Dear readers, it’s been a while, how have you been? Perhaps as time gives less room to dream, as my words began failing me, or to close a chapter, I’ve decided to compile my writings across 2022. The collection is a photobook of sorts, of my dreams, scars, desires, and memories.
the room of ambition
april 2022
my mama tells me i’m a puppet to my dreams. she says i never shut my eyes when i sleep. crumpled papers stuffed up my lungs and throat, red ink soaking my greying pupils. i sleep in the afternoons now, because only the silence of night gives way to the mind of a genius, because the strings pulled tight are submerged in the moonlight. my mama says the red paint splashed across our windows are the debts of my aspirations. she says i grab at my wrists when i sleep, that my jaw goes slack and i scream. now, i scrub the floors with my undone, destined misery. the receipts of what i've yet to accomplish run across the corridor, the buzzing of the printer hasn't stopped for nine months. because i have so much to do and so much left undone, i pay more than what i can earn in flesh and blood and soul. my mama told me i'm wielding a dagger of hope into the cavity within my chest. she said i never sleep anymore, consciousness and unconsciousness colliding in shallow waves. i've lost contact with everyone i've ever known, i've buried myself within a life in the basement, where night turns to day and day turns to night at my call. the mould on the wall tiptoes into my sheets and i sink into it with the familiarity of an old friend. because being alive and undead has become all the same, because i have so much ahead of me, because i must get there before anybody else does, because it's all worth it in the end.
the line
june 2022
I will write
longer things.
I will learn to piece my
words together in long strings of music,
my sentences like the bars on the scoresheet that will run infinitely.
I will speak
in extended sentences with an overuse of commas;
he always says I speak in disjointed phrases, I am unclear, and what he means is I cannot communicate. He does not know that he shatters my sentences into pointed shards.
He does not know that he tramples on my words and dissolves all
of the syllables
still rolling
on my tongue.
And so, I will write and write and write, more than anyone has ever written, my sentences will never end, my words will run and run and run and run to the end of the tunnel that no one has ever reached, I will bleed all of my thoughts on this piece of paper, I will think and think and think and I will be thorough, thorough, thorough, and then I will have evidence that he is the person that cuts
the line.
A story
july 2022
One, two, three Tell me your story. Those fireflies in the field you remember a night brighter than anyone has ever seen. One of those delicate creatures of light landed in your palms, setting off a fire that sears through where your fingers touch. Didn’t we use to press our foreheads together Sparks flaming in our veins? The damp soil under your feet you remember them rising up The air clouded by a sentient mist, you remember feeling moist moist moist caught up in the looming storm. Don’t you remember our hands interlocked Ice melting into water in our veins? Why don't you remember lying on the summer grass Knees soiled with that youthful energy of yours as I watched you dip your head under the waves Our vision of each other blurred I never knew a moment like that would occur again And last forever. Would you, now, remember my place in your story? One, two, three I'll ask you again I'll tell you again If you'll listen If you'll remember I know I will.
(waiting by the train station)
july 2022
these puzzle pieces are the constellations of your eyes there's a painting of you in my mind i want to perfect the song you always sing is the brush i hold so gently in my hand, so fragile it might break, i wouldn't dare to have your heart sit between my palms these memories are the lights that shine on your camera always hanging around your neck, the sound of the shutter brings me back to your fingers on my veins reading my pulse, so slowly, the rhythm of our heartbeats synchronising eyes locked the universe pieces itself back together.
alive
july 2022
alive
In the hands of the monster
Of my own creation
Nurturing,
carving in,
with its thumbs
Do whatever it means to be happy.
Sealing in the gaps of my memory
I feel alive
In the hands of the monster
Picture me
melting wax, polished face,
Edges
sanded down,
softened
Perfection.
This devil
Ascended from my dreams
Hopes of heavenly satisfaction
I feel alive
This smile now rests on a plasticine skull
unbroken untorn undone.
Untangled
My ropes of ambition
Freed, held, alive
In the arms of the monster's embrace
Do whatever it means to be free.
Dancing
To the set rhythm
In the hands of the monster
Serenade me
Elegant,
dissonant
Living,
Breathing
Alive
My bones heal better in the fire
My heart soars above within the poison
Transcendent,
Divine,
Heaven
In the storm of the monster’s song
Do whatever it means to be alive.
My skeleton face
A smile creeps up
In the hands of the monster
Daggers
digging
In crescents
of laughter
I feel
Light, leaves and the forest.
august 2022
I am the light that gets lost in the forest. I am the light that dances on the curve of the leaves, the light that trips and shatters upon the bark of a tree. I am the light with limited moves in a shifting maze. I am the light placed at a disadvantage at the surging of a rainstorm.
Please, let me make it there. And let me make it all the way back.
Please, I am not trying to overwhelm the shadow. I am trying to coexist.
Please, nurse my injuries with the falling of leaves in autumn.
Please, let a rainbow form at the junction of calm and rage.
It is not easy to be the light.
Light is temporary.
So, instead,
Let me be the shadow.
The ever-existing shadow.
The permanent shadow.
I am the shadow that swallows up all radiance at the speed of light. I am the shadow that engulfs the mouths, eyes, ears, rendering faces faceless. I am the shadow that hides under the leaves, and digs its claws into the veins of a tree. I am the shadow sentenced in the forest, to an eternity of drowning.
Say, why do I eat until I starve?
Say, why do I blanket the rising sprouts?
Say, why do I throttle the face of light?
Say, why do I chain myself underwater?
The shadow keeps me grounded, I say. The forest is too dark to see the exit.
The light and the shadow are stuck in the maze. Would it be better to float, or to sink?
落叶 (fallen leaves)
09.22
[reverse poem of 雪霜 (snowfall), march 2022]
雪霜 (snowfall)
The process of arranging these works gave me room to look at how I’ve grown. I hope you, too, could briefly visit your past, future, present, fantasies, destinies and uncanny premonitions. As we begin pulling the doors of a half-year close, maybe we’ve become better at looking ahead. I hope you enjoyed reading, and I hope we all realise the constellations blooming within ourselves.
With love,
yu