Bridges

“A secret kept even from ourselves:
how bridges are falling

between the imagined word
and the spoken one,

between what I say
and what you actually hear.

If you could slow
time down, perhaps you might

even hear them falling.
Bridges of years our hearts

have signed away to crumble,
collapse

down the middle, leaving
behind a gasp

of air between two banks, wide
with unspoken truths,

a thousand pleas for empathy.
New bridges are rising

into form, incompletion, then
falling away. Maybe it is

this moment of our lives,
when the bridges

left standing are the ones
we miss,

when the ones we did
not mean to build

we built
from betrayal, regret, guilt and loss.”

– Cyril Wong, Bridges

The Ponds

“Still, what I want in my life


is to be willing


to be dazzled –


to cast aside the weight of facts





and maybe even


to float a little


above this difficult world.


I want to believe I am looking



into the white fire of a great mystery.


I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing –


that the light is everything… And I do.”

– Mary Oliver, The Ponds

Fiction

Slightly, the setting sun

shifts the shaft of light

down the wall. The dust,

illuminated. They float, equilibrate, paying no respect

to memento mori. And I,

I am fiction.

The pages have long yellowed. You caress

my spine. Gently, your fingers slide

across the embellishment, distant as

seeing eyes that

study Braille. I am now fragile –

an artifact, resigned to

your careful curation, your cautious

hands.

I was once the grand wooden door you knocked,

after the drawbridge fell. You gazed, with wonder,
at the silver knight. Running, you escaped

the labyrinth, and embraced

the magnolias, the field where you

were safe.

You were a muse to me, like I was

to you. Magic was when

you thumbed my pages, when we huddled beneath

your fort of sheets. I shared countless night skies

with you. Without thought,

my space was saved

wherever you went.

Yet I was not made to measure the miles,

before my own shadows

swallowed me whole. It was quick,

painless,

sobering, while your world grew

cruel,

illusory. I withdraw

into my corner, second hallway

from the left. Because

I am fiction, and because

I never belonged

where you were.

(It would be wonderful if anyone understood what this really meant, but I don't expect anyone to, judging from the amateurish writing. Still learning though.)

Proud

We all have something we're proud of

And something we're not.

Like when I said I wanted

To give the college degree a miss,

Go to design school, launch the arrows

To see if they hit, they said

Great, take the risk, you're good at it, you're good at everything,

(I think), just when

I get nothing more than

A verbal green light which tried to mean

Both more and less,

Something like

Let me support you

But first, I'll think about

How I'm probably going to work

Until I'm 90.

Yet it wouldn't mean much if things were clear,

If it could be shelved away in box labelled Things You Get With Generation Gaps, paying no mind at all

To whatever ignorance I hear.

But it was strange, because it was disillusioning,

How I realised I could do without it,

That I couldn't build my castles like I thought.

And how I realised

I was probably emptier

Than this conservative Chinese family was.

There are days where I wake up empowered

And nights where I go to bed

With so much gratitude pounding within.

It's the feeling of

A thousand Roman candles lighting up in progression along my spine

When my hands give way to

Something so achingly beautiful

Just because I could call it mine.

And it's what comes when

I close my eyes in a Hallelujah,

Think about everything that got me here today –

Things that were lost,

And things that were realised

Along the way.

Yet there are days where my will

Dwindles to a few silent drops off a leaking faucet,

Where twenty-four hours become so long they're embarrassing.

And I've seen nights spent

Curled up in fetal positions,

As if it would hark back to

Those sparkling eyes, the hand which was always held,

The days when I was still

Nothing short of a child.

And so it goes, I guess,

Hashtagging a couple of life decisions #yolo, #adventure, #swag, maybe,

While stumbling through the melodies of others

Because I was hopelessly out of key.

And while I lay gazing at this night sky that is life,

I see constellations romanticized with possibility

While all they are might just be

Leftover confetti.

Because this is a balancing act,

Of the good and the bad, just like how

We all have something we're proud of

And something we're not.

Liberate

Maybe we are dealing with
the insurmountable. Maybe
this labyrinth is nothing but
a cruel illusion that
circles upon
itself.

If we saw ourselves, these poor creatures,
how we run into the hundredth corner
just when we thought
our heavy hearts could finally
hinge on that last gasp of freedom,
let these chains crush
ever so
gently.

Yet, as much as we are
the misfits, the disfigured
pieces to this puzzle
of conformity, absurdity,
we shall one day draw
this courage, to watch with brave eyes
as this maze shifts
and fades to
white.

Maybe we are dealing with
the insurmountable. Maybe
we are dealing with
ourselves. Maybe
we can be beautiful, and maybe
we can be
free.

Let it prosper

I feel it inside me, this ocean
rumbling, crashing against a shore
of words, washed out along with
forgotten feelings, subdued truths, desires the heart
has yet to know,
and it pounds, with the energy
of hidden passions, buried deep within the crevices
of the soul, overwhelmed
by its own gravity, but
alive and fiery
as they have always been.

I see it inside me, this glow –
soft, uneven, speckled –
its shards, they dislodge
into a magnificent show of stars
against the dark of dusk, in patterns
too complicated to fathom
into the most familiar constellation.

I hear it inside me, this city –
the drone of an old refrigerator,
the 2am gunshots and false alarms,
the crushing of Coke cans, the intoxicated laughter –
an imperfect construction, the chemistry of
a hundred different perceptions
reacting to form
a whole that matters.

In your solitude, feel the oceans roar, and
the waves, unfurl.
In the night's romance, be humbled by the majesty
of the stars, these glowing cosmic bodies
of light.
In the quiet of an empty apartment, hear
how the concrete jungle stumbles into life
in its beautifully broken fashion.
And you will speak my language, sense my hopes
to build an impenetrable castle, a refuge to fall back on,
a universe to call our own.