curatedpetals

[curatedpetals]

Enrapturing Brown Eyes

Glistening silver soul I lock my pitiful eyes with. Outpouring citrus scent trembles my shaky grit, nestling by the streams of shattered admiration that paint the haughty wine drips. Retrieved reluctance storms my melodic scars, only to be rejoiced by a muted pack of satiated clouds. 

I whispered to the incoming calls, jumpy heartbeat trickles down the acidic rain. Silence and stare, never fail to keep me overjoyed. One more step down I am confounded by the curated realm of stoic presence. The never ending fingertips nullify the strings of my edges. Rumbling upon the sickly chains, I grasp the rusty void I could never fulfill. 

The thinning curled-up smile starts the fateful encounter, at the corner of the dull twilight. Unreeling enchantment furnishes the patched-up confessions, slowly yet hastily. Invigorating mashes, dusts of walk-ups. Solid as cotton, compromising my shifts of strenuous wills. Stealing glances, mining favors, I distill myself soaked in sheer ego.  

Whirling addictions I somberly accuse, tips of tipsiness slaps the brightly-shadowed tunnel. Slipping through, I inch closer. Staring through, whispering through, sailing through, I can only halt and glue myself.  Brown sorrowful eyes once again, deeply cursed. 

Folding my knees to pay my forlorn dues, glowing escapades. Switching sides, scurrying along the jam-packed accusations. Had I been willfully entrapped, moon will craft the sinking path to the graceful end.  

[curatedpetals]

A tragic one

"One, two, three, four.."

I whisper to the ocean as I gracefully step on the clear-blue sea water filled with broken-glass. I could feel liters of teardrops rushing from my brain to the tip of my silver toes, absorbing every piece of the glass into my body. My breathing turns heavier than the moon, my heart races faster than the speed of light, my steps get lighter than a feather.

"one-twenty, one-twenty-one, one-twenty-two.. "

I count the lightbulbs around, while calmly drowning deeper into the sky. Hundreds of them are chasing after me and my skeleton wings with rusty keys floating around. I reach out for one of the keys, hoping it would lead me to the Big Heart and its leafy-green pillars. To my somber excitement, the keys turn into ashes everytime they slid into my hands. I gasp and knock into the slim air begging for my past. It comes rushing towards me, tying up the metal lightbulbs to my right ankle. I beg for my future, but I don't believe it to be desperate enough. By then I realize, my surrounding turns to be too bright for me to even catch a glimpse. I stop gasping for air.

"Eleven-eleven, eleven-twelve, eleven-thirteen..."

I count the falling stars in the crystal-clear morning sky. The song is blasting in my ears, ensuring me that I will be deaf soon. I catch a glimpse of the old lady, with her hopeful eyes staring blankly at the stars. She slowly turns to look at me with golden teardrops falling on her blushing cheeks. I smile mercifully. I don't know and I don't want to know. If this will end or if this will start. One thing I know for sure:

It is fate. A tragic one.

[curatedpetals]

Honesty 2.8

Red scarved toddler, harvesting sunflowers

at the mountain peak with a glowing terror eye

of a mad dog: stare at me.

I am a giraffe with its head hanging in the cloud, the one

Who failed a parallel parking job.

Would you live inside a mind of superior creature?

I would if I had eyes that clamp down a man

In the distance. My soul intertwines with dual

Pillars shining at the dusk. Then the saliva of the moon

Drops melted silverware, disfigured and quiet. A China

Doll’s tea party crests a metropolis of war.

Precious sea of bubbles light the green and

Void — ridden diamonds. The blaring ocean glooms

And covers the open tree horizon.

[curatedpetals]

I, Me, and Myself

I decide to stay and start shouting in joy at the people in the black robes who wave frozen ribbons made of snow. I grab the sad-looking boy and wrap my bony arms around his shoulders. I glue all of my blister-filled fingertips on his head, so tightly that they practically disappear within his greasy hair follicles. I feel both of my feet twist into thick neon-colored plaited rope that the boy lifts up into the crisp night air. Sobbing violently, he rips apart the rope into thousands of strands and ties them around the pine trees growing under the swamp. I emanate weak blue fire on the edges of my body and produce the divinity sword from underneath my heart that goes through my backbone. Blood rushes through so fast my flimsy veins are ready to burst. We look up to the blinding night sky where the white lights emitted by the stars appear to engulf the remaining black space. If we want to discover the moon, we have to start looking into the river polluted by the clouds instead of the fallen leaves. My tears slowly dissolve with the sand and white dust, creating flows of frozen flowers that circulate freely through the damp rubber floors. It seems that the overly shiny sky only pretends to topple down the rusty orange street lights, while at the same time it manages to erase our memories.

As I drag my oversized purple suitcase across the sleek marble floor, I discover lines of colorful buckets in front of me as if it is provoking me to just give up already. I keep ignoring them but they inch closer to me, until I am aggressively separated from my own fragile mind. My jawline drops to the floor and I turn into a human-sized yarn scarecrow with a bulging coat that is on the verge of melting. My torso is as thick as the library shelves, while my feet are as thin as an electron. I throw myself onto the ground and my brain crushes into pieces of glistening pink-shade pearls. I roll over to the scattering pearls and desperately wipe them all clean. Before I can properly bend my body forwards to hide inside of my luggage, liters of tears start flowing heavily from both of my eye sockets, drowning the strangers around me. I notice from the corner of my eye that people are frantically running for the steel door, even though they know in the back of their minds that it will never be opened. They claim that they want the taste of the outside world, but they never collect their sane minds from the nearby lock boxes. What remains is decades of false dedication spent sewing together the torn newspaper pieces.

I sit quietly in an empty oversized auditorium, yet forgetting what I am there for. I hold a piece of thick gold paper on one hand and a wooden cage on the other. I squint my eyes towards the paper only to realize that it has a watch that ticks backwards. Everytime it ticks, my memory span reduces by one second, until eventually I only have a three-second memory. My head now looks like a flattened balloon that has been ironed but does not explode, only loses air from its pores. I then look over towards the cage. It appears to be empty at first, but seconds later the cage is overwhelmingly full of tiny clouded rocks, which double in size every second. A thousand hands suddenly materialize from within the cage and start throwing me the palm-sized rocks. I try shielding my face with my hands before I realize that they are sewn to the red velvet chair I have been sitting in. I shut my eyes tightly and blinding sparks of fireworks coming out of them, battling the ruthless gifts from my coincidences. I can’t blink my eyes as my sleepy eyelids are still curious. After recognizing the resting episodic memories on my lap, my blurry vision turns into a pair of silver bells that refuse to jingle. They are just sitting on my frozen cheeks, drinking a can of expired cold beer while watching the raining stones silently. As the time ticks backwards, each one of the stones turns into dignity that I can never comprehend nor imitate.

I try tucking these moments into my jeans, because I can’t locate the door to get out of my cloudy judgement. I hear noises from the stage and I see my distant friends coming up to the stage. Several minutes pass and they do nothing but stand there while throwing cold stares at me. I raise both of my hands and produce sprays of green neon galaxy from my fingertips. I start painting graffiti on the invisible glass wall that separates me and my friends. Starting from my feet, parts of me are slit open and start transforming into bursts of maroon-colored helium gas. I unleash my limbs and begin spreading myself on the right-side of the wall, like a disarray of organized jungles.The auditorium seats are slowly filled with white roses that will speak the truth if you get rid of the thorns on their stems. I grab one of those and forcefully plant it on my numb head. The rose slowly curls inside of my eardrums and trickles drops of fairies in them. I feel my face is squeezed into my neck and my brain is pushed up into the back of my skull. The melody of disappointment from the fairies start filling my head up that my eardrums blast like a night market. The white petals start dropping and then burning the ground. I run towards the stage, trying to prevent the burning ashes from trickling on top of my bare feet. I rotate my head around to further integrate my face into the newfound world. Little did I know that I would no longer exist.

I walk on a bridge beside a skinny grim reaper with a funny hat, who holds a list of missing souls with him. I blow up a candle and an outdated soul appears with a handful of hot-pink flowers that are shaped like maple leaves. I put my face squarely in front of the grim reaper and I see a hopeless goblin that looks for his bride to end his immortal life. I look into the water underneath me and I notice thousands of tiny butterflies flying out of my stomach. I stare at the maple-shaped flowers and they begin covering my entire body. My feet is uselessly planted into the bridge while I watch the grim reaper walks away and then slowly disappear with the orange haze. Parts of my hands are tightly wrapped around my body while the rest grow branches with maple-shaped flowers on them. I keep standing on the same spot for what feels like an eternity, without signs of anyone passing by. I grow taller and taller that I can see another continent from my sparkling eyes. It is completely destroyed and is full of the missing souls that the grim reaper has been looking for his entire life. Some of them ride their heart, some ride their mind, and a minority rides both. Each of them has an hourglass that connects their heart and their mind. One of them approaches me and carefully places an hourglass on one of my branches. I dissolve with the whirlwind and turn into one of the missing souls. When the rough sand spills on the ground, I grab my ticking time bomb, dye it violet, and then wrap it with my paper eyelashes. I throw all of the lingering feelings and excessive worries into the air. Without looking back, I step onto the thorny passage and draw wrinkles on it.

[curatedpetals]

Peeking through the Unseen

As I flew above the rocky field, I noticed through the eye of my heart:

When the world collapses and turns into ashes and the sinking fire engulfs dry leaves

When world rotates around incomplete lives and the usual pursuit of power becomes exhausting

When fate and barbed wire intertwine and mere staring at the wall requires instructions

When broken colorful inspiration dissolves with the rain and the black cat carries on in the death elevator

When infinity turns overwhelmingly deceitful and scattering wind entangles the already twisted fate —

Letting go leads to an undiscoverable path

[curatedpetals]

Ticking Backwards

I remember fighting with a chicken for standing in my way before it scratched my right leg.

I remember my favorite shabby pink cotton shirt.

I remember making a slightly burned 20-layer blueberry crepe cake for my mom’s 42nd birthday, because it was one of the easiest kind of cake to make without oven.

I remember dancing along to the Teletubbies.

I remember pretending to be a construction worker by lifting five bricks at once — I hugged them.

I remember shuttlecocks stuck on an avocado tree in front of my house.

I remember when I really fell in love with my mom’s cooking and I wrote a diary about what I ate everyday.

I remember the purple tricycle with pink rubber handlebars and bright green plastic basket on the back.

I remember spotting the the heart-shaped cloud.

I remember a yellow swimming suit with colorful starfish patterns on it.

I remember giving my aunt a shoulder massage in exchange for a couple of brand new wooden pencils.

I remember buying Tweety stickers because my mom could not afford to buy me the plush doll.

I remember soaking in sweat from jumping rope for one full-hour.

I remember the upside-down giant plastic black globe.

I remember feeling nervous watching the live presidential vote count at age six. Through the 21-inch TV screen, I witnessed a person unfolding each of the voting papers and the other writing the tally on the whiteboard with a black marker.  

I remember the excitement of riding a horse for the first time.

I remember swallowing a pink bead and eating an entire papaya afterwards.

I remember sitting grumpily in front of the dark blue background waiting for my passport photo to be taken.

I remember playing along with the clues at the Blue’s Clues.

I remember bawling my eyes out while watching Miracle in Cell No.7, a South Korean movie

about a mentally-impaired father who was falsely accused of murder.

I remember the strong smell of burning incense during my grandma’s funeral.

I remember playing stick fireworks with my sister near our backyard’s sewer on new year’s eve.

I remember the metallic blue eyeshadow.

I remember the oily smell of my mom’s homemade deep-fried sugar donuts.

I remember reading my first Harry Potter book with a worn out rainbow-colored English-Indonesian dictionary on my lap and a tiny orange notebook on top of it to record any English words I was not familiar with.

I remember the funny jolt in my stomach after being on a pirate ship ride.

I remember being pinched on the chin by my classmate.

I remember the disappointed look on my teacher’s face when he punished me for bringing my cellphone to class.

I remember the red coffin decorated with a detailed golden pattern.

I remember the strong smell of mercury at the the three-colored (white, black, and blue) lake.

I remember sipping a spoonful of dark red spicy liquid, thinking it was tomato juice.

I remember copying the Spongebob Squarepants narrator’s deep voice.

I remember begging my grandma for Wall’s two-colored strawberry ice cream at her cigarette store.

I remember fresh blood flowing from my mom’s left feet after she stepped on rusty nail that was 1.5-inch long.

I remember playing badminton with my friends in a classroom using the whiteboard as our net.

I remember the smelly carrot cake with pieces of thin carrot sticking from the cake’s pores.

I remember the size-4 bright yellow Tweety slippers.

I remember wearing my girl’s scout uniform and refusing to take it off for two straight days.

I remember waking up six hours after thyroidectomy.

I remember the sweet strawberry scent from my 12-pack colorful glitter pens.

I remember accidentally swallowing a piece of gum and apologetically writing my mom a letter on a crumpled piece of daily calendar paper.

I remember designing a flowery light-blue royal dress for my Barbie collections.

I remember my father’s sad smile when he sent me off to college.

[curatedpetals]

Lost in New York

Waltzing through the Monday jam perpetually late Scouring the fiery green planks with thirsty eyes In the flood of honking yellow taxis, salarymen, wide-eyed tourists lurching on the Fifth Ave

Stacked coldwater flats crusted by slums Blissfully overwhelmed by the deathbed of skyscrapers Echoing within the damp sewage smell Tiptoeing the rusty car park in Brooklyn

Amid the spilling street-lamps’ flare Expressive lights of Broadway blaze Watching the world as it goes home at night Strolling aimlessly and gazing frantically

Vigilantly wrapping the neon lights with observant souls The sun sniffing the pickpockets animatedly Fragments of steel heart pile softly on the street Drunken from the free ticket to the Cloisters

Squeezing the crumpled budget in Chinatown Finding gems in the stale bento boxes Silently munching on nauseated thoughts On a boiling metal bench shadowing the Flatiron Oh New York, I have found my home!

[curatedpetals]

My Mother

My mother stands at the edge of a crystal glass with the clean water at its surface tension. I peek through one of my eyes, too cowardly to even say anything or to climb the glass. The water is very wobbly, ready to spill anytime you breathe around it. My mother smiles and carefully sweeps around the rim of the glass, gathering the dust of love and frailness she has painted during her leisure time. While holding her breath, she would patiently tuck some of the broken pieces into the back pocket of her jeans until it is overflowing. But her back pocket never overflows no matter how many pieces she tucks in there. She now more confidently circles around the rim at the faster pace, almost look like she is running. I run towards her and scream on top of my lungs, begging her to stop. No response. I panic and start to scream repeatedly for so long that I can’t hear my own voice anymore. I run to the glass and desperately hit my body to it so that it will shake. The water spills all over the place. I keep throwing my body to the glass to empty some of the water. As the water rains down on me, it starts to boil, burning my entire body. My skin starts peeling off and I silently cry in agony. My mother finally recognizes my existence. She waves at me with both of her bony arms and throws me a weak smile that I can see through her half-moon-shaped smiling eyes.  She empties her back pocket into the glass and the water starts to glimmer. She then jumps into the glass head first.

My mother and I push our cart at a deserted department store. With the wooden floor creaking beneath us with every step we take, I can see heavy dust circling around us with the help of sunshine that enters the store from the West-side windows. Almost all of the towering shelves—which are unnecessarily tall I can’t see where the top part is—are empty. All I can see is a little stale bread, rotten tomatoes, spilling milk, and expired cereal boxes that have been forcefully torn open. I suddenly become furious and threaten my mother that I would leave. She just nudges me on my left-waist, so strong that if feels like I was just stabbed by a blade. She then lifts me up and throws me into the cart. I stare at my mother wickedly while sewing my feet into the rusty cart. She becomes annoyed and wraps a red blind around my eyes, so tightly that I can feel my eyeballs are pressing against my brain. I hear some clicking sound that my mother produces before I realize that it comes from on top of my head. She brushes my hair with a fork, so violently that my hair is rapidly falling out strands at a time. Or so I thought. Instead of falling, my hair is actually growing longer and is turning into clouds. Through the transparent blind, I can see that all of the shelves suddenly turn into gold and she picks up things that I can’t see. These invisible things start to take up my space in the cart, so I begin throwing them away. I extend my arms into one of the back shelves and pick up the invisible wires. I begin wrapping both of my mother’s hands and feet so that she does not pick up more things. My mother murmurs something inaudible and reaches out her left hand, struggling to comb my hair with the fork for one last time. She slowly turns into one of the golden shelves, then turns into a shadow that I leave behind, though I know that shadow will keep haunting me even in my daydreams. Still, I leisurely roll my cart while sewing my own hands into the handle bars.

The train is about to take off when my mother and I rush towards the platform.  It is a particularly rainy day with a tornado approaching from the West. I glance upward when I hear a loud bang and hints of deep burgundy start dissolving with the rain. Apparently it is the daily fireworks display that starts at 10a.m. sharp. On my right, a palm tree changes color rapidly into red and purple, matching the color and pattern of the fireworks. I let go of my mother’s hand and stop to rummage through my luggage to find a shovel. I approach the tree and begin shoveling to uproot it. My mother joins me to empty the content of my oversized luggage to make some room for the palm tree. As I get closer towards the root of the tree, I notice in the corner of my eye that my mother is throwing a jar of silver keys, two plastic bags of flower petals, a gallon of squid ink, and a tiny box of glittery ashes onto the train rail. After I successfully uproot the palm tree, I fit it into my luggage and then I lock it. Before boarding, the conductors measure our heights, and then place  my mother and I in two different cars. As I load my baggage on the top, a stranger beside me pours a box of silver nails on my seat. I start hammering the nails all around the window, causing the outside air to seep in. The stranger then begins dissolving with the air after he nails his own thumb onto the window.

I calmly walk towards my mother’s car to invite her to sit with me, when I notice that the train is heading to a black tunnel. My mother and I both hold hands and jump towards the roof of the train. She squeezes my hands so tightly my bones almost break. She knows that the train is going to turn into ashes after it finishes its journey through the dark. I patiently dig into the train’s roof before discovering that there are a thousand hands reaching out to us. My mother throws herself towards them while I throw myself onto the ground. It feels soft and addictive. I am tempted to board the train again just so I can throw myself from it again. I desperately try to find the nails I discarded earlier. My mother watches from my back, laughing at me. I smile and laugh with her. We both sing and dance as the train turns into ashes in a distance.

I close my eyes for a second, trying to recall where my mother could possibly be. I remember seeing her in one of the houses but I don’t have the house number on top of my head. As I open my eyes, there are rows of tiny white houses build on a sand in front of me. I turn around and feel the friendly breeze from the green ocean is hitting my face. I smile, seeing the mermaids hesitantly jumping up and down the water with handbags made from seashells on their right hands. At that moment I realize that I lose my ability to breath properly. Whenever I inhale the salty air too deeply, one thousand needles repeatedly prickle my lungs. I hold my breath and start swimming into the row of houses. The slight thought of my mother expands my arms so that I can open two doors at a time. The house guards lead me towards the green zone where there is a pool of balloons. I pick the dark cherry color and shove the balloon into my head.

My mother suddenly appears in front of me, sitting on a black stool with her legs crossed. Her stoic face reflects the green lights that come from inside one of the houses. My chest pain grows more intense while my mother’s expression calms. She stands up and twirls her left index finger, ready to aim for the oversized name tag that is attached on my waist. I turn around and begin running frantically for my life when she plants another balloon on my back. Her body turns into a cave with fog culminating in front of it. I notice that flashes of red light block my path, so I decide to rip my own name tag to separate my legs from my own body. I drag myself across the sand into the cave that I have been desperately looking for. A thick and dark atmosphere welcomes me before I free fall into the groundless new world.

[curatedpetals]

Drunken with the Unachievable

Dreaming is something very fragile because

it forces birds to fly. If it is snowing in October, I should

land a full-time job sculpting the moon.  

Grass is green when it is nurtured with a twisted smile.

You have to persevere to make paper plants grow in the

middle of mist. When you feel blue, just believe that

ivy will help you. Keep hustling to get to the discoverable path,

even though bruises are unavoidable. Earthy victory is

well-deserved for those who crave it — prepare to deal with

the dust of life! It’s heartbreaking when your goal is not in sight

when the moonlight comes. But the wind will keep blowing

north until Friday, so keep going. Beasts are around

every corner and squirrels are sleeping in winter. Work

hard and have some beer until the wolves attack. Flowers

grow well if you also have the willingness to grow peanuts.

The ragged pursuit of rain can flag you out. It’s strange that

the paper planes you fold can’t justify how much

cramped soul you still have left.