CW: Patriarchy
And they say I pirated my gender – this is not wrong, or legal. Downloaded the sway of my hips, photoshopped the noumenal tints on my lipstick, fed GPUs to my hair to render every single glistening, optical strand primed to glaze at and be gazed at.
Read MoreAnd yes, Anurak, sex is boring.
But suppose in its writhing
a gnostic cadence –
some selfish conviction
of the body
as fulcrum
to a fuller universe.
Read MoreCW: Border Law Enforcement
above all you want to belong. which means
to stand behind the yellow line – to be
the copy of the copy of the person
you want them to see.
between flesh and fingernail i once
began to dig, burying the images of
love i had seen. my home has grown
murky, forgotten by the many who
had known it.
We, as citizens of Singapore, pledge
ourselves to forget differences of race, language
and religion and become one united people; to
build a democratic society where justice and
equality will prevail and where we will seek
happiness and progress by helping one another.
CW: administrative violence, debt, financial precarity, means-testing
The bills have arrived and the sum ain't puny. With forms I must file for a thousand dues, the bills fill my heart with a lot of panic. They want me to pay every thing this week.
Read MoreThey will tell you the schools
you need to attend. Ignore
them—
this is the time to quietly build.
Read MoreThe day will come
when you who have helped to build our nation
will finally
get to sit back
on cushioned seats
toggle the aircon filter to your liking
And no, Auntie, I cannot help your friend’s
sister’s husband’s army encik’s cousin-in-law
get a divorce. Yes, lawyers are expensive.
No, I’m not charging you for my time this very
second. No, I’m not pregnant not married
and you wouldn’t know about my love life
CW: Profanity
Dear Johnny,
I hope this email finds you well / Because I don’t really care
In this trying time / But I have to sound polite
There are many ways to be false.
To communicate is to make available.
The public interest includes
preventing diminution of confidence
as specified.
and yet here we are, still leaving
if this was never wrought then it doesn't need to break
minds change; hearts scar over, and
love seeks erasure of debt to time
Read MoreA poem begins not when the line
breaks but where the skull scatters.
Tea pot petals in the kitchen. Ai Weiwei
smashing an urn. Ah ma left
to pick herself up in the Bay Area streets.
Fragments do not pick themselves up. They are
swept away.
All Yale-NUS classes are held on campus, a vertical descent and a few minutes’ walk away from our rooms. As you might imagine, that makes waiting for elevators near the turn of the hour a nail-biting experience. Will I make it in time if both the lifts are on the 20th floor and my class with the strict professor starts in five minutes?
Read MoreA pair of padukas, gading-white, as ancient as Iskandar;
A cogan alam, crested by a rearing harimau, maw open;
A cogan agama, tipped by a sabit bulan and a pentagram;
Thirteen payung kuning, saffron sutera, brocaded with noble gold;
A single keris, meteoric iron, a pusaka old as kayangan itself.
When you are on the highest floor of a building, and you look out at your view, there is a recognition; the elevator you were just on cannot take you any higher. You have reached the limit available to you and you would need something else, something new, if you wanted to climb to new heights. This level is both ceiling and floor.
Read MoreWatching summer leaves brown to autumn shades, I sift through this year's poetry submissions, pleasantly surprised by the many prompts that allowed for earlier works to be reimagined. Many poets took the challenge to relook poems written in mother tongue languages to be translated or rather transcreated into English poems.
Read Morethe minstrel casts for the moon
in the surface of the lake; cat-gut
strings now used as fishing line —
but the fish sense his restlessness
and none would come to bite.
Read More以弦代线 月犹鱼
鱼未上钓 阅忧郁
兹掌原可 创宇宙
如今只存 疮与咒
窃听歌谣 鸣禽取
莫非挽回 命琴曲？
between fingernail and flash | the half-moon cuticle bleeds
i buried a time capsule today | it was love or my skin peeling
the way people buried into my home | into the rind of a bitter orange