Elijah Wong Man Shun
Contributor Biography
These days, Elijah Wong Man Shun can be found working on Excel sheets in the Military Medicine Institute, furiously organising feedback pertaining to the healthcare system in the military collected from his fellow peers serving their National Service. In his free time, he daydreams of creating art which resonates with some vague, yet utterly universal feeling in the human psyche. He also has a stunning menagerie of dead flowers.
what I saw when I saw the sun
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10 October 2020, after a day sunbathing at Jurong Lake Park
whilst guarding the National Day Parade Fireworks
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“Imagine for a moment that you’re soaking in the warm rays of the sun.
It feels nourishing and healing; all your aches and pains just fade away.
The Sun card brings this amazing energy into your life.
Vitality and health abound, while you feel assurance and clarity in all you do.
Spend some extra time outside today,
be grateful for the radiance of the sun and the life force it gives all creatures.”
​
put simply, roots extended from my soles into the earth
herself like the sun's rays with their interminable mingle with the morning
dew coating the cattails, the cat
tails swaying about in their lazy
afternoon dance, dancers on the sun
set promenade bellies full of soup. the intangibility of which betrays the absolute
necessity of that moment—it felt like the virgin joseph himself had possessed
me and there was life inside me brewing, some little octopus
tentacles knocking against shell.
​
i do not know if that’s how octopi—octopuses?
give birth but one gets the idea.
​
in that moment, i felt his masculine
warmth reach into my soul through the slits in my eve
ry orifice and nursed the way only a father can.
fool that i was, i was spent moonbathing and my body was embalmed in the ocean
lotion of the moon. ebbing and flowing like wild me
dea through the aegean sea after the sun god’s grandson
​
ha!
​
i am two halves growing into sola
r prominence. my roots knocking against soil and impregnating the good
earth beneath.
yes, i am carrying his energy now.
i become one with the crown of my man
e haloed in light and the capillary hairs of my feet throbbing in childgiving pulses.
​
put simply, i saw the earth. then, i saw myself as an unnatural extension of the earth. then, i saw the earth as a natural extension of my self. then, i saw the two halves coming together like an artisanal bowl, like hands on ceramic, like a wheel turning.
​
this is me, turning.
Pavithra Sreekumar
Contributor Biography
Pavithra Sreekumar is a poet, screenwriter and filmmaker based out of Mumbai, India. She completed her undergraduate studies in filmmaking and creative writing from Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore and is currently working as a screenwriter in a film production house in Mumbai. Pavithra hopes to write films as poetry is written, evocative and moving.
Bipolar
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Ants crawling on top of perfume,
bottles full and filling,
my stomach growling,
screeching, vomiting;
I am not well most of the days,
but I try.
To reach, to hold, to walk, to run.
Away from him, and toward him,
like he is the house I was brought to,
and this is the house I was never brought into.
It was through.
Windows and doors.
Windows and doors.
Repeat them long enough,
and their meanings exchange.
Glances and smiles,
arms and laughs.
Like I am still at the edges,
perimeters, with postures of places,
I am not allowed more than lines,
I am not allowed lines.
Of lights that bounce and curve,
enough light for enough corners.
I tackle them,
they tackle each other,
and I am spinning within.
My mother told me,
“when you want to get involved,
stand by a window,
when you do not want to get involved,
stand by a door.”
And I am stuck,
in the crevices in between,
child and mother,
mother and child.
I sit down,
let the ages form cracks,
by window sills, door knobs,
wire mesh and key holes.
I sit down,
by doors and windows,
windows and doors.
There are viewpoints that will let me be.