echo summer’s end
By Haikal
From afar I watched
You drive away from me
Crying, yet parched
My skin near the sea
The hot summer air
Fading, its ember
From the sky’s cold stare
A detector of September
Coming in due time
Seasons on this island
The wind bells chime
Leaves browning in the highland
Where memories, made
From our curiosity
Exploring the shade
The forest’s animosity
It’ll all have to wait
For when the summer brings
You back here, soul mate
Pulling on heartstrings
from inside a lone box under the sea
By Jia Xuan
Forgetfulness is a curse,
It creeps up on you or if it feels like it, pounces on you unaware.
It’s difficult to disperse,
But you need to live with it.
I was once a sailor,
The sea was my home and lover.
The stars were the music that sang me to sleep,
With their glacial celestial notes.
Yet now I’ve forgotten,
How the wind bites and cries and sings,
How the waves leap and dance and play,
How the sun falls low and rises bright in the winter solstice.
How have I forgotten?
How could I forget?
The sea is my home and only manner of kin.
Yet my mind remains empty,
And my head a hollow place.
I can only hear the sound of wild beasts,
Howling day and night against the door.
Pounding at the walls, begging me to let them in.
But how could I, for I have forgotten what sunlight looks like?
I don’t recall what they call that sharp-beaked beast with a coat of chainmail,
The one that lives in the sea,
Do you?
I can’t remember what it means to live.
Where my heart once was is now a dark cavity.
The stars are dim and yet that howling right next to me,
Ceaseless, evermore.
What is this place, and where could I be?
distance
By Haikal
I’m only a text away
You say, but distance
Separates, my dismay
Dreams are for pursuing
Sure, but it just hurts
Our relationship undoing
The strings break
Free, grip losing
Veering on heartache
I am not budging
Stationary, holding
You back, they’re judging
Me for not cutting
This, but I don’t want
Us to be off-putting
I just miss you
Too much, I fear
You’d give up on me too
among the falling stars
By Jia Xuan
Memory is a curse,
It steals its way into your mind, whispers poison and cries madness at you.
It clings on you wherever you go,
But here we are, unable to shake it away.
I was once the man in the moon,
With the gardens of stardust, pools of sunlight,
And spectral birds made from the fabric of space under my command.
The planets dance a waltz so gentle,
The falling stars sing their everlasting lament,
The sun burns and pleads and cries.
How can a place so silent be so full of noise?
How can a place so lonely be so full of pain?
I know the moon once sang in reply to the star’s curious queries,
I know the sun once laughed and was full of joy,
I know all the while the planets danced their gentle waltz,
And all these things exist in my mind.
When did it begin?
How did it begin?
The days and nights became one,
The sun stopped burning,
The moon lost its shine,
And the stars, the stars,
Crashing and burning all around me,
While the planets continue their waltz.
I saw it all.
I heard it all.
The human beings screaming below,
Crying for help that would never come.
The voices in the distance,
So far away,
Never to be seen,
Never to be heard,
The darkness, the noise, the silence.
And they who say silence has its own noise,
Has never been more right.
In the midst of the end,
The screams ceased,
And the burning galaxy lay dark,
The only light being created from that of the dying stars.
In the sun’s last breaths,
I heard so much,
I see so much.
And now here I am,
When Death has led all those in this galaxy,
To the world beyond it,
Here amongst the ever falling stars.
And I hear,
I see,
I remember,
While the planets gently waltz on.
motherly
By: Haikal
Months and years go by
Day cycling with night
Never ever will I cry
Loving you with all my might
The purest kind of soul
The light shining on you
Through the lands we stroll
Looking at the amazing view
But good comes to an end
Eventually you pass away
A tragedy I can’t mend
An inevitability that will stay
However sad it is
Lasting memories prevail
The good times I will miss
A world with a strong gale
Nothing will ever waiver
My love for you mother
I offer you my prayer
As you meet your creator
Written by: Haikal and Jia Xuan
