foreign space - poetry&prose

she used to be mine

could we start over?

start at when i was twelve

when my father asked me,

"do you want to go to singapore?"

and i said no.

then i went to high school with my friends

we laughed together, slowly bonding even more than we used to

go out to get cheese tea together, fuck it being expensive because we're fearless and who can stop us

swann! people would say, whisper, laugh - and i would smile at my teacher who passed me my grade.

my parents were happy, so happy- their daughter was a gem, a prodigy. she was firm on her opinions and didn't necessarily want to study but she did it because she could do it

she was so happy with herself- she sang and sang and got laughed at sometimes but that was okay because she won competitions

she never knew jeans, or jiae, or phi or skylar and never knew jamie

but she knew ziyan, yingshan, wenxuan. she knew her friends. and that was all that mattered

her sister went on to achieve greater heights in singapore, without any burdens

she glanced shyly at the boy in her class and tried to hide her nervousness as she talked to pretty girls

she was happy,

and when she graduated, she cried because she was leaving her lifelong friends but they promised to meet up because being friends of ten years was no joke. she would grin as she received the top 10 academic award.

she was a girl who was herself and was happy with herself

she used to be mine