Youth

That day at the tattoo parlor
that day was more than a thousand eight hundred
days ago or so.

'Was?' you had said

'What?' I had said
because I didn't know that was German,
because you didn't look like
The Baptist to me.

I stood inside the parlor
and you stood outside.

And in the years that came to be,
it was like this for us;

parallel opposites.

I didn't like your girlfriend,
my boyfriend was your best friend.

I made you up in my head
read in between the lines to fuel my imagination
of how you'd be like.

Kelly and coke.
Sex and blood.

You didn't have to make me up
in your head;
you knew how I drew
depth from skin with silver glints
studs in flesh
fixated in love and violence.

Which was why you would ever so
purposely ask,

How is
Joey?

You were not any better,
you exorcised demons
to your arms.

You were always this strange knight
to match me with my studs as armour.

I had a long talk with John the other day about nothing in particular.

John and I never go beyond a how are you, how's your day and all. It was just a extended conversation of that sort.

It only seems like yesterday that I became acquainted with him.

Not that it's changed much.

We're not even friends but the baptist is like a landmark of growth, degeneration, patchwork and memories.

That Saturday at Prince of Wales, I met a man who's some artistic director and studying for a BA in film. I ended up sharing a cab back with him, I cant even remember his name.

He asked me for mine, and I told him my name's Jo, something people usually dont call me.

I just didnt want to subject my name to the knowledge a man whom I probably will never see again.

Father's Day

Some may not be fathers,

while some do not have fathers,

who have retreated

either to the hearth,

perhaps into themselves.

Some only exist as father

figures.

There is cause

to celebrate nonetheless

the pastor says,

for what all of us have

is one,

immeasurable

against biological or

societal definitions.

I wonder if this man reads Barthes

and binary oppositions.

There can be no fathers

without

mothers.

I cannot suppress
the errant thoughts of how
you would match this moment:

Your coffee steam spiralling

alongside a blossoming cigarette,

which you quickly

obliterate when

toy blocks

and taped finger paintings

remind you of who

you really are.

You can tessellate
these dichotomies
when the scene is barren of

women,

your would-be children,

someone like me who would have let you down.

Before these thoughts become

carnivorous,

I exit the service,

steeling, steering

myself towards the door.

I need a better

reason for this occasion

that neither the pastor

nor myself

can summon.

I need a saccharine

enriched coffee

to dilute the taste

of what makes Father’s Day so

unpalatable.

my name is
jing jing
strange it seems

Go if you want to go
But stay if you want to know
The way through the mess we've made
And lie in a bed you know
Or go

- The Hansons, Go

publish post function

is this what it is
that i forever will be
yet another hankering after
the inspiration
its constant steady stream
that will never exist
as i smoke in the kitchen in the absence of people
and have imbibed on a cheap homemade cocktail
of near expiry pineapple juice and swedish vodka
to initiate sleep

i have nothing left to write but this
listening to cat power on jools holland
acknowledging the possibility of you reading this

like how i read the same things that kill me everyday

i wish the alcohol will sink in soon
i dont feel too good
i keep thinking of radioheads
fake plastic trees
and those mornings of
being nineteen and
buying squared prata
two eggs and two kosong
ish curry please
for whom lies asleep in bed at 10am
awaiting me to buy breakfast home
on a tuesday morning

where has my youth gone to
where has the love
and the light gone to

im such a hasbeen a ghost floating away
you see a ghost and a spirit are two different things
a ghost is kosong like a prata
a spirit lives on
seeking the love from the mortal it can no longer be with
or the revenge so well needed
or the sadness stemming from
the unfinished business that can
never
ever be fulfilled
ever again

what am i now at 450am in the morning
alcohol pounding in my brains

24 years old with graduation seeming like an impossibility

i am empty yes i am
i fill myself up
with inspiration masquerading
as people
as love
as inspiration

writing words of such
that will never see the light of print

and no punctuations to speak of
save for the
enters
and spacebars

i can go on writing forever until it hits me to sleep
but i wont
i wont
i wont
i wont
i wont

i am empty
yes i am

as thom yorke floats from the speakers
and i too sense nothing from him
how can a voice so beautiful and heartbreaking
be from a man
who looks like that

is this what it is
now that i am no longer young
no longer energetic

one day ten years again
i will realise i was once young
and not as old as i ever thought i was

this is the youth
and aging
all at the same time i have to deal with

and this is now

my psych textbooks and worksheets
lie all over the kitchen table

once again signifying the incapability
that once was
might always be

i have a man i call my partner
a boyfriend for a term more generic
who lives so far away

twenty hours on a good flight away to be precise
whom i hurt when i said he didnt understand
and i still stand by as

listening will never
corroborate understanding

when did it all become so meaningless
i wish i was depressed once again
for now im bored and empty
dropping grammatical errors
spelling errors

and i can no longer care

ive never typed
so much
so fast in one sitting
it is now five am and i have to be up at nine

is this what it is

i cannot define it though
i feel i should stop

but i cant

knowing
the emptiness funnily
filling itself into me

knowing that if i stop
i will not have a singular purpose

but i have to and i might
just move the cursor

to publish post function

I saw You and became empty- Rumi

guilt drills into you
the impact of M16s

this is why you disappear
on Mother's and Father's Day

always brings me back to 2009

keep giving until it blows up in your face

a decade on and so relevant

I'm petrified of emptiness another side of loneliness
Will always tend to break me in two
If you’re to come back to me, in pieces or a melody
There couldn’t be a better way through

LBD

While haphazard music

embellishes

the background,

women without a man

wear their best butterfly gaze and lashes,

and try to rise above

the background.

The men are

proud and strong.

They have had women they

personally hunted for

breakfast,

lunch and dinner.

The women are

remnants of

men’s meals.

Defeated and old,

their pride held together by

a tired smear

of lipstick

and a tiny black dress.

love is a weekend
we all look so much
forward to.

the reality is
we all live weekdays
banal and harsh.

bruised on Mondays,
thrill on Wednesdays,
celebrate privately
internally on
Fridays now
that we're too old to celebrate by staying out till 6am on a Saturday.

a man is a weekend
to rejoice over for a while
before that love turns into a weekday.

finished like milk
as novel as bread
smoked till the end like cigarettes.

excuse me for sounding like I've lived through
three work years of weekdays.

fact is
I have
I probably will

love my men
love my weekends.

it's just over too soon.

we fuck cook suck eat
read
shower fuck
write again like this.

Suddenly I can't remember now if it's Saturday or Sunday
or if I have a man in my life who loves me still


It is a Sunday,
Back to bruise tomorrow.

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,
or maybe there is a hell
or there's some kind of recycling protocol

where digested thoughts go to

Last night, I saw plenty of cranes in its civil engineering glory speaking to the skies, the light borrowed from the glitter of other establishments.

I wondered if cranes and buildings, they fall in love with each other

"All the books I read

are full of dazzling heroes,

always sure of themselves.

I die with envy of them;

and in films full of wind and bullets,

I goggle at the cowboys,

I even admire the horses,"

excerpt of We Are Many, Pablo Neruda

I’m here again
Inside you
It’s so nice in here
But I can't stay for long
I float around in liquid hibernation
In a hotel nourishing on the electricity board
But the wait makes me uneasy – I kick the fragility away
And shout – I have to go - help
I explode out and the peace is no more
Bathed in new light
I cry and cry - disconnected
An unused brain put on breasts
And fed by sleepwalkers.

Sigur Rós, Svefn-g-englar

you are deep

i have fallen down
your neverending column

of make believe

if you've 20 seconds worth of an image of your waking dream,
the sort of life you wish you can lead but it only lasts for twenty seconds in your head
and no matter how your heart pushes you to imagine further, that's that much you know.

Some people see themselves being lauded, quoted.
Some people see their names in print and lights.

Mine is a lilac-blue sky, almost six in the morning, and I see a silhouette of myself through the stripes of binds, a cup of coffee with its steam migrating to be one with my cigarette smoke.

I'm not sure where I could have seen this scene before, but it feels like Lori Petty's character in one of my favourite movie, Point Break, where she has just awoken and only to find out Keanu Reeves is gone.

Another imagery I have is of walking down the business district on a Sunday morning, when the skies are still bruised and the traffic lights have no need to function, lights, ads, heels chopping into the tarmac, competition and energy- extinct for a day- just a day and its okay to just be and/or by myself.

I dream of day long breakfasts of black coffee and fried eggs, sourdough bread outlined brown by dextrin.

It's a little heartbreaking at the moment, because when we carve out a dream, 20 seconds isn't enough.

We spend more than half our lifetimes chasing down this image,
my own of smoke,
solitude,
purple skies
and leftover night air
recycling into mornings,

but how do we live through the 21st second and eventually if its possible?

And I can only imagine,

shredding my poems

into confetti of

letters and words.

Each piece to

cement

what you believe

I have

broken.

having a heart
for you







broke mine

"But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things"

-Vincent van Gogh

The truth is you could slit my throat
and I'd still apologise
for bleeding on your shirt

-Anonymous

its only me
who wants to wrap around
your dreams

its you
why's it always you

Apart from a few tourists,
my boots tapping on a Sunday
night tarmac in City Hall
remind me that I am really all alone.

The Raffles Hotel is drawn
with remarkable achitecture
and other shopping centers'
candied lights
course through the streets
blasting the the nation's identity.

But
all the skyhigh buildings that signify our
truimph

are looking down on me
and my mismatched ambitions.

All these bloody signs
of societal progress



but none of human life.

The kitchen heater this morning
is sealed with a film of nonchalance.
Your disapproval blackened into coffee
cooked with eggs
and spread itself into smorgas
when I arrived on time for breakfast.

You were not the sort
that believed in being
on time.

Only earlier
and mornings were
before the moon retired
and
the skies still sewn together in black
embellished by flicking studs.

Before dawn tomorrow
your pencil will unwind itself into canvas,
you will be working out

treacherous lines of roads
to drive



away from me.

The years pass easily when it has
But seem like an eternity at present's best

The stars that night burned
flicking petite lights on the celestial canopy
and you told me
nevermind about my mental letdown
because you never believed
in that pyschobablebattle,

as if I asked for it,
as if your views were facts carved in stone set to win
opinionated wars against me

Other ways of pleasing you

Our food sits quietly
like good kindergarten children
organised in perfect little rows

I know you can't eat it
Not now
not yet
until we have the argument we always had

whenever I open my wallet
and mouth
to dole out my gentleman's explanation
that you constantly claim
insulted your dignity and pride

I'm not the perfect lady
so there is no need to play
the gentleman,
you would dismiss

I could embrace you beyond
this meal's enternity
and weigh you down my bed
for all the youth you collect between our distance
in this conversation like saying grace before a meal

I spin an excuse and tell you
I pay for the boys on the team too

You would hiss
that you do not play soccer
and you are not one of my soccer boys

It is at this very moment
the sun in your eyes go to the gallows
and the noose tightens around the conversation

We lapse into conflicting silence
and I try my hardest to smile

As if by your merciful intervention, you say
'We'd go dutch'

Deciding to pay you back in your own coin
with each word designed
to lodge into savagely into you,
I mention that we were conquered by the Dutch
and your suggested mode of payment
was really uncalled for

For a moment
I take delight in watching
confusion cross the map of features
on your tiny face
Your eyes clearing the hazy clouds of history,
and I would hear your thoughts transparent in speech,
in time to come

Instead you laugh

And finally
the sun in your eyes rises again

Still you push money in my direction
And I tell you
I'm only accepting it to please you
And I didnt tell you
I wish there were other ways of pleasing you

You always seem to evaporate a sigh
of misguided strangeness in your breath

Hands constantly wrung together for forgotten fellow companions

Once you had a supply of glue and tape
and a gift of generous patience to mend

Mend, you did
You put me back on
and allow age and destruction to disintergrate
into same old legends

Without Boey Kim Cheng's freshly dog earred book
to distract me Between Stations
I fortified myself
by reading my thoughts
my eyes scrolling down
mind's page

the every day bus is driven
with a purpose
chartered to the every day people
who live with a purpose

but their purposes don't change

they wear the same glassy look
to match
their uniforms of somber but pressed
shirts, pencil skirts, pants
to match their salaries

and these buses whose sole purpose
is to ferry people
from somewhere to somewhere

really is a drive
that goes nowhere

drinking weak coffee
strung together by weak sleep

Just before our love got lost you said
"I am as constant as a northern star"
And I said "Constantly in the darkness
Where's that at?
If you want me I'll be in the bar"

Joni Mitchell, A Case of You

all books have a story behind them

too old to cry.
too proud to

not brave enough to lay down and die.

Last night at the film screening, he was sitting next to me on the amorous-red couch. We sat with a reasonable distance between us, but he was inclined in my direction. A third of the time, my eyes were glued to the screen, the other one third was trying to tame my heart which was in my throat, and last third was staring at how close he was to me to observe the veins on his hand, his perfume, the yellow pink tones of his skin, but this is the closest I would ever get

"Why didn't we communicate when we were in living in the same house, and we were there, like what, three long weeks?"

That's a million dollar question i wish i knew

"And only the most i could utter was hey. It could be worth a few billions," he said.

You tell me why.

"I am not sure, I thought you were holding some grudges against me."

Because things didn't work out between us. When you smoked at the balcony and my clothes were there... perhaps that's the grudge, nothing more I swear.

"Well I tried to get your attention like saying hi but you never looked at my direction."

If i really did that, then I wish I could have done it differently.

"I'm really sorry what has happened in the past."

Take it back... You didn't do anything wrong.

"Well I kinda mess your clothes with the uttermost tobacco smoke."

I met Pete and I wonder what other people thought of me hanging out with a fella who looks relatively punkish- but with immaculate skin and carefully angled brows.

He still has that swagger in his speech, German tinged, and his gait reminded me of the Neanderthal man ascending towards cromagnon.

He was obnoxious as usual and I asked him if he has ever got a sad day in his life. His response was a yes, I do, but he moved onto one of his entertaining stories very much quickly thereafter.

Funny how I'm thinking of John at the moment, and Life on Mars is playing on my ipod.

It always reminded me of Prince of Wales, lab work, Zaw and my last semester in school and other nondescript cigarette brands.

From a Daria movie

I just can't sit here and listen to any more prattle with your brain-dead friends. Eyeliner, headband colors... God, are you boring.

You have nothing interesting to say and no intellectual curiosity whatsoever. It doesn't matter, (whether you are bright) if you're hell-bent on achieving complete brain atrophy before you're old enough to vote.

Why did you want to know stuff? So you'd be able to get into a party school. Talk about a lack of self-esteem. When it comes to appearance, but not in any areas that count.

Look at the losers you hang out with. No chance of feeling stupid around them.

- David Sorenson to Quinn in Is it Fall Yet?

I close my eyes and can't seem to recall the how Ivan's lashes pan from his eyelids- like leaves reaching for sunlight and the exact shade of his eyes.

Did distance do that to me, or did I do that to myself?

Of course, complexity is an invited stranger in my head. It's never really as difficult as I make it sound. Platonic love is an irony of its own, and I can say I've felt too much of it.

Sundays are really good for capturing dreams... little snatches of imaginations that you throw away from Mondays to Saturdays because of the other person you have to morph yourself to be for the sake of corporate-financial necessity.

It was beautiful that night. The hyperborean of a wind in a midyear, midnight beach.

Somehow, beer souring from fizz down my throat after a shot of Bailey's was a combination I welcomed.

And cigarettes. They tasted so fresh that night. No matter how old they were, they tasted so clean.

It swirled a light menthol typhoon in my mouth, and I breathed it all in, like an antiseptic nicotinic phallus.

We walked over to the sea and sat on the wooden bridge, which really looked like an extended swing.

'Is it me, or is it rickety?' I asked.

'It's swinging a little, probably due to the current.' he said.

I like the instability, I wanted to say but decided not to.

'I like the instability... somehow," he admitted instead.

"You know Joey, it's like the inch of trust, that last inch, that you hope doesn't break.' he said.

The wind flapping in the crevice of our ears that night was like nature's applause.

Am I willing to be had, or should I just enjoy this new pasture of fresh grass... which will eventually bleach into a vibrant aridity after constant grazing, constant knowledge?

Sometimes, people are the weirdest breed of interaction you want to have to deal with.

if love is a bolt from the blue
then what is that bolt





but a
glorified
screw?

- Augie March, One Crowded Hour