Pong Pang Bunyi Kompang!

Bahagia aku tak datang terhidang dalam dulang hantaran

berhiaskan bunga hutang

Ayah ibu kan bukan gembala?

dan aku bukan lembu

tak ada tindik tanda harga di telinga

dua belas ribu

serba satu

Sekolah tinggi-tinggi tapi jual ikut kati

ikut sedap hati

ikut sedap mulut

itulah nasib anak gadis

"Kita hantar belajar jauh,

belajar oversea

duit hantaran kenalah tinggi!"

Cincin risik macam resit

jadi bukti deposit

cukup bulan, cukup wang tinggal ambil

Direnjis-renjis dipilis

ditepungilah tawar

hai beras kunyit ditabur

disiram si air

...mata

Adat dibiar hidup

anak pilih mati

anak pilih lari

anak lebih rela jadi headline berita terkini.

ANAK DERHAKA

tu kata media

anak derita tak ada yang tahu

dek adat jadi belenggu

dek tradisi jadi tak menentu

mak bapak sibuk jaga muka

anak haru biru

Jiran kata mesti begini

Mak Cik kata harus begitu

anak sendiri kata apa semua buat tak tahu

Siapa yang nak kahwin

orang lain yang dijemput dulu

anak sendiri dibuat musuh

Mungkin sebab aku bukan kera di hutan

jadilah aku tak dikasi susu

aak aak uuk uuk.

Paper Girl

paper girl was folded over

seven times is the limit they say

try it

it's scientific

you can never get the back doubled to eight

but still paper girl curls the corner of her pages

like wings of a white crane but filled with 

scribbles

she curls at the corner of a hall holding back

tears

there are no more blank spaces

red ink splatters

mark her back with angry letters

screaming alphabets that march towards her ears

crawl through grey hemispheres and reside there

her head bows with the weight

with the pressure

she loses her composure

paper girl unfolds

baring her soul, perforated

a cobweb of words tied with hatred

...and then it was over.

Sacrifice

When he punched me in the face

I offered the other cheek

because love is sacrifice, right?

When she pulled my hair

down the stairs and into the toilet

I resigned my cries for another day

because patience is a virtue, it's true!

I signed away rights to my own self at seven months gestation

born premature, my lungs were not developed to carry enough air for me to scream out

the umbilical card forever wrapped tight around my windpipe

Obedience is a ritual we carry on long after we're born

Fueled by hopes for a higher heaven

Dreams carried on generation to generation by the medium of television

Shows where women burn at the altar of sin and admiration

We share laughter after every lashings

time forgives the faded marks on my back

as did the tears and ointment my mom rubs

admonishing me for being so stubborn, at age seven

"What will the family of your future husband say?"

Must

Save

Face

Don't talk back

Must 

Save 

Face

Close your legs

Must 

Save 

Face

It's for your own good anyway

Like cattle are branded and trained to be given away.

Because when a woman and a man marries,

it binds two families

but mother, you look away from signs of my slow slaughter

am I no longer your daughter?

Candu sekarang mahal bhai

Kamu itu candu
bertamu di lidah
tak lama bersinggah
Hijau hati ini terlalu dini
untuk keterburuanmu.

Kau aku cumbu dalam mimpi
Ujud nyatamu adalah aksara ya, tidak dan tapi
aku takkan dapat sanggup 
berlabuh di bayangmu yang tak pasti.

Kau yang pergi
bersinggah di sana dan di sini
di sini juga tapi tak lama
dan tak sama
dan tak ada namaku
di tenunan alas ranjangmu.

Aku ingin
aku mahu
aku tahu lengkung senyummu
Bersinggahlah lagi
di tempat rambut dan bahu bertemu
seperti malam tadi.

Aurat

Brothers and sisters,

You say nowadays purity is scarce,

because you judge purity by the length of my scarf,

to you purity is a shy virgin

a woman's value trapped within our hymen

Some countries prize me by the absence of a driver's license

as if by being mobile I would drive myself straight to hell without their guidance.

But no matter how much skin I cover,

you will still find fault with the cloth's colour

Too bright!

Too pink!

Too many flowers!

As if my veil is the ground to plant your gaze

and I should provide you that space without complaints.

Should I not be bothered

that these brothers from a different mother

deign to write book after book after book

discussing the sins "caused" by my looks

Shaming the blame women shoulder for every single society's disorder.

From folk tale "hadith" you repeat

"Eve was created from Adam's bent rib

so treat women gently for their will is weak"

Is this why prisons are filled with male convicts?

and yet none of my sisters are ever in FBI's top ten most wanted list?

(I wikipedia'd this)

I get it, men are perhaps too strong for their own benefit

But that would be blaming God, wouldn't it?

As if He had made His creations imperfect

Blasphemy!

And so strong that you would rather

blame the weakness of the masculine gender

for bullying, rape, Justin Bieber's behaviour

and say "boys will be boys!"

Our hymen forcibly taken,

you then propose marriage as an only solution

to the bad credit you let us inherit

your seeds sown grow into gossip

and the nine months make ample time

for you to catalogue ways to criticize our robes becoming too tight.

Three definitions

In the Quran

Only three mention

Aurat (1)

A gap vulnerable to an enemy's worst intentions

Aurat (2)

Embarassing nudity with audience participation

Aurat (3)

Contents of the room of a couple bound by marital sanction

And yet

As a girl I was taught to be gentle and not talk so loud

To not be seen, to not be heard

In classrooms teachers teach me to read, but not to utter a single word

Especially when that word was "why?"

And so I grew up burrying questions deep in my silence

Building a labyrinth of tangled passions

Leaving a pile of "why"'s behind.

When we talk about purity

Start talking about integrity

talk about kindness, talk about intelligence

Let's talk about bravery because

these clothes conceal more than just skin

this cloth is not for hiding.

Meiliani (the birthday girl)

May musk, her month
she mouths
this darkness she likes
embers lit her lips
sweet smelling light
cloves and cigarettes 
curled like the paper of 
her
Nyctophi
lia

She readies the reminder:
trouble trains of
twinful thoughts
think alike, sexual
a scratch and a bite
mindcest partners. 

Nights
unarmoured it frets

We're Asians, polite
with a smile yet
disregarding advice
Shoot on sight! 
Camera obscura in our minds

Askholes
two of a kind. 

Writing Warmups

The busy traffic blares a Tchaikovsky at my feet. That's Jakarta for you. 

I wish the red pool in my cupped hand was wine instead. The warm liquid trickled through my fingers unto the green vines that looked grey in the dark of the jutting balcony shade and dust. I wiped a wet left palm on the back of my jeans.

I noticed how hushed the crowd was on the roof of the Rainbow. The noon clientele of Plaza Semanggi (Plangi) were made up mostly of bored housewives with not that much money. They were dressed up, bright and tacky. If they were married to rich husbands, they wouldn't look that way. They wouldn't be here.

I have a rich husband, yet I too am here.

He took me to TIM last night, to a musical. I smiled at the heartwarming moments he aww'ed at while cringing inwardly. To say it was a crappy performance would actually be a praise. He gushed about it all the way home.

I was at the peak of my depression, which means I lied about the cringing. 

I was not lying when I told him I knew about Linda. I even had photographs I printed out of him and her together. Threw them calmly on our bed where they fell beside the play's booklet. Maybe I'm biased, but in that fleeting moment I noticed how much warmer her smile was when playing a character.

Or maybe she was acting when her arms were wrapped around my husband's waist, I don't know.

He called me a hypocrite.

Linda had smiled her warm smile in this room before. 

Maybe she was also acting when she had her thighs wrapped around my head. My husband did have a camera rolling by the bedside.

Linda had smiled her warm smile many times in this room. My tongue had rolled over that smile, drinking in her seawater sweat. She was the ocean, wild and wandering and effortlessly takes over those who tried to conquer her.

A guard in his grey uniform approached me. Don't stand too close to the edge, bu. We've had accidents happen before, bu.  

I smiled wanly at his words and nodded. Thinking he had done a good job, he ambled heavily away. I could hear his breathing even after the tenth step.

My husband and I tangled after the confrontation, twisting fitted sheets out from their rounded corners. We whispered and shouted truths to each other. He loves me. I love him. He loves her. I love her.

She loves him second and herself first.

It was not falling that I fear. At least I was a bauble in her effervescent world. 

He had pushed into me hard, grabbing a handful of my hair and making an arch with my back. I cried after our lovemaking in his arms, feeling unworthy of the shelter in his strength. My husband cooed from behind, sensing something was not right. He was a man of little word, and I never shared with him the vocabulary of my mental health. I withheld my sobs until I was sure he was not faking his snores. 

My tears streamed for three seconds. I guess when you're drowning in an ocean, sadness becomes insignificant.

The Tchaikovsky was not ending any time soon. I inched closer to the edge of the shore of rooftop cafes before another set of fingers wove itself into mine.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 21/9/2014 8:05:15 PM)