echo Selling Dreams
Leya
In my dreams,
I am still a little girl,
Yearning to be pretty one day,
Hoping that my sepet eyes might just change,
Wishing to be somebody, just about anybody,
My name is sewn to my chest,
Though I pray you never call me,
My heart is worn on my sleeve,
Though maybe I should cover it up;
My cheeks were rosy red back then,
And it was beautiful, natural,
Now they’re painted red with rouge and scars—
But tonight when I go to sleep,
I’m still just a little girl,
And I still think it’s just my own world.
In my dreams,
I still wear my school uniform,
I haven’t washed my black shoes, I never have,
My accounting teacher is nowhere to be seen, so I
Plan my bathroom trips meticulously,
But did you see the way he looked at me?
That girl in the mirror looks nothing like me—
Shouldn’t I have
Elizabeth Taylor’s nose,
Jenny Hu’s eyes,
Brigitte Lin’s smile?
When I go to sleep, I can still smell the fresh-cut grass,
Dreaming of twenty minutes again, and again,
Just to be a naive schoolgirl with her friends,
Just to be somewhere where they know my name.
Once upon a time, I dreamt—
I got enough sleep each night,
In complete silence, in total darkness,
Now I force The Cranberries to sing me to sleep,
My neighbour’s wind chimes keep me awake,
I think it’s the sound of gamelans and angklungs,
Someone in my family snores–are we under siege?
In brief dreams, I can’t find my way through night and day,
That’s how it works, in reality and
in my dreams, you are still here;
I’ve lived a life with three hours of sleep,
I’ve fallen in love, given birth, gotten divorced,
Tonight, I’ll see Harrison Ford!
Tomorrow, I’ll star in Jamiroquai’s Virtual Insanity!
And eventually, I am still the same old me when I wake up in reality.
In my answers to “What are your dreams?”,
I once told my mother I’d be a nurse,
A lawyer, a politician, a diplomat, an actress,
I miss the girls I used to be,
I have lost the guts they had,
We don’t share the same name or the same face,
I wake up to a different reflection every day,
With a different dream trailing my footsteps—
I dream of being a pencil when I am an eraser,
I dream of acting when all I am is a liar,
I think of being a woman at eight, and a girl at eighteen,
I think of waking up and bringing my world along,
Then that startling ring of reality rushes right by,
In retrospect, my dreams are never as good as they seem,
And they always wake me up before I can say goodbye.
connotations of desire
Kyra
oh, phantom lover,
diffuse through the chambers of my heart and mind
you are an intoxicating concoction, potent and engulfing
embrace me tightly and don’t let go,
for you have finally roused me from my slumber of solitude
together, we dance, laugh, weep
there is a strangeness to our profound intimacy;
i am yet to know your identity, but my heart is in your custody
we will love until our lungs give out — until the rain dissolves us like acid
i shall die a thousand deaths if it means a life with you.
there is this unexpected craving to exist alongside you;
to hear that alluring voice that traces the contour of my thoughts
and seeps into the folds of my brain,
to spend every moment memorising the pattern of lines on your palms,
to intertwine our souls and be one.
ephemeral, yet your presence sings like a song on a loop
gentle lulling like the rustling of autumn foliage on a breezy evening,
branches of tender lyrics echoing throughout my vessel,
whose bittersweet melody lingers even after i wake
but only through a wistful mirage.
you leave me wanting more in reality;
a warmth beyond obligation,
do i deserve it? perhaps not, but i ache for it — painfully
the currency of love / scarce as gold / traded in glances shy
and i am a beggar.
lost in reverie,
our minutes together end once reality’s unrelenting gaze finds us
for in every illusion, a glimpse of the unknown,
an eternal fragment of yearning
that only you can satisfy.
Linger
Leya
I’ve never had a dream come true–
When I go to sleep,
It’s pitch black, and I have no one but the voice in my head,
Suddenly I have ideas for ham machines and waterproof toasters,
This voice in my head doesn’t belong to me,
Or maybe it’s because I’ve never heard myself on tape,
It’s booming loud, it knows it’s all I can hear,
It looms above my head, following me, ear to ear,
If it is boundless, then so am I,
If I am in this dream, then so are you–poor, old you.
You don’t ever linger in my dreams,
And you only pass me by in real life,
Give me the time and the place,
And I would run—very nonchalantly,
There’s this smell around me, desperation maybe,
I think you’ll just tell me you think I’m swell,
I’m great, I’m your good friend—this and that,
Please don’t tell me you’ve made up your mind,
Just give me some time to chase you off mine,
Yes, yes, so what? I lied!
Yes, you linger in my dreams, you’re here all the time.
Some people keep journals,
Some people choose to forget,
I can barely sleep enough to remember,
Yet I remember enough to go to sleep,
When it’s daytime, I remember the feelings:
The feeling I get when you look at me,
And I hope that when my heart is thumping,
It’s just functioning, it doesn’t mean anything,
The feeling I get when I have to pass by you again,
You don’t feel real, you are not, you are just a dream.
I can’t get a seat on this old train,
I don’t have a jacket in this heavy rain,
Yet you’re here, and I’m such a fool,
Then I can be bewitched, bothered and bewildered,
A year ago, I would’ve just walked on by,
I know I wouldn’t have thought much of it,
A month ago, I would’ve just waved,
Said a quick ‘Hello, how are you?’ and ‘Goodbye!’
A week ago, you started appearing in my dreams,
And you haven’t left since—it’s annoying.
If x is a variable, then I don’t know y,
Why I keep thinking about a dress I had when I was sixteen,
Why the taste of ang koo kuih has never left my lips,
Why my pretty friend has a crush on some subpar guy,
Why you don’t seem to notice me when I’m around,
Well, I mean, you do! But not in the way I want you to,
I keep daydreaming that you’re going to sing to me,
Maybe from the bleachers, you can tell me I’m too good to be true,
Or you can look for my nameless cat in the rain,
My eyes are open, and I’m dreaming again.
a letter to the moon
Kyra
night after night, i beg
for some sort of miracle to happen,
for a portal to magically appear and lead me to another world
a mirror world — similar to this one;
people complaining about the rising prices of eggs,
masks are still in use,
the growing hype for Taylor Swift’s new album
but there, we are happy
we are in love
we are together.
Written By: Leya & Kyra
