Expectancy is harmful, indeed. All this time we wish upon humans who were odds-on to be made from stardust, yet not shooting stars. They do not have wishbones placed under their skins, nor walking with horseshoes. Humans are just to whom our hopes and wishes drift, along with promptness of accepting that they may not grant the whole lot—they are just creatures of no good luck charms, no wish makers as well.
Category: Counterfeit
Oneiric
/their own kind of today/
Adolescents standing on the dais wear bright sweatshirts, some with knitted vests, as well as harem pants with monochromatic chiffon shirt, all hymning twee to dreamwave if not shoegaze to lo-fi tunes with whimsical lines they have curated the list before—sometimes the bands do not mind doing Scandinavian folk for special order—and her (second) favourite person on Earth at the moment is the boyish-haired girl with xylophone. Filigrees with white to peach blossoms all over the hall, befitting the magenta-coloured flamingo installation near the doorway. Kids wearing pearly tulles to adults wearing ivory brocades surround the portico along with sous-chefs dishing up cannellonis from table to table.
Your world does not revolve around you
What are we but breathing creatures consist of stardust. In a colossal cosmos of gigantic constellations, we are never more significant than a handful of clays scattered in between a skyscraper-sized breccia outcrop. In the gap between nothingness and existence, that is where we are, wishing if only we were less inconsequential than we are, while every living cell of us—every smallest bit of it—is just particle of no great concerns compared to our surrounding—and expanding?—universe. Things we cannot control keep taking places; subduction exists, orogeny happens, Earth’s plates shift, all occurrences happen, and we stay small.
Hello, there.
In a world where we have always been convinced to realise how insignificant we are, how would you think we still need anybody else to remind us that we are?
Errer
In times of yore, I used to fall for the idea of wanderlust. Stations moving behind night train window, eyes of spouses longing for immediate arrival in every corner of the airport, the smell of salty water slowly vanished within merchants’ old-fashioned perfume scent on cruises—all of them were all the kind of constancy that I kept witnessing each time. And I felt good, as well as alive. It was as if the entire humankind was within my neighbourhood and that all voyages were just routines that kept me sane. It was as if I never befriended the word “hometown,” or “settlement,” or “stay,” not even a chance to know the meaning of.
iii
Puji-puji tentang rumput yang disapa oleh kado kiriman dari langit, pipa-pipa di ujung atap rumah yang diminta bernyanyi riuh bersama anak-anak awan, rambut-rambut yang basah setelah dirangkul tanpa jeda oleh malaikat dari angkasa yang mengharap pertemuan dengan Dewi Bumi. Ruang-ruang di antara rusukku kini dihias dengan krisan dan bakung tempat kupu-kupu bermain hompimpa sehabis gilirannya kilat dan gemuruh.
Setelahnya,
diam-diam kukirim doa dan salam paling bersahaja untuk Sapardi Djoko Damono dan Cholil Mahmud yang telah berkisah tentang hujan yang sentimentil di bulan Juni dan Desember.
ii
Di udara kita menyaksikan salam-salam berbungkus kertas kado keemasan beterbangan—sayapnya dari gula-gula kapas yang menguar dari uap bibirmu saat mengeja gramatika tentang utopia pada turun salju sebelum subuh—menunggu disambut tangan-tangan gadis yang ruang-ruang di antara rusuknya berisi harap-harap yang kekal mengendap.
i
Ruang-ruang di antara rusukku berisi: harap-harap yang mengendap lalu nyanyar dikonsumsi segala detik yang berulang; ketika ragam melankoli semakin padu dengan sesendok teh saja rindu yang ditampik hingga ruah bersama debu-debu udara.
Pigeons & Planes
You consist of grains of multihued lights, juxtaposing the dim around the lives surrounding you. You breathe and prudently subsist, to secure and soothe me with your ephemeral presence. You be the bittersweet cherry essence in my daily homeopathic syrup, concealing the resentment of my own disguised fear of mortality. You ensure me felicity through the deception of longing and fortitude, as I seek for more and more perpetual encounters. You and I, we might be the edges of a line shaping ampersand, crawling slowly at secret hopes of meeting one another, while constantly creeping until we end up standing at different thresholds, wishing if only we were meant to be an infinitude.
You.
Now what if.
I might want to be a museum custodian. But you might be just unhappy about me sticking with the past, even trying to collect every reminiscence of it. Seeing me saving lives we all knew have been over for long, presuming so much from them until the boundary between the right now and the yesterdays gets all blurred. Recalling old times when you were not even part of those scenes yet. What if you, enjoy it a bit too much, until the pleasure of living in the moment just disappears because the bygone days comfort you a bit too much, too? What if death and demise excite you? You insist me.
Everything’s Overrated
One troublesome noon spent in a bustling enterprise and newscast was harsh as expected.
Should’ve been more original, could’ve gone to an art college overseas, would’ve had more excuses not to get involved in politics.