pocket: a 100-word story

after Kimberly Blaeser's When We Sing of Might at 3pm, the sun wears my 20's feet. unsure how bright to glow yet certain that the west exist to swallow it like a sea's wide mouth. i am almost 30. as i blow more candles, i find myself ageing like my mother and the mothers before her.…

where are the planes

after Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston Blue. Perhaps baby blue. The shade you gift a baby boy in a shower that does not involve a drop of water. But I'm talking about the July sky, here, in my corner of earth, is rarely blue. Mostly grey. The difference was the absence of flying tins.…

tasting silence: a 100-word story

Silence has always tasted sweet since I was a young boy. I find bliss in building a world of my own, alone. Now, with only the whirring of her ventilator, my tongue is filled with bitter gourd juice, swimming through the boulder inside my throat. Her hands, I've held since she was 24, feel cold…

Paired or Not

We are made with working pairs. Your right hand got your left. Your left ear got your right. Your right eye got your left. Your left lung got your right. We work with built-in pairs. A scissor will never be a scissor, it should be scissors even when added with the phrase "a pair". Trousers…

Fading Photograph

i stumbled upon my five-year-old smile pasted on a fading photograph. it was just me and my sister. she was crying. i was clapping. (mean me?). my small mouth was wide open, wide enough to show the three blank, toothless-gaps. while my sister, a year younger, was red in her wailing feat. looking at the once…

Between My Bleeding Lines’ Readers: Mah Lima

Note to Self There’s no point in looking outside for things you should have inside. It will only bring you harm. Don’t put your happiness in a stranger’s hand. No matter how long you’ve been with someone, unless you’re both open to it, you never really know them. And even when they are, you still…

Before You

One is a whole number. I can exist on my own. I can cook for myself. I can breathe for myself. I can speak for myself. I can take care of myself. It’s not as if I was born with someone to do those things for me. I was born alone. I have no problem dying…

Effulgent

The pregnant tree has never dared to let a sunray pass through its leaf-filled twigs, until the witty wind let out a happy sigh that made the stubborn tree dance for a while. As the branches swayed with the wind, the rays has finally reached the tree’s inner soul. It was then it realized how it…

Velleitie

My fingers will never be enough to count how many times you whispered you love me most. Love me more than anyone in the world. Love me more than anything on earth. How you want to have a home with white picket fence, where you and me and our four little kids will live with…

Nixie

On her deathbed, my beloved grandma handed me the letter which she has kept since it was returned by the postman three months ago. I can recall that day because that’s the last day I saw her lively. Old postman, as old as her, apologized for keeping the almost faded tattered letter. According to him, war has prohibited…