Origami

Home is an

origami

made out of Tengucho paper

with a hollow center.

Two cutout people

as delicate as the origami walls

soluble under drizzles

flammable by hot wax.

Origami home.

Even with windows it’s suffocating

even with blinds it’s see-through

even with space it’s compact

even with lightness it’s a burden.

Two paper people

that came from one folded cut.

Frail and clueless like a newborn

yet strong enough to bruise all the bricks

mindless enough to dance around a flame.

Origami home.

Shattered to dust.

Burnt to a cinder.

重臨仙蹤 (下)

仙蹤 (上) →

微風般的呼吸撫摸著對方的面頰

對彼此的沈默瞭如指掌

你我之間最近的距離

是甘澀的共同回憶與體諒

原來無須文字言語

無須絞盡腦汁

傳心術是我們的超能力

謙遜地炫耀著敢愛的勇氣

人類的心臟是上帝皮開肉綻的傷口

而我們是它的體驗者

從來一切的煎熬享受

原來未曾獨自經歷

我說我想念你

你說你更想念我

我們都喜歡做贏家

然而此刻我願賭服輸

在無止境的雙人床上

我們總會找到彼此

直到破曉時分被夏日喚醒

繪聲繪色地講述夢裡的仙蹤

忘了從哪天開始言不由衷

嘴角掛著不在乎

卻要誓死捍衛

你早已被現實粉碎的心

一場德克薩斯撲克的全押

在下賭注前已把你看得透徹

有所失必有所得是我們的座右銘

費一番五年的苦功才學會

命運不會領會故事的寓意

只懂得徘徊

直到獅子覺悟

牠就是故事的掌門人

紅塵要靠經歷去看破

原來有一種緣份

是在彼此相遇前

相遇自己

仙蹤 (上) →

The Haven for Time

It’s snowing in London tonight. I wonder if you’re fascinated by it as I would be. I travel the world inside my head, going a mile an hour, trying to picture myself next to you as we watch the fragments of heaven sprinkling down, illuminating our awfully ordinary world. I secretly hope it wouldn’t stop, so you could finally have a moment to admire what others take for granted. Yet, I did not want to call you or let you know that I was having that moment to myself. It’s shameful. I guess we’re all crazy in our own ways.

I am not condemning myself for dwelling on bygones. Sometimes reliving all the details is when you finally begin to forget. But really, there’s nothing to forget about. We were just two people caught in the eye of a storm. We did what we could do best, which was to relinquish something even time did not have the capacity to hold. What seemed to be chaos at the time, in hindsight, was a mere disguise of the power that transformed us into something bigger than what our minds could ever fathom. I’d like to believe that nothing was destined. And you were the enabling factor of the fact that I no longer am the person I was, simply by being yourself.

We’re now miles apart, but even if I can’t love you as a lover, I will not stop loving you as a friend. You were the person who saw the wounds I hid from the rest of the world. You saw them as if they glowed in the dark. And on top of everything you taught me how to adore them. Time did not allow us to construct our very own hiding place, but it’s incontrovertible that we’ve both kept the blueprint of it. The time we spent together was temporary, but in my mind those moments last forever. All this time I thought that if I've had mummified what we had, we could come back to pick it up where we left off. But that night when you told me you felt the same connection, I finally realized that not everything fleets, and what we had can always be revisited.

Life will continue to love a changed person. And I’ve learnt that sometimes letting go is a way of holding on.

Private Passion & Public Intimacy

It’s always raining in my dreams

in which you live

The sky is perpetually slate blue

Drizzles become a downpour without exception

And you disappear every time

right before I lie half-awake on my bed

attempting to fall back into that state

where it feels like my insides

are being cut open by the jagged pieces

of my broken heart

The state when I finally remember

what it feels like to be vulnerable

To be hurt

A burnt child loves fire, Oscar Wilde said

Perhaps we’re obsessed with conquering what we can’t

But to me there’s also something addictive

about a certain type of aching

It’s about my infatuation

with the elegance of a dancing flame

and how it seduces my senses feverishly

How its vigor renders me defenseless

This is my kind of intimacy with the fathomless world

To appreciate and consume the beauty of it

is to be exposed and powerless

To be honest and unapologetic

even if it means hurting the other person

to reignite what has been long-lost

Because what we’ve never been told is that

Numbness leaves a more obtrusive burn mark

I self-hypnotized my mind back into the dream

in which I was soaked under the pouring rain

not able to search for you

among all the other blurred faces passing by

Repenting for telling you to leave me forever

My cheeks lukewarm from countless tears

Yet every inch of me was falling in love with each second I spent

in this sick little echo chamber I'd built myself

Writer's Block

At dawn I like to sit by the ocean
where my turbulent thoughts go for a swim
to be reminded that they also have the power
to drench a certain type of melancholy
and shatter a dam that holds up any inspirations
There is healing quality in the way it shimmers
as if it can tell whether I am in touch
with whatever that is within me
I can measure loss against its mass
and suddenly everything in life will seem so complete
Ever again I rest on the sand
with my notebook of writings next to me
until moonlit seashells linger elsewhere
From afar white foams explode into madness
but the hem that touches my knees look so smooth
A storm with a soft edge
that can wreck a ship
but caress the limpets
though they do not seem to care
about how many lives the tides took
Like I, they refuse to disturb
this perfect serenity in a chaotic mess
Sea-kissed cheeks and sand in my feet
Sun-dried hair and memories everywhere
It is time for my thoughts to return to shore
and scribble a few lines in my journal
Bringing them for a dip makes me cherish poetry all the more
All poems speak but a good one listens
Life never ceases to have meaning
Even in suffering
Even in death
I shut my eyes and let the waves
whisper a story about
something coming
something going

The World As We Know It

Last night I dreamt that the world ended
I was running in a forest where trees were made of darkness
The floor made of ice beneath my bare feet
It felt like a million needles piercing through them
In the dream we lost sight of each other forever
When I screamed your name
the echoes only came back endlessly
And no matter how much tears I cried
it still felt like all hell had broken loose inside my bones
I was awaken when the drizzle stopped
The sky is now tinted with a washed-up yellow
Clouds looking like they're in polaroid photos
The blanket was not covering my feet
My mind wanders back into the nightmare I was about to forget
Heartbreaks are so memorable
Even in dreams
In the waking world they come in waves, invariably
And the surroundings seem less dramatic
In the waking world I'll torch the trees
I'll muffle my ears from my own voice
I'll drill apart the glacier
In the waking world
I won't go looking for you running –
the cold will paralyze my frosted feet
But in the real world
I spoke to you with words I used to tear myself apart with
Words that are now foreign to me
In the real world I was just violently
trying to see the most vulnerable side you'd never show anyone
In the real world I missed all the parts your hands held and let go of
Everywhere overflowing with love
But it's always Winter with your touch
Your words more frigid than hailstones
And I thought I was angry with you
when I was only angry with myself
because what you said made me believe
that I didn't understand the world anymore
"Well, that's your problem," you'd say
And that's true
The world has been the same
What has changed was the way I looked at it
I tried my best to understand the real world
To rationalize what you said to me
But your words
They're still foreign to me
And we're still a planet away from each other
So lately I've been thinking
Maybe I'll never understand at all
Because to understand is not to think
To understand is to experience
And how we see the world is how we see ourselves in it
In the real world, I was running away from you
In the real world, I was afraid
In the real world
My world ended when we lost sight of each other, forever

Purple Paper Crane

She demonstrated with the same paper over and over again
until its creases resembled the patterns on the back of her hand
My clumsy fingers poking in between layers
trying to make pockets with those squares
I heard it's where they keep our wishes
and devour the paper fishes
She said, "You don't have to recite the steps if you learn it by heart,
then you'll remember how to do it like a work of art.
Origami is a lesson in life about patience,
and this must be passed down through generations."
Purple paper crane – how can something so frail hold so many stories?
Purple paper crane – a beautiful cradle for all our memories
The best things we give should be the things that will never be lost
and the most valuable things we keep, should be those that don't have a cost
The day when you finally understand why
is the day the paper cranes in your heart begin to fly.