Finding My Malaysia

Today my heart whispered loudly

Do you know, do you know that history has been made

I can love my country with unfettered chains

And know that She will feel the same

Because today I found you Malaysia

And I am coming home to you.

 

 

Yardstick

the nurse asks

“weight and height?”

“a 4.0 GPA and 100 for all my reports.”

the counselor asks

“so how are you today?”

“Not bad – only one A-minus throughout my high school career.”

her parents ask

“girl, have you eaten?”

“had my fill of perfect assignments today.”

someone curious asks

“how far can you run?”

“22 credit hours, but i have to stop and walk for a bit in between.”

the girl has a yardstick

that she uses to measure how far she’s come

– no, the yardstick has a girl

and when the yardstick breaks

Error 404: girl not found

 

*And yes, that was one heck of a hiatus. Feels good to be back.

 

That Didn’t Feel Like 9 Months

It was a blink of an eye, an endless eternity

It was an journey that stretched infinitely into the horizon

It was more life lived in nine months than in nineteen years

And bipolar weather bringing ghastly winds

It was cornfields and soybeans

Peppered with concrete, mortar, reused paper and wooden swords

It was the musty smell of running women

And grunting men pulling their weight in iron

It was 5km in 35 minutes for the first time in a lifetime

It was finding out that three hours of sleep sufficed

And that 3D modeling meant more than a bath

It was AMIRA and Gaussian and Otsu and thresholds

And that there is so, so much more left to learn

It was the sheer excitement at imagining a machine poop cement

Coupled with the “Oh my God, maybe I’d get to make it”

It was starting off on stumbling feet

–  Ah, dammit, I am still stumbling –

Most of all it was, is, and always will be

The freedom, the liberation, and the bittersweet sensation

Of knowing that you are where you’re supposed to be

9,250 miles away from where you left your heart.

 

I Walk Among Giants

Look at me! I am small

Barely five-foot-four, I ain’t very tall,

But I stand amidst giants

With my nose upturned in defiance,

And – holy f- here comes a ball!

 

It weighs a ton and a half

And the giants all laugh

As I squirm and struggle for life

But the ball seems to say,

“That’s enough for today,

Give up, you miniature lowlife.”

 

I live amidst giants

who play with balls of Math and Music and Science

And while they play I roll mine uphill,

When success seems close

The ball rolls down – BLOODY HELL THAT BLOWS

I swear, Hades has no chill.

 

Still, I roll my ball for I have been given a path,

A road I must walk, else I risk my conscience’s wrath

I take grudging steps forwards in over-sized shoes –

Ma, what were you thinking?

That my feet still need growing?

These footwear require so much filling – it’s abuse!

 

But I walk among giants,

Friends who have left behind the footprints of Titans,

And though I may stumble and fall,

My feet may yet grow

There is a path and footsteps I will follow,

And someday – who knows? – I’ll play with my ball.

 

 

 

 

An Inadequate Age At Which To Write A Self-Portrait

This is a response to a poem by David Berman – Self-Portrait At 28 – a poem bout the mediocrity of one individual and the sheer vastness of the world and thought. I’m gonna do my best to do it justice in this response, but here’s my apologies in advance. Here goes nothing.

i don’t remember when i was born

but mom tells me that it was the sixth of may

pa sometimes thinks it was the fifth but anyway

one does not simply ignore the details on that piece of paper

i am probably too young to be writing

a self-portrait poem

but i guess you have to start somewhere?

i have never

saved the earth

built a homeless shelter

run for presidency

made it to the track team

which makes me wonder what to put in this piece

there is more to say of what i did not do

than what i actually did

childhood was a mess of

barney and toys and fighting

and the ground groaning and shaking and moaning from the passing of the train next to our old bungalow

and the moment i realized that i was just another probability in space

and that others were thinking the same thing i was at the same time

and that i was nothing special

adolescence was a horror story and –

dammit i have no fancy words to put in this thing

which makes me wonder

is my life too so unadorned?

but mostly i comfort myself with thinking,

“at least you’re not a weed junkie or a murderer”

maybe i could be proud of that, at the very least

but i am only eighteen so it gives me hope that

maybe special is not meant for me, not yet

maybe this self portrait is yet to be completed

maybe it is a construction site with the sign

WORK IN PROGRESS

emblazoned across the rusted metal entrance

i can read and write and do ‘rithmetic

maybe one day i’ll learn to do more

maybe i will

but for now

dinner