full stop
I've ceased to speak the words that others believe exist in a plane
other than theirs

A Monday that feels like a Sunday
with Tuesday looming in sight
that I can't grasp at the moment

You see I've a million things to say
Now now now
now

now
now
!

But day after day
night after night and the seconds that follow,
its a nameless, shameless milieu that I can't even find a euphemism for,
for going around in circles, fading back into my black chair
tapping against the black keyboard
thinking that never gets anywhere

I do wonder where do thoughts go to
if there's some sort of heaven where digested thoughts go to,
or maybe there is a hell
or there's some kind of recycling protocol

I do hope one day
we both realise we make up
too many excuses

for our actual inadequacies for how we put us on hold
in such a pathetic manner