Sum of 25

Zero to Four

Red monkey, born with
almond eyes and button nose,
a doll in a crib.

Enchanting ‘mama’
the crawling entertainer,
full of surprises.

Marionette with
parrot voice, stomps around
discovered stages.

A playhouse mummy
serves plants and dirt on plastic
to feed kids in bush.


Five to Six

Debut to the world
baby now dressed up in
pink beanie and smock.
Lone strawberry there,
lined up with sakura friends,
steps of bamboo stilts.
She runs a race for
the finish line of parents,
gliding right ahead.
They chose her to act
a Wendy in the school play,
Peter Pan; her play.
Sakura blooms with her mother in best suit,
Fallen, it buds again with deep root.


Seven to Twelve

On her back, a new randoseru worn;
the sign when the six-year contract commences.
The uniform with the school’s face ironed on.
Now she’s rushed off to a building behind fences.

The sign, where the six-year contract commences,
marks a warden-lady’s order to wanna-be heroes and princesses.
Where the dreamers are split into misters and misses,
Now she’s rushed off, to a building behind fences.

Marks; warden-ladies order to wanna-be heroes and princesses
never to cross the line laid on concrete paving.
Where the dreamers are split into misters and misses,
the freewheeler makes strides on a unicycle, advancing.

Never to cross the line, laid on concrete paving
the uniform with the school’s face ironed on,
the freewheeler makes strides on a unicycle advancing,
on her back, the scarred randoseru worn.


Thirteen to Fifteen

She was no freewheeler, nor a princess.
She experimented with a taste of society,
pushing her childhood companions into darkness.

Enclosed in teenaged duress,
those whom she worshipped were ‘hot’ idols and seniority.
She was no freewheeler, nor a princess.

In her game of ‘cool’ stuff to possess,
she pierced her ears for popularity,
pushing her childhood, companions in the darkness.


Exam scores, for the soulless faculty to assess
signals her potential; a cell of hostility.
She was no freewheeler. No! A princess?!

Towering monuments of victory to impress
her providers for their approval; her vanity,
pushing her childhood companions into the darkness.
The poker-faced pleased her owners with her progress
while she squatted on the floor in anxiety.
She was no freewheeler. Oh! A princess,
pushed her childhood, a companion of the darkness.


Sixteen to Eighteen

She trudged up the steep hill to
restore her juvenile illusion:
the loose socks and the short skirts:
the tempered hair and curled eyelashes.
The strait gate housed flagellants and looming conflicts.
The wretch was scarred, straying in despair.

A hellcat, the antagonist sunk her into despair;
‘Gross!’ was the curse word uttered to
her and other eyesores that inflicted the she-devil; conflicts
between the bad and good. She had this illusion;
high school was her playground: chit-chat about their gorgeous eye lashes,
and ‘hot’ boys with a bunch of friends in short skirts.

She never imagined the day living down in the outskirts.
In the school of the selfish, a good girl like her, a spare
in the circle to fortify the majority. The bullies caused her a hell of lashes.
‘Coz she pissed me off, she’s annoying’. She put on too
good a demeanour with bits of common sense. ‘Dellusion!’
Nowhere to go, alone with tormenting thoughts of conflicts.

In search of a home, away from the conflicts,
She found guys thought her ‘hot’ in mini skirts.
She felt like a princess, her vanity conjured the illusion
which vanished after the guys sent her home. She's soaked in despair,
waiting to hear that a guy missed her too.
The consoling companions were the drops on her lashes.


Hanging on by her eyelashes,
She did not see her self in a mirror. Conflicts
within, a copycat in denial, burying the dreamer; two
split self as day and night, in the uniform, the skirt,
stabbing a knife in the inside. It was a neglected act of despair,
dreaming of the hellcat within herself. Self-delusion.


The party at school kept seeing her illusion.
Unnoticed side of her, checking eyelashes,
out of the classroom, taken over by despair.
Building up inside her were the looming conflicts.
Her caring friends were the salty stains on the edge of her skirts.
Drops, falling. Dripping. Despite her not wanting them to.

Awake in pain with the shattered illusion,
She came out with a resolution to end the conflicts
To save the long lost girl, she dropped out of despair.


Nineteen to Twenty-five

At the end of the steep hill, the dusk of the darkness.
There was enlightenment through the strait gate.
She trudged with fettered feet into the world
with aspiring comrades, to a school of stimulating minds,
a variety of seeds with their blooming potentials.
She held a steering wheel in hand, exploring
and caught new breath in a newly found hub.
She was a bud about to bloom, blindfolded;
the agony of youth yet to come.

Ambition and vanity were the unicycling synergists,
pulling strings of the marionette as servants of the society.
Appeared as a hero, a companion of the soul
seducing her through illusions; she was his princess.
Dreaming of a happy ending, she released the princess inside her.
Her soaring ambition locked her up in solitude,
eliminating others, rooting her away from home.
In search of sunlight, she found herself standing bare
on alien soil, confined to a barren box.
The man of the house was a fox in disguise,
uprooting her innocence, playing on her vulnerability.
All she could feed him, self-sacrifice.


Wretched and broken, she was in despair.
She made a truce with the princess,
putting her conflicts to a halt
in search of nourishment to save herself.
The sole place on the map in her heart
was the root where she came into bud.
Surrendering with her open wounds, to the world
once she thought full of enemies.
Sakura friends sharing her sorrow
offered her words of consolation.
Her mama opened the door for her, putting her in a bath.
Reunited with the little girl inside her,
She felt a deep scar, aching and sore;
the spring water sizzling like an antiseptic.
She found the cure to heal her wounds.

Scarred forever, it sometimes aches.
It is the sign where she met the princess
who bloomed into a flower under the sunlight,
a companion in her life that she cherishes.