my life is so fucking boring
every story I tell about
someone else—at some point
forgot I had agency.

tell me why you are meant to be here.
I’ll entertain you. it’s in my script.
always the show, never who sees
that I brought cherry pie
and a heart of pleas
to have what I give you done to me.

Egyptian cat leaves a jagged frame
to hide in time, the future and past
only visible now from the side,
from your perspective these bricks
lead to nowhere in particular.

if i stopped at

the top half of a kneeling statue…
should i take your word? when
you tell me you are okay
and before i understand
you are lost to where they lead.

Tea-light flicker
on my tongue--tea
light, aerated words
slosh and swallow
from the back of my mouth
out! I tell you
bitter to sweet
cup by cup
unfold my leaves
before I dry and freeze.

a new friend is stuck in the revolving door to
my heart—my eyes, enveloped by faint lines and creases
like my mother who may never learn
to see my drink is half full, not empty.
my phone rings: happy birthday sung by my grandmother,
bouquet of flowers on the dining table,
four-day-old leftovers in the fridge.
things I cannot yet go through, sell or put away/keep
a loving partner who deserves to be free.
move to a different city, which final movement?
of a piece, a plant, a pet, a person, a party,
a meeting with a friend, one night stands.
one full day of daylight only leads to dusk;
on a Sunday eve, stop edging me, grief.

each facade--
assets drawn from your asset library
--hides the un-self-built home

walk down the canal,
caught a glimpse of,
the true self hidden away

a hoarse draws your boat
down down down
through these man-made rivers

past make me somebody
worth building here,
worth worth

frames tufts of leaves neighboring
a relationship filtered by glass
solid, weakens. only through a vacuum
sometimes someone as far away as a full moon
from a sun set sees you.

i struggle to scratch down everyone's feelings without slipping off the page
sharp pivot of a spinning mobile balancing arc whack away
long branch of a spinning mobile i struggle to push away without slipping off the pivot
sharp gear of a clock work i struggle to churn for i cannot move you ahead
for you as i cannot move you ahead

how much will it cost to remove
this dead pigeon from my garden?
by any chance
i cannot mourn a dead bird

hi, can you come remove
this little snail from my bathroom?
by any means
i will not cradle a small snail

what would it take to remove
this gentle spider from my kitchen?
by any feeling
i should not rescue them

i caught through the cracks open in the bathroom window
i should see up-close the droopy blooms
the droopy blooms a volition each year

i saw through the window over the kitchen sink
the droopy blooms before regret
i go out to petals rain

i'm folding the soiled clothes of a child,
categorising objects devoid.
archiving a life of four suitcases
compacting into three
compacting into three
to lie in me.

俩在书架一角约会
第二天桌子看到孤独
网上只有一晚

the recovery never makes a good story.
it just keeps going and it just keeps going and it just keeps going and
it just keeps going

now it's impossible to tell if it ever had a beginning.
how difficult to stop something that never began.

break a circle into an arc!
random ray flip the instruction!
turn left off the parallel!
get off at the wrong station!

trapped behind the door, jammed
all the clothes. any expression
remaining in the washing machine.
spun round and round, battered
then left to stagnate. this
faraday cage stuck with me:

who've never been stuck
with a machine door stuck
don't know what it is, to be stuck-
yet are sticking what's stuck
in the machine.

i had passed so many times growing up
It was here before I was born and
will probably still be here after I leave
I was thinking up a poem about the tree
when a pigeon shat on me

tell me, how it would feel

to exchange shoes with you
in the place where arts,
science, technology and
creativity come together.

from up there; can you see
the sun set down below
the layered buildings
that encroach on you?

trapped in tarmac, i see you
stretch out above in fractals
as economists pass you by-
like time, escape!

sunbathing in blue light only
dazes me awake, tired
of twiching hard drive needles
ceaseless; distraction
as the restless data stream
flows on, on, on.

an algorithm is not a river. data is not water.
to drop it all in a river would make no discernible noise.

having not done it strikes
like the panic at the first
time i forgot how old i was

monkey on a typewriter showed me
that they had already written that
monkey on a typewriter
had already written that

i think about it all the time.
it's all in my head;
piercing eyes at a bunny
rabbit, what soul left cannot
out of my vision leave

a spider clings to me
unable to shake it off
lay on a swing bureaucratic
back and forth continuously
the bunny just flops then hops

3 bunnies
3 centimetres

one crow teases another
who doesn't seem to care
it swoops down then swerves away
to just about miss--STOP. just
sorry. that i can only,

i talk about it all the time
i must inspect this house for mould
it is growing in the bathroom
sometimes i fear it could just explode
like a stupidly made electric car

3 houses
3 centimetres

gone far too far without a break
too thirsty to pick a bubble tea
the pigeon chases the one who doesn't
want them to be able to fix me
pathetic(,) chuckle in a bookshop

overwhelmed by all the writing
it's not that bad. could i want it to be?
what if it gladdens me? at least i'll know
your ssd is probably corrupted
let me take a look at it

3 asian grocery stores
3 centimetres

train wrong
train 25-minutes-late
train on too long
i just went and ate
firm and comfy taro on a bed of ice
squared in by temperamental tapioca
i split apart too easy but collapse
through fragile hills of grass jelly
making the most of the time before
it melts away into homogenous ooze

i don't want anybody to know me
but the loves of my life.
why should you know me?

roll for feelings
- back to when you did not care
if i even was
better that way for us both.

you never let me know
my choice of path would bother you so
why is there a right to know me?

both then and now i wish to depart
to a land where nobody knows me.

my body for me only.

i just feel like death
every plant i care for dies
even when watered

days
to
weeks

to

months


to


years



help me move a statue
in bed a pose does not bend,
it breaks, brittle,
cold enough to fend off the time
that stomps across it, alone.

help me bring this statue
from bed this pose can bend,
and rise, together,
warm enough to walk with those
who could not neglect them

i fell. lack
of solid wax,
having melted
i cracked.

the blank canvas gifted to me
reminded me of something new
now i miss you

who would know
the crow swoops down across the track
on a monday morning?
did you get the whole train?
i would have been more impressed,
but still the hint of you sparkled through the noise

august flows too quickly
i fear i already missed it
meu coracao foi
cheio demais esse dia de saudade
mergulhei na onda sozinha
i couldn't see through it
nem sabia
i missed you when you are still there,
vem amanha

the leaves in the little jar of bay leaves are running out.
there is only one left,
it is the last because it was smaller than the others.

they left in small groups of three or four,
i made sure to tear them apart as you showed me.

soon only the drawing on the lid will remain.
i will have to decide—
if i will keep it or throw it away.

little shark
unstable bedroom
dead plant plant alive
desk not mine

bunny plushie follow me
come with me from screen
to screen

sisyphean task laundry elude me

candle burn away: cup for pens
keyboard wake facing a bed

what will be left here when i leave

into the earth
not a flowering plant
watching the sky
intermittent rain
forms the water of my tears
to feel from my eyes
will this year a blossom
from that rot bloom
standing in rain
only to fall soon