In the rice field

In a rice field, you and I

where form and shadow meet

admitting soaking secret spurts

amidst the sunburnt ripening seeds

we mould our bodies wrapped in silk

flesh spreading mud on flesh

To plant your soul threads deep within

fingers sculpting hard to soft

senses thick and glisten crisp

breaths thinning breaths entwined

chests stretching swell to meet.

Hidden from world’s hurried lies

We pace to the precipice of life and fall

the promise of the promised somewhere

A place we met in our dreams

Hold breath until

Hold breath until

Cold pizza

The man had scraped together six dollars and thirty cents, just enough for a slice of pizza and a bit of dirty water. “This makes me a bit of a regular now, twice in three months,” he beamed at the television set in the corner. Cameras flashed. A Minister spat into a microphone. Everywhere was news, amusement and abuse. But he didn’t complain—it was, after all, warmth from the chill, and a place to anchor the constant light-headedness. He hugged the pizza to his chest as he walked to his table. Even though it was already cold, he savoured the first bite to the last.

His hunger temporarily satisfied, he felt another need stirring as he watched a woman walk in from the cold. He could toy with his elastic waist, wander along her neck, get lost in her hair. “It’s a date, isn’t it”, he said, nodding a smirk in her direction. But he saw the fear in her eyes instead. He was cultured too, he wanted to say. He went to see the opera many years ago, when the sun was high, things were good, and the cup aplenty. He gulped down his water, and wished for a greater truth, a simpler lie, or a more colourful sunrise.

Myth

Every man has a myth, and every myth has a pom pom.

Flying

You move skyward, until the air clears, and the moon’s shimmer is just beyond your grasp. The skirt of your garment floats like feathers, and behind the rush of wind nothing but stillness in the night. You dive backwards giggling, doing somersaults over and around, until you glimpse a form floating towards you. What’s in a name? He asks, tilting his head in a question. You ponder and open your mouth to speak, but you cannot speak. You try to take a breath but the air is thin, and you no longer remember the question. The moment you forget, your weightlessness disappears, and you fall faster than you have ever known.

The Old Shanghai

The broken man at a wooden piano

Squeezes out half a tune

Echoes in the Washburn chamber

Upon it hyacinths in bloom.

He no longer recalls

The Old Shanghai

Glimpses so, fragments bare

White streaks in the sky

In the shade

The lemonade sweats in the shade, and Peter is cutting off lizards' tails again. Someone somewhere is having a barbeque, while the cicadas dance to a rehearsing trumpet miles away. The woman rolls onto her stomach, crunching the dry grass beneath her. She shuts her eyes to the sun, but feels at sea, unmoored and drifting left and right, floating eastward.

The Mirror

She would stand for hours before the mirror. She would place one foot in front of the other, turn her body to the left, turn her body to the right, move in, move back, then turn to shuffle her feet again. It was always easy to tell when she liked when she saw. She would smile, gesture at herself with her hand in a fanning motion, and make approving sounds. She never did, but if she looked into the mirror at my reflection, she would have seen the shame on my face.

I don’t believe it was teenage angst, because the shame was not reserved for my mother alone. I cringed whenever my friends stared into the mirror too—to apply make-up, or mould their fringe into a perfect beach wave. It always amazed me just how long they could do that—lean forward and glare at every inch of their face. They would poke a stick under their eyes, dab powder on their cheeks, lean back and survey, wipe it all off and start again.

Maybe in this way I grew up being impatient, but I cannot stand watching anyone looking at themselves. Even daily routines frustrate me. People spend an inordinate amount of time looking into the mirror each morning: wrestle down the hair, wash the detritus from their eyes, adjust the tie around their neck, or clear their chin of midnight stubble. No matter how you rationalise, the mirror tells you, this, this look there, is not presentable. Do this, fix that. And the grander the purpose, the more ridiculous it seems. The man in a new suit going about his daily business acquires an air of arrogance as soon as he stops to admire himself in the mirror. The bride is no longer a woman who finds happiness the moment she is mesmerised by the reflection of herself in a fitted tea lace gown—she becomes an ego inflated: the turn of her head to the left says “I am beautiful,” and the turn to the right says: “Everyone look at me.” Self-importance in every peek, conceit in every glance. There is no escaping the vanity embedded in a painted glass.

Her cheap perfume

Her cheap perfume overpowers the burning onions. She must have sprayed between her breasts, barely contained in her dress. She is moving her lips, prattling on about the latest movies, hinting, no doubt, that I should take her. Instead I watch her forehead creasing and uncreasing, as drops begin to form between the lines. Is it the heat from the boiling pot of pasta, or is it discomfort from my cold unblinking stare? She shifts her weight from left and right, and stirs.

She believes a home-cooked meal is all it takes. She thinks her new blue breasts will entice me. But none of this makes me want to be here. Not the spaghetti sauce, not the lobster in the oven, nor the swaying hips, nor the powdered arms. Her make-up slimy, her lips engorged, her face is barely more enthralling than her conversation. No. Not what she thinks.

I sit back, and let out a deliberate sigh. Her face brightens, though she tries to hide her smile. She thinks it's her seduction holding my gaze, but my eyes are unfocused, and I think of swimming away.

I could have been

I could have been a psychologist, an actor, an editor.

I could have been a journalist, a teacher, an architect.

I could have been a doctor, a night nurse, a social worker.

I could have been a pianist, a violinist, a Nobel winner.

I could have been an astronaut, an astrophysicist, a rock star.

I could have been a William, a priest, a film director.

I could have been a loving wife, a confidant, a lover.

I could have been extraordinary, attentive, affectionate.

I could have been tender, worshipped, and desired.

The fall of the ant and the typewriter

The ant took it as a sign of his final downfall when he landed on the hard plastic of a maxed-out credit card. He had advanced more than thirty centimetres carrying an enormous crumble of sausage when a keratin force sent him flying into the air. At the highest point, he saw his childhood home deep within the confines of a brass Indian typewriter, and was momentarily engrossed in tiny memories. Though it was dark and at times prolifically noisy, he and his brothers loved clinging onto the typebars for the moments of their sudden deployment into the sweet carefree air. Food very often rained from the sky -- bread crumbs by the dozen, sesame seeds, and sometimes, even bits of ham or cheese. At night, they would climb all the way up to the rows of spaced out platforms and bathe in the oils and greases that seemed to be replenished every single day.

On his descent, his mind turned to his more recent predicament. Over the years, the typebars deployed less and less, and the rain became scarcer, until one day, their entire universe was boxed in vintage darkness. The ribbon in the middle of the colony eventually dried up. This was the beginning of scavenging, hard labour, misery and fatigue. Sausage, in particular, was so rare, that the ant had been particularly excited about his latest discovery—it was going to feed his entire clan for the next few months. Though five times his weight, the sausage felt light on his back as he ran faster than he had ever done.

Now on the plastic, the food supply was nowhere to be seen, and the ant limped to the space inside the embossed zero of the October expiry date.

On the terrace

On the marble terrace, in a seaweed coat, the man sat on his swing. The hint of tea in his glass of lemon was not quite strong enough. "Fucking Iris," he thought, and felt it was time again. They never last long, but this one unusually so. The rat poison this time perhaps, or the ceremonial knife in the head. There's the axe in the shed, or the cement in the garden. The barrel of red in the cellar kept him occupied for a while, but he didn't want any stains. After all, he snickered, who would scrub it out after she's gone? He twisted a string around this finger, notion after notion.

Here you are

Here you are

blueberries in the grass

a green door where

things that shouldn't be

a letter box

and red boxed letters

bodies full of ailments

three times old

whisper

to break fast

by the fall have me

by a lantern

lots and lots of sun

then at last

something for the wood on wood

The stranger

The child has been watching a solitary goose in the pond for hours. Should he grow bored this minute, should he grow tired, should he skip back to the house, he would see his father through the back window. He would see his father bound to the legs of a vinyl chair. He would see his father's open mouth masked by tape. He would also see the stranger, enormous in jealousy, set to rip off his father's trousers, preparing to maim with a spoon, until the very next solemn sunrise.

This is somewhere, this is halfway

What is it about driving down ten-lane highways that makes me want to yank the steering wheel to the left, just a little? It starts, without fail, with a sob that comes from nowhere. A year ago I sobbed in the courtyard; two years ago I dared look at the horizon at the edge of the farm; three years ago I clawed my way up a cliff; and four years ago I flew sky high in the depths of winter. But at least I was writing then.

It occurred to me, staring through tears at peak-hour 101, that I have to look this monster in the eye. This curse. This is something I have to fight, all alone. I am tired of the deadened phrases that come out in documents and proposals. Even writing this is laboured. Emotions pushed down. Senses dulled twice-daily. Nothing comes naturally anymore. And no rhyme or reason, no thing or man, can pull me out of this rut. It's my fight, all alone. Because times change, and people change, at a pace I can neither stop nor control.

It has been almost four years since I wrote:

I have to stop dreaming in words and writing backwards, so I will flip the notebook upside down and back to front instead and write from this end, until I am ready and brave enough to meet up with the past, somewhere halfway.

I have run out of time. I reached the middle of the book and kept on not dreaming. I haven't been ready, and I'm never brave enough. I am forever the status quo. And I'm scared of all the decisions I make in my rare moments of lucidity, because when things are dull again, where would I be?

But for this moment, this one right here. I will write. I will meet the past. No carefully worded drafts, no revisions and deletions. Clear away the filters and fuck fancy words. Once a week, once a day, maybe even twice if I have to. At times it will be ugly. Other times it will be rubbish. But I can no longer sit idle and wait for the words to find me.