you

until they melt

you don’t stop

in any way

you, there

and nowhere

until they end

you thrive

wants don’t stay

longer than

heartbreak

you brush

this chapter

on and off

until I simply am

a symptom

wet soil

on your sole

one rainy day

you stomp,

leaves fall

until I subside

dew on your window

wounds healed

and opened

by love poems

minds tell stories

then believe

then sleep

and dream

then forget

inanity

until a night walk

wakes me up

to revive this

until I dissolve

in light

lightness

you breathe

you stay

you

2006

to none of you

the essence of your last words has betrayed what was written
or, rather, I was the one who sneaked in just enough to see you’re
alive, still writing and reviewing and asking to click your links,
still quoting dead men’s wisdoms in an effort to bury your fears of
being told that you’re a crying baby at the church’s door,
of being abandoned by your surrogate mothers
that you collected at the departure gates, campus dormitories,
cramped bedrooms, clogged toilet drains, silent tunnels
I left that day because I wanted to visit you in silence
knowing, now, that you were the joker all along
disguised in a sad, white outfit you loved to wear
remember who had the last words? you
because there are days when words struck me as
irrelevant

now you know I, too, was the joker all along

A cat story

The middle earth

When I still didn’t know how to write, what to write, I wrote to you. Reality had long been a boogeyman so it did not really matter whom I wrote to. Me, keeping your friendship was absurd and real. Without you? Perhaps life would have been just a little less.

Awalnya…

Your sadness was a sticky substance in my hands, very inconsiderate. My lungs couldn’t do much but to respond to and falsely justify.

Akhirnya…

Aku bercerita tentang aku yang mengerti. Kepastian dalam hidup hanya ada di balik tirai-tirai ketidakpastian yang pastinya harus tersibak agar kita lewat. Jalan terus, seberapapun lambat dan cepatnya. Aku mengerti bahwa life, hidup, urip, leben… adalah kebosanan yang akan digugah oleh tragedi dan serpih-serpih bahagia yang sementara. Kebosanan yang tak terusik oleh senyum manis di bibir dan segala kegamangan akan harapan. I am freakin’ bored. Which also means that I’m boring.

dan...

Once I told myself: Roo, you are one piece that’s never boring, and will never be. Because you never got into my routine. Kita yang mereka sebut platonik. Kau satu-satunya romantisme yang masih ingin kupeluk. Karena aku sudah lelah dengan semua cerita bahagia dan kata-kata indah tentang mimpi-mimpi. Kata-kata yang tak hendak membawa manusia melewati batas akhir khayal. Nonetheless, your one-time-ness was due. You grew ancient in years. Kita, yang mereka sebut tai kucing.

Masih akhirnya (kah?)

There's sunshine, the yellow cat says, indoors.

It all

The Lover
I will not save you from the penalty. Are you not my lover still, and you know what to do in times of trouble, O Brave One? This is my house, these are my friends. My car needs repair, my young needs her tea fixed. Help yourself with anything. Flap the duster or something.

The Mud
They cannot watch the final tonight because the power is off. In the dark, we mind to star gaze and talk about dead things, and a little bit about future - similarly nonexistent. But they tread on in the rain, covering the dead with leaves and mud. I thought I saw your face in the puddle.

The Taxi
Llyod-Webber's Music of The Night on the radio. Weird - that should've only happened with imaginings. She is pregnant with his baby. There on the back seat, another man is necking with her. City lights and passersby sing amorously. Seven minutes before the murder.

The Question
No answer. The usual letting go. Who's gonna do the dishes, the ironing? Who's gonna lock the door? Why are you here? Why are you still here? You. You. You are not him. You love me. It's the system of Eject.

The Ghosts
After the burning of the witches, what has become the forest? The water washed away the ashes. The wet grass and the cricket, deep in thought.

the camera

your finger touches the button of the red camera in my hands that shout joyfully from the caress of your skin. your dry tips on my calm pretense. the shutter winks at the inessentials, like the fact that you are not mine alone. the camera, and what it misses capturing, lets them live uncropped so that hope travels afar. that and a promise that I will sip your strong coffee when everything else blurs.

theatre of the absurd - 2

two stupid women in a stupid conversation on a bike
one with breasts hard from breast-feeding,
the other with newspaper headlines stuffed in her bra
you know the problem with you is that you know too much
the one in pain tells the other one
who instantly remembers Jack, who
was born when he was fourteen

she chews her bubble gum wrapper,
feeling ticklish in her upper-middle part,
but suddenly remembers where her lost pen really is
all I care is to be with money
to travel to Alaska and eat those poison weeds
but i don't know where I am going
she doesn't know where she's headed

she needs to be with her baby soon but
the other one wants to touch her alien baby,
to rip up the agony of maternity and mommy-hood
it's all insane, when one cannot even buy gasoline,
she's barely, barely chronometrable!
the problem with you is your clogged ears
one says to the other (don't matter which)
the brain should be minced well
the head should tilt, equally well

if they're lucky, the next thing that'll come in their way
is a cargo truck full of Christmas presents
if anything happens to their heads,
like brain knockout or sumthin,
they'll be on the track to happyness

stupid is pretty clever these days
(meanwhile, they're wet, sticky, and smell like
milk)

theatre of the absurd - 1

the rain is still falling
the old house is crying
year after year
idiots don't read signs

but I am looking at your children's faces
small as they are, how thin and blank
I'm trying not to be bothered by their
stinking unhappiness

next agenda of this global warming thing:
spreading the rumor of your misbehavior
of your not learning anything from the
damaged, puddled road
how it ended your husband's life
of what has made your stinking children

at tea time, they chat leisurely and
drink cups of rainwater
their faces yellowing
the vegetables on absinthe
forget, forgot, forgotten