Moving On

“Next stop, City Hall Interchange”
says the recorded articulation of my thoughts
as yet again, we travel on one of our outings.
Full of fun, we always agree:
so nice to meet up after a
whole year of stress and work
and time-occupying activity.
Too much, perhaps, and too long
or maybe just too late,
we sit and wait,
fumbling
for words as if for loose change;
foraging for that term of affection, stuck
like the MRT card in my jeans.
We avoid conversation like those
Sanyo pamphlets or Bone Marrow
raffle ticket sellers – No
thank you, I bought just now already.

Just now seems so far away
as tears we don’t have time to cry calcify in the gullet,
as you go West and I go East and
suddenly
our island doesn’t seem so small anymore.

-Aaron Shahril Yusoff Maniam.