between the lines; read

When we met, the condition was perfect, it wasn’t raining but the sun was shy, it wasn’t cloudy but fucking bears could’ve bounced around playing hide and seek, the temperature gave me the same feeling when facing you to those post coital cigarettes, it was real but yet bizarre, the condition was perfect and that was when we met. Your endless consumptions of cigarettes in a minutely basis was the perfect example to justify how perfect our love story was that day. You were perfect and me as well; we both two doves who were crazily amazed with how fate has joined us into one line. We were drived with our cray cray uncontrollable amazement that we just crossed the line without bothering the look people would gave, the judgement people would thrown us. We both were perfect with our insanely unlogical love tale we created. 

Your eyes, they reminded me of the African savannah and as I travel through it I reached your heart and in your heart the wild fucking animals are fucking racing, like pros, I was staring. Your timing was perfect, you felt I was staring and your eyes, your sorrow wandering eyes, they caught my eyes, we froze, we stood there like statues made of clay, meant to be stoic. It was so dramatic. Dramatic as hell, we promised. The promise that we knew might take years even decades but just as long as it included you and me; we know well we'll be just fine. Fuck the timing, fuck everything; you loved me you said. I believed too, I believed every of your words slipped out of your tongue. Coz i know, I know for God's sake you were telling truth. The undeniable true of truth in the name of your Godly life's policy of "I am a man with words".

When our retinal coordination fell into place. I felt you were looking right through me. It was painful yet delightful, wrong, yet, well wrong wass good, felt as if my soul was pierced with inanimate stuff like the freakin TV with all its HD wonders which works the same like those horse tranquilisers just to be specific.  It was so eclectic, I’m sorry, electric. You are electric. Electric that forced me to do something that never was never in my to-do list ever, but I did. I did despite my shy shy cat natural behavior, I showed you what I could offer as a very good and loyal young lover. Oh that moment was the fantastic one I fall for you everytime we had times together. I know at that moment, you were meant for my entire life. 

Until one day, one day with so unpredictable movement of yours, you were about to opening your mouth. You asked me so politely that no guys ever did that ; "why you chose me" and me ; just another innocent girl trapped in this game of nonsense trying to excel every criteria of a good lover I suggested a line that without me realizing that was actually a bomb. The sadist one. We promised for an unknown limited time. I was in puzzle but fuck puzzle I was up for any challenges this game could offer. I waited. I waited for days, weeks and months. Boy i was right about everything , about everything but not you. I was the only one who believed in time. I travelled through time to a fake soul who never intended to be in the spot in the first place. 

Boy boy, listen, fate always has its little joke. 

Just like how things work in the universe, the logical sequence of events, the chain of causality, it was predictable, it made sense, you came again. After so fucking long and tiring timing you gave, we locked a day. No you lied. You didn't. I came with this shameless full thick face of mine; I came to justify your fucking sins towards this innocent soul of mine. I requested a time ; might be the final last one and we needed to then say something, fuck just say anything, and that is when I saw your mouth started coordinating movements through words on the worthless tech-advanced of whatsapp I noticed your "typing"  but my focus was the reply so fuck your reply. I imagined your words, your lovable worlds just like the old times. Your new number with a new profile picture; it wanted to say something, of course it wanted to, would I understand? I didn’t think it mattered but I did understand, that was when you said,

“I don't deserve you" 

That's when the sequel stopped; you know it's all a tale told. Fuck a tale. 

And fuck you, too. 

the kind of woman she is

Well-educated

Decent manners

Wrapped by laces and organza

Modest in prominence

Also her stiletto and velvet clutch

Those are her whole fine garments

And definitions

Of a woman that shines and lights

In fact, she is a mistress wanted by all misters

Euphoria in her scents

In black she wraps up herself in mystery

Or maybe is it just her misery

That’s hidden beneath her rank in the society

Indeed, she is a mademoiselle hated by all madams

Though of all matters

She is just herself

A woman that is proud of her being—

The kind of woman she is.

-a.y.

what are you and who are you?

what is your first love?

Mom's love.

who is your first love?

my first heartbreak. 

what are you?

young and promising.

who are you?

new and different. 

a.y.

half of year to the land of whites

It's still a dream, at least to this day.

That we all are still hoping, to feel the winter, to touch tulips during spring, to immerse the emotions during summer, and yet to be surrounded with whites and diversity of the World.

Life has always been a journey, and mine is a transition from a place to another. 

The age after 17 was the long age, but fast in motion. 

I met faces, i knew names, i shared stories.

Millions of them, sometimes trillions of them. 

I might miss this chance again. I might pass this one with success, somehow.

It all perhaps. But it sure passes my control.

I know where to go, what to do, what to expect.

I am in super controlled. By my own hands, and my own thoughts.

Nothing to lose, yet I have everything to gain. 

That's at least pretty much sums up this stage of age. 

I am sufficed. 

This is for closing up of the stage when it is left by half of year to the land of whites;

and diversity of life. 

Till then. 

@ Heriot-Watt University, Malaysia

Peaches by yasmin ahmad

Bathing,

in the blossom

of our love,

I am suffocated by

it's rotting.

It happens

that it happens.

When a man and a woman

first meet,

they are at their

kindest,

most polite,

most

considerate.

Never again,

from that moment on,

will they be

as sweet,

or will their

smiles be

as genuine,

or will their eyes be

as playful,

or will their longing be

as pure

or as powerful,

as on that first

accidental meeting.

It is as though

a heart that falls

in love

were

a peach

at the peak of

it's ripeness;

plump

and velvet to the touch,

but destined

to decay

and decay.

Would it that

the heart could love

a lover

with as much

conviction,

and as few

conditions.

as when it loves

a friend.

the woman; a sonnet

At five she woke up

From her husband arm and snoring songful alarm

Silhouetted by the same lingerie

The ages one, the long and weary

The one she bought by her own money

Look at her neck, look at her wrist

Where gone all her jewelries

Harmony and aloud

At the kindergarten

Where she taught the kids a thing or two

For her fifty, she was meant to not be greedy

This is a violence of life

Keep giving; you must survive

Melancholic

She wears the face of a strong mother

Rich and not poor

For the entire price she bears to pay

She must be wealthy to say;

This life isn’t longer about me but the sons

At five I woke up

From my husband arm and snoring songful alarm

Unfamiliar, unpopular

That my husband pays for my lingerie

Also my neck and my wrist

Are there a lavaliere and an ornament

But what are these, I thought of the woman

Of all her sacrifices

And her endless struggle

For the things I’ve forgot

And for the things she got

She is just the Mademoiselle

Of an unhappy marriage

I must not yet understand,

But she could be true

That life isn’t longer about me but the sons.

a.y.

Twenty-one; the young and promising age

"You are now a young woman"

That was what people would say when a girl, reaching her puberty and she can no longer act freely as what she can. Because, people will talk. People will judge. And there are names she needs to maintain so that the dignity is well protected and honoured. That's the idea. More of a reality, to be sure.

Girls must be well-behaved. Cannot go out too often. Should be back home before night. Must tell who she's going out with, by 'telling' it should be understood that it must be prepared with details; is there any boys, what their names are, is it a normal friends or what. At least that's how I've been heard from my girl friends that there are some girls actually grow up with curfews.

But neither on me. 

Ma and Bah have this hidden or should I call mysterious power that even though they didn't state any curfews, I just know I should not disgrace them. I must, like any other girls, be well-behaved. Because after all, I am a young woman. And young women must know how to take good care of herself. I must know somehow, there are limits; though it has never been mentioned by neither Bah nor Ma, I just know. Maybe it's just the common sense I've been living up with. 

Common sense. 

That's the thing. For one issue to be sensed 'common', it must be talked timely; yet until everyone gets the idea. In this case, it's the society or maybe it just our world we are living in that keep projecting the idea-- girls must behave well and classy. 

I have such a limitless freedom and a golden trust from both of my parents, that even when I was in highschool I was the one who has been putting limit on myself. I hid my gadgets because I aware of the need to get myself focused on my studies as big exam is coming. I made myself pulling off the simcard and put somewhere hideous as if I will going to have aftermath memory lost and get to be forgotten where did I put. It was a struggle back then, living in such freedom and trust my parents gave me. Trust me, there were more curfews I myself created like a boundary so that I must not crossed over. 

There are some of my friends who kept rebelling over the same issue but with their parents acting strict on them, exactly like how I'm being strict to myself. 

I've always thought that Bah and Ma must have been "of course, she knew already. she's grown up now." 

And me "of course bah and ma don't have the need to tell, they know i know" 

Sometimes somehow, I just hoped that Ma and Bah could be more strict like other parents do. But most of the times, I feel thankful enough as how I have been treated, because from there I got to feel threatened with challenge and struggle, eventually I'd learn by myself. Maybe that's the parents' love that I don't really understand how, that actually they know myself better. Even better than my youth self. 

I consider that as a 'skill' of parenthood that my parents nailed in order to grow me up. 

Same goes to hijab. To be honest, I can't recall any of younger days when Ma handed me tudung and asked me to wear it. I just know when seeing my neighbourhood friends who happened to be my childhood bestfriend who would wear tudung whenever we go out together to Pasar Malam. She didn't tell anything either, maybe that's just how her action really influenced myself. And somehow that younger me finally then found out more and more ironies in her wearing hijab, after Ma sending me for Kelas Mengaji and islamic school afterwards. Bah and Ma are just smart I guess, for sending me to islamic kindergarden, islamic school up until my highschool ends. From there, I can say, education really has answered all my questions that the younger me has then nothing to doubt with. 

I grew up receiving everything they taught me, without any objections. 

Now, to think wiser, I'm in the phase that growing up more older gets me into more and more questions that the younger me must had not look deeper into. Or maybe, she wasn't curious enough to ask. For that's why I read, so that my older me won't regret my younger me to not have the courage to seek answer in the form of knowledge and belief. Human's traits, to live is to believe in something; which I rather call "perspective"-- or anything you may prefer to call. 

I have names that I look up to, basically my women crush and men crush to be idolized. Like an inspiration. In this year, I went meeting them one by one; by courage. I managed to meet the young and good potential Syed Saadiq and attended his debate class. I met the intellectual Redza Minhat and managed to book a seat in his conference on women empowerment subject. I learnt alot from both. If I could claim that as an achievement in meeting people I adore, I would. 

I can drive a car now. 

I can go buying my things without asking any boys in the family to send me.

I can go attending any of talks or conferences without first worrying who I will burden to.

I can go eating alone, because that's no abnormality in that. 

I can go out with anyone, because I'm privileged with friends.

But in the same time, I can also cry just before I start again

I can complain over thing that goes wrong so that I feel relief

I can choose, anything to wear, anything to say, anything to do

All just because I have choices and reasons to stand

And one of life's priority is to maximise my options.  

Life is in fact, a combination of what I chose. 

here's me turning 21; praises to God for showering His continuous blessings throughout my years

This is 2017, I've turned 21.

And I'm moving forward.

Who will love you?

I will love myself.