How Late is a Sorry

How late is a sorry

If it reaches you later on in the preceding life that follows

You would always leave me to worry

While the both of us run in opposite directions

Circling once more to meet at another bonfire of sorrows

Our heirlooms have made a cozy home for the seven generations of a royal termite

Report! Report, sire! our harps are nowhere to be found

Their strings are probably curled by now with no fresh air & light

But our hopes rekindled on what was our last joint

On stories that peel off layers so smoothly - it has never felt this right.

Yes, to me since when have you ever been polite?

Your words back there piled up for us to climb 
but then you were probably higher than a kite

You’ve plucked the fruits of a family tree that grew furthest from the gate

Laid out your harvest unknowingly as it overflew from your bloating coat

Onto smacks that rained on my head, asking to be referred to as fate

Oh to what occasion do I deserve the honour of a presence too late?

Our hems are no longer red from the bloodshed that was in between

Our horses used to match with a twin of ours you’ve barely seen

Her hair too parts & shades itself the same in ways we would shrug to never mean

Tell me, where were you then? where will you go? where have you been?

Whatever happened to ships whether of friend nor kin that rows through thick waves & thin

Of blindfolds & truths told, were you confessing a sin or were you just slurring nonsense?

My neck is sore from looking up to your ghostly set line, as if all has been & will always be fine

& to our beloved maiden who threw her past-time like a confetti of petals by her locked tower

Our hero she awaits, a protagonist left face blurred, a shriveling flower that have yet to cower

With her eyes shut she ran fingers through every gap of its stone walls & every inch of dust

As if they all reminded her of passing loved ones before & the stern promises now left to rust

To whom should one believe? With lives to repeat, hearts like ours can no longer be deceived

The universe’s mechanical whir mocks us from afar, it echoes through hundreds of decades

Through the thousands of wars with another, millions with the self & the changing roles we’ve played

Of brothers & bloodbaths born again & again to yet another maiden blindfolded & betrayed

A record now on loop to make sure we’re properly scolded from the mistakes we made

How late is a sorry then if it keeps stabbing the deepest end of my sense of curiosity

Who’s willing to dig graves for a satisfying ending to a might as well made up story

Celestial Bodies

Here’s to my first tattoo finally etched at the age of twenty,

Count them rays, surrounding a muse in a form of duality

Of fulfillment in distant opposites within your sights’ vacancy

Of an unrequited round of tag made to kiss & defy an impossibility

The star in hopes to inspire, surrounding in 6 as compassion & empathy

For it can’t be plucked, without your faith in such unwanted sensitivity

The moon, the cancer, a calm ruler in the throne of my insecurity

Loving despite illusions made by the subconscious of my anxiety

The sun, XIX, the date I was born in, a card of warmth & positivity

Cradling a fruitful abundance within the creativity in my melancholy

"What will happen if the sun instead tried to kiss the moon.

Dawn creeps along with desire as they brush a moment too soon.

As she was the biggest star one could've imagined to ever swoon.

If they were to kiss, I doubt that we'd still be humming our usual tune”

Based on a self-proclaimed fluency in tarot cards & constellations full of prophecies

On a short prose dear for I’ve read them in front of my two idols in spoken poetry

And on endless abstract metaphors shared in conversations between you & me

Oh what an age, a state to be in, a mess embraced continuously in the name of vulnerability.

--

“...And I can’t say it to you like the way you show love to me,

Maybe it’s too dark to see in my closet as the sun jumped her leap of faith

To find out the expectation is a naught full of dreams.

The sun blackened out, showing the true sorrow underneath -

That the moon will always be the moon and the chase will keep on living until the end of time.” 

too wrote he, another meaning to this that was once perhaps a form of sorry.

Rahayu

The home I go to is now a 70 year old something woman that does not recognize the phrase “I’m full” from all the food she’d offer. She lays with the starfish in far seas to calm herself after a long day, with hair so long it is time’s own waterfall dropping from the bed that she’d cover. In every strand a prayer engraved, as she breathes in to the sanskrit phrases she holds close. She whispers them to me when in need, even though other kids have remembered their mantras since they were five. But it didn’t matter to her, as long as I’m aware of the kindness that would matter in life.

Even though our language oozes in it, Bhineka Tunggal Ika, that’s the only sanskrit we’ve consciously been throwing around lately. If it was a person it would note that “the only one that can shout my full name is my mother and if there is still a mental ID plate in your glance with blanks to fill - you might as well not bother.” Diversity now seems to only last in selfies and pamphlet pictures, before we go back to our never ending war of majority vs. minority and all that follows that rhymes with sweet ice tea.

Kuat kuat kuat, she tells me to be. Hold tight to your femininity and ethnicity, there’s no room for pity! I had to go to school behind my dad by running away with my trustee bike. Whenever I exchanged used cardboards for some rujak - away and up the mango trees I’d hike. Now, that is an independence necessary that comes from being the eldest girl in the family. She was of eleven though, I am of two - I shouldn’t complain. Kids these days, she goes one, do they even know how to sweep up & wash off a stain? All this she reenacts with
arms, hands, fingers that flutters with her whim and by 4 she takes a break to watch her hindi soap opera on TV while I sip my coffee with spoonfuls of sugar too many.

The home I go to is optimistic, I can spot a smile or two in every turn here. Too happy & ignorant, I too would start to fear. How are we independent again? The internet was down the other day and I couldn’t even contact anyone or finish my poem. What I’m trying to say is that - these anecdotes about my grandma, Rahayu, is my home. Two sides of the same coin, she is what I’ve always imagined Indonesia if it was a character, or if they were friends, Leo & Sagittarius - they’d be compatible as they teach those around them that things are not only solvable but laughable.

Such beauty thought she was ugly and dying by 72, even though she’s gracefully aging like how this home is too. She loves her greens both in the garden she’d take long walks in and in her meals, and I bet this home does too. Would love it if someone pays attention to all of her stories, to all of her worries, like how I bet this home would too. I’d complain about horrible local TV content, she’d complain about the youth that’s now too destructively dependent - and for now we can only paint them red and white in this independence day, but know that our freedom have always made its bed in sharp weapons that can now be achieved through what we strive to learn and say.

Dirgahayu Republik Indonesia ke-72!

Lighthouse

There should be a word for this,
How the midnight’s streetlights can reflect conversations better
As it hushes and tiptoes in its after hours around the sun’s slumber
Yet how she blushes daily
As she stretches to arise so... lazily
Sparks too much of a thought given over to such a mundane lot
Whom are sitting cross legged as an accidentally splattered dot
A stain to squint at a massively framed picture
An abrupt end of a sentence within a skipped scripture

Their bulbs would magnify,
Spilling self-portraits onto waters
For them to dive further away from where their feet are cemented
It paints a shimmering lane made of a flammable mix of colors
A mess of a gasoline spill they could be but can only dream of
A statement on how they get to burn bigger than this - brighter
A foreshadowing of a rebellious core from a simple flick of a lighter
Out of their designated shapes they reach out
To the curling hands of those amidst their midnight walks, hungry to be wise
To lonesome lighthouses trying to flirt as they'd monotonously wink for something nice
And aimless flocks of waves, weaving together, like stingrays in disguise
For they are a home for others yet where to belong, they would wonder

There should be a word for this, 
For the gaps in between that resembles the browning of an over-used palette
For timings that have been worst
As it is always distracted by yet another tardy white rabbit
And for how there aren’t enough words for things,
How one can be infatuated with a mere web of conversations
Spinning a trap around them endlessly, a braided illusion of certainty
Yet we are oil and water, still - a tightrope set up, attached though apart
For us to joust till one falls but then live to tell the tale of such a perilous art

All of this,
Does not seem fit with a common word used, despite how it taps its toes to its rhythm
Tucks its sharp edges, stares too long than looks away in a scripted euphemism
However it is something my ink would thoroughly spill for instead
Collapses on a pile of paper bed
Floating along the numbing proses of its alluring bliss
Flutters to spread out like a rookie magician though you might not notice

There should be a word for this, So that I can scribble some more of it on my wrist Each wording a stone for me to hopscotch on A reminder of every dialogue that has saved me And every fall I would exaggerate and dramatize as an arrow to the knee Victoriously limping once more towards the blink of a familiar vacancy

Where words unknown would hung in its silent doldrums
And I shall rest by its gleaming lane until the morning hums

Somber Saguaro's Soliloquy

餅が浜 - In an instance I accidentally related myself 

to the cactus hidden in the corners behind the post office.

This is how I explode
A wildfire that rages in self-conflict
A slow burn of self-defense brewing

June's ambivalance is a cup of tea
I'd rather sip in solitude's impromptu odes
Of an uneven bloom they deemed too slow

This is how I get my colors
Hog what the month would always trade
Puddles & cuddles of rays to store
I promised I am sharp enough to not be your bore
But Spring took her time to impress in a curtsy
Before her usual disperse into warm flushed snow

She remains one with her many, chuckling at the wilting & sprouting romances by their shaded lane

Bashfully crowning all that stands under their fluttering vain... reign... wait no, rain

The park no longer has room
For unpluckable petals & stems that can't be swayed
For the prickly & picky that can't be hugged nor played
For an odd stubble, a pitch red wound in its loom

I stood in the corner and watched them twirl & twirl

I stretched by the laze of my bed instead as April blows by in a curl

Of blanket wrapped realities that have gotten too used to being dismissed as a phase

Of moon phases, seasons that hugs to flirt then tip toes away alike with every typical frail pretty face

Reflective Surfaces

Reflective surfaces, a friend or foe

The truth it could bend, the truth it could show

In the light I’d cringe, at flaws that won’t mend

In the dark I’d singe, blinded by that confident glow

For I couldn’t see myself for the better by then

Well, as long as another won’t reach out to me, begging for the world to know

A helping hand it would lend, when clasped too tight it won’t let go

Am I the being, which to I tend, or a past that only cradles sorrow?

Reflective surfaces, a friend, no, a foe

A witness to how I’ve bloomed in the seeds mother would sow

Even in wilted petals, it plants another bulb to grow

Comforts like piping kettles, a cup of tea when at a low

When degrees curls up and drops to the floor,

And the warmth calls it a day, covers itself in blankets made of snow

I can only stare at the mirror, hoping for any one of us to finally take the blow

When in laughter or in tears, ‘tis the only pair of eyes I can stand

A dust glittering portal that summons my fears, I rise amidst its quicksand

The clearer, the bitter; at lonesome times it is my sitter

Reflective surfaces, not a friend, but a foe

It taunts me everywhere, but it’s getting harder to say “no”

A Poem You Won’t Read

He is not worthy of a single romantic hyperbole - for this is a poem he won’t read.

For he has pushed literature aside like the broccolis toddlers would hate to need.

They though would beg the differ when it’s viewed as little trees drenched in fondue.

But even then –

To him, no cheese-covered prose could ever seem to do.

Well, I could try -- with how

Roses are not always red, and violets are violet not blue.

Scatter them on expectations that are now actually dead,

the minute I’m with you.

I try to convince myself - barely a text given does not mean he’s not drawn.

Though unlike a cartoon, I breathe and my heart seems to beat the same when he’s around.

Perhaps it’s just that your millennial constructs of a heart emoji and a portrait’s symmetry won’t fuel our ship

As smoothly as the only thing cheesy about us – our pizza rounds, midnight quarter pounders and dip.

With such appetite to keep up - this stomach is too full for him to give it butterflies,

Yet there will always be room for a star witnessed round of milkshakes and curly fries

Of course - it should be noted that the sugar rush would make me tap dance some more along this shore,

Despite how he’ll roll his eyes and shush me, sighing that musicals are such a bore.

This is a poem he won’t read – and I’ll make it extra long

To make sure but maybe he’ll change his mind if he comes across it.

I’d distract him with metaphors and disappear like a rookie ninja –

Trying to erase the tracks that are made of things that I’ve already grown to admit.

How a person can seem so happy, is an uncharted territory to me.

Clutter swept under floors, I’d somehow trample on one for sure.

I’d trace his warm skin to map out and scavenge each with my shivering sad fingers

Only to be reminded that his ignorance could only give me bliss – ters.

He hides it all beneath the calm ruckus of his intonation, much like crashing waves.

Under a shield of rock that would numb the ears with its pulsing raves.

He floats, with his chin up and arms spread wide, cuddles in the embrace of the moment

While my back winds up in a loop of rails that swooshes to the same scheduled beat of anxious torment

These thoughts would wish it came in lesser forms instead, a canoe instead of a train maybe - to stay, to sway along.

Though regardless - he places me back to my track at times,

as his grin picks me up on a waltz made as habit without a song.

But again, he is not alike with objects and or of sempiternal wonders, he is simply he…

The way that I’m merely humane and made of what I am, that is -

A person who forces him to stay up to talk till it’s past 5 AM.

This is a poem he won’t read –

I’d take offense of his lack of interest, but at times it may be for the best.

For he does not attempt to bull up the word count

For love isn’t a final exam to be constantly reminded of, with

Grades, numbers on a scoreboard to flaunt

Nor notes to memorize, measurements to squint eyes, and agendas to revise

I know, they’ve told me that pretty flowers are better left be than to be plucked and complemented,

But there are times that he wouldn’t notice how my glance are glued to him, hard cemented

The following would still remain on its own as ideals, despite how he won’t recognize how it feels.

And I’d exhale to ask myself if he does the same

For he might not say much; he might not do much –

But so does the waves that I keep sinking my feet into

A reminder of how comfortable home is, a picture perfect frame

Perhaps characters that comes in thousands pave an agonizing way

To the realization on how poor your attention span is,

But it is only a glimpse of what I’m capable to describe and miss -

But then again this is a poem you won’t read.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

LUNCH - On Celebrating Diversity ( CNY Special.)

If Diversity was to be celebrated it would be the quietest party we would ever attend. For it’s often boasted about yet somehow a cliche when scribbled and splattered in pen. Best celebrated in lunch then - for it’s a need not to be mentioned that’s been there to fuel from the start. You know you can’t skip it -- unless you’re on a diet or you’re recovering from a broken heart.

But it’s there! And unless you’ve been held captive and was starved in a dungeon - would you thought about celebrating such a mundane routine? Of ordering and devouring your meal alongside everyone else in the room who would most probably have a different everything from you, carrying whether healthy gardens as a meal or cholesterol pools that you’d roll your eyes at. Where I’m celebrating now, it’s seasoned with a buzz of too many languages and gibberish conversations going around at once, phonetics that would gag me confused in this college town - diversity sounds more like The Sims when in the middle of such a turtle race kind of day.

Diversity loves to sing on a higher octave at this hour to the lyrics of everyone’s separate itineraries but everyone's too busy to notice. Soft spoken, indifferent, & tired afterwards but it’s presence is always with us to hold our hands like how mothers would to comfort on their child’s first day of preschool. Not ready to face so many other kids that are not you, but then again we seem to always find ourselves hand in hand and at peace with it by lunch time - making friends from trading carrot sticks to biscuits.

 Your favourite sassy tv show character of color placed in the middle of an otherwise formulaic toothpaste pale cast to convince that we’re now open minded, hip, & cool from how we were in the past. We’ve grown to color it into a plain chessboard of trying to make it seem that we can be side by side without kicking away anyone’s turns by the swings. The more notes you would ask to belt, the less idyllic the melody, the lesser it sings. Note that - Diversity is a wallflower by the cafeteria who would choose to and should not be pointed out during lunch for singing along a whispered hymn of everyone floating side by side in their own bubble - a slight finger would just burst itself a ruckus of trouble. It breaks a chopstick to drum along chewing rhythms found, but never to ask for a fight anyone of you all have managed to sound. It rather be left be as it is without being painted in rainbows, symbols, & reds parading, charading, & fading for causes left and forgotten in beds.

Lunch is sacred - a time where you would let go of any fear, for I bet all the anger started from an empty stomach but it can be settled here. Stoves come a brightening and we shall welcome the flames of a happy chinese year! of the fire rooster to wake up and arise better days with lunches of take outs, golden drumsticks, and chicken nuggets for all these problems we should set aside to clear.