I grew up in a house with a huge garden,

On a street called “jalan dua”,

There is a pond in the backyard hosting hundreds of animals, from little people to bird stones, I used to wonder why my grandmother put frogs’ eggs in her rose juice, those unborn tadpoles turned out to be just basils, thank God.

My cousins and I were playing with our neighbour, she had her hair curly like noodles sometimes they covered her eyes when she runs, I remembered how gorgeous it looked. We were wearing capes down to our feet made up of tied towels around our necks, acting boyish not knowing that girls can be superheroes too. But girls don’t run around naked like we used to.

In this house, we were made to dream – there were no fixed number of walls that could trap our imaginations, the sky wasn’t just the sky, the wind were Terabithia calling our names. Each walls that cracked turned an ordinary room into Narnia, it made us wonder if grandfather built them that way to hide a secret room. When we weren’t superheroes, we became detectives.

We became doctors.

We became dancers.

We became nomads playing hide and seek.

The sofa used to be a bigger space, it could fit eight of us and we’d still have enough room to wiggle freely, now the world seemed so small it feels like we’re always meeting the people whose closed with the people we’re closed with. I do missed the phase when quoting cliches seemed like a cool thing to do, like writing this; “roses are red, violets are blue”.

Cliche is… finally reaching your dreams.

Finally

Having the courage to step out of your comfort zone. Finally

making a rhyme poetry.

Finally

coming home.

After a lifetime of becoming scientists, experiencing bad memories, categorising them as red litmus paper turning blue.

God…

I pray I won’t ever be coming home to a headline in a crumpled up newspaper that reads, ‘Vacant room in the attic for rent – Bangi’

–Home by adlinkhairil