2010

By: Haikal Danial

We would meet again in the forest.

Our promise, 12 years ago,

Memories with my dearest,

Exploring an abandoned chateau,

I was too young to understand, 

When Amber alerted my dad of you,

Did you go missing, unplanned?

The boy who kissed me out of the blue,

My 12^th New Years alone,

The promise still true,

Years pass and I’ve grown,

But I’ll keep trying to find you,

---

Caffeinated Love 

By: Chris Phang

coffee and caffeine, 

synchronised like two peas in a pod,

so rich and smooth, yet bitter and dry, 

you brewed it with such intention, 

had me intoxicated with the bitterness hidden within a candied disguise. 

was it the coffee kisses that I tasted?

it provoked an acutely saccharine memory of you within me, 

that’s as sexual as it is sacronanct,

a sip, a swallow, and off I go, 

as I vanish down into your throat.

a beautiful picture of us has formed,

from the little coffee bean percolating through a filter, 

alongside a double chocolate chip courtesy of you, 

so delicate, and yet so simple,

laced with cappuccino hugs to trick your lovesick mind.  

overflowing mugs of latte to spill on your hands, your lips and your heart, 

consider it magic, bewitchment or a spell, 

a brew so precious like a sacred treasure,

meant to kiss your lips in a loving embrace. 

and here you are, kathleen, the object of my affection,

a reminder of the love I felt in my first cup of coffee,

perhaps this is why I love you even more,

for you have my soul and my heart.

---

Our Poison

By: Julia Rosalyn

Skin stained

by our phantoms

Shrivelled scars

that sting lifetimes

Broken skin that wields

blisters of fractured ties. 

We then arrived

reviving yesterday’s hope

And bearing miracles

of tomorrow

Spilling silver tears 

over pooling blood.

You would give us the world

But not without guilt

In knowing that it

broke your backs

and bled

through your dreams.

Your mires

morphed into poison

And we see it 

pulsating in our vision

Tinting the world

in a fiery blur.

You would have us be

caricatures of paragons

We would break our own backs

no matter how forlorn

Only to make

well worth of your dolour.

Within us that poison imbues

Drifting our notions askew

until our lives are

hazy crepuscules

As we cling onto

vestiges of the past.

And yet

this poison that we feed

courses through our minds

And pelts on our sanity

as it trickles through our bonds

And is reborn in another.

But this curse

ends with us

As we gulp down a cure

for this soulful poison

So that we may heal

and love anew.

You who were

a martyr for our future

We glorify your struggle

But it will not justify our own

So that the future you strived for

Will be for us both.

---

P.S

By: Saoussan 

As I look at you

A thousand stars threaten to spill out my mouth .

My heart is burning white into my ribs.

You are like the sun ,

I stare at you and close my eyes 

tight hoping

to trap some of that gold in my irises

I want to show you 

how you make my insides glow –

Unfathomable i can’t put it into words

Let me cup your face in the palm of my hands

And hold you hold you,

Did you know you were capable of creating such happiness ?

By: Haikal Danial, Chris Phang, Julia Rosalyn and Saoussan