F1
before you
shift-delete
me
control-x me
out of your life

Alt-tab please
before everything else
there might be something else
before you alt-F4
us

Control-z again
and again

Control-escape
I'll give you more
F10 just please
I will alt-enter
and be better
than default.

I can F4
no more control-c
control-v
remember
backspace this place
control-a and shift-
delete

my enter
don't escape
I promise to tab
from now until control-
alt-
delete

F3 how we were
and F5, please.



Copyright 2011 by Cristina Tan Cheng

Note: keyboard shortcuts reference guide: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449

6 AM

Continents slide into the sea,
believe me, while you sleep.
No measurements needed.
Though no geologist would certify,
oh my, the ground shifts
while you dream.
I don't know what science is this.
Just when your eyes close,
the world quakes as if to wake
you and every princess
from here to eternity. Believe me.
I would never fool one like you
who could call Fenrir
to come slobber here with one
whistle, snort, or snore.
What am I saying, my meaning?
Wake up now, my dear,
and hold me near and steady.


Copyright 2011 Cristina Tan Cheng

Nemesis I'm not sure
if this is cure or a whip
against your flesh-
this laying on your shoulder-
for either of us.

In flight, you unsheath
a smile. Here I pluck
at your sun-bright eyes
and bring the night down
to blanket our embrace.

When we met I sprouted wings
made of wax and feathers.
When we met you grew a halo
and sweetened the sea.
Grow a fire for me

because I am ready to fall
as I come closer to heat
and your yellow heart.
I don't know how to be good
anymore, not as I cry out.

I've found a dagger.
Imagine me,undone,
to find the hilt in my hand.
Your head on a pillow
as my skin become scales.

I have to fall on my knees
begging you turn the blade
cut out tongue, ears, jugular
of this beast. I have earned
your cold shoulder.


Copyright 2011 Cristina T. Cheng

Maybe you are Big Foot
stomping near Loch Ness
or wherever dreams go
to sleep. I never did admit
to wanting to sleep
with you.

We used to heat the air with talk.
Eyes fell on lips that fell
on ears and so forth.
We were making words
that erupted between silences
instead of love.

I could have finished
all of your sentences.
You could have ended
all of my expositions
with a question mark.
We were an epic saga

Or a fairytale. While lisps
teased at corners of lips
my vision of you wavered
from phoenix to swan
to grave-digging swain
of the empty cool moon.

We are a paragraph's length
apart and not getting closer
to the denouement. Why
postpone the last page
to linger at the start?
I was never self-denying.

Come visit my cottage
in the spring. Leave the bog
of yesterday for once.
I will lay out sunflowers
on the ground. I will lay out
quiet as a hungry mouse.



Copyright 2011 Cristina Cheng

A Union

Whenever I attempt to put into writing

what a world with you in it has come to be,

a whole slew of words come charging at me.

Wrestling amongst themselves,

they struggle to best each other

in encapsulating the breadth and width

of the wonder that is you, the mystery that is us.

Chaos ensues even before I set my pen upon paper,

and scribble these thoughts as quickly as they come.

But even when I have set ink against the smooth white surface

of my trusty notepad, I hesitate and reconsider,

hastily blotting out what had previously been set

and at the end of the day, have a huge blob of ink sitting

where a bit of prose may have been found.

 

Forgive me then if I dabble in my books and imaginary castles

for words are all I have in this perpetually shifting world

to capture the precise moment

we chose to embark upon this adventure.

For if I cannot set it into words, what then?

Many have gone before us

and attest to the harsh, brackish waters to come

yet also hold testament to the majestic beauty of places

unsullied by previous encounters.

 

My heart tingles with trepidation

(in part because of the uncertainty

that lies ahead, but mostly because

it is fortified by the confidence of your warmth),

as we forge ahead, hand in hand,

foolhardy half-wits possibly doomed to impending folly

yet utterly satiated.

Just flushing out rusty pipes.



A long time ago, in a galaxy
in your backyard, was the birth
of a death of a star.

You make your home in a crater
on the dark side of the moon.
Each revolution night that
doesn't break; always setting.

Light refracts away from the curvature
of the heavenly body where you live.
The horizon is obvious and forever.
I would have to bow to gravity.

On the right, the devil;
On the left, the deep blue-

A picture frame floated nearby. I closed my eyes against the sun and saw a trunk full of
picture frames, each one older than the last. It was my strongest link to the past; now my
only link. A fragment of memory in the middle of the sea.

Salt crusted in my hair. Water weighed every limb down. I clung to the wood - part of a door - not out of any sense of determination to survive but more out of habit. I've been floating for three days.

First day, D-Day, when a mountain of water rose from underneath the yacht and upended it and everything in it into the sea. I had been in the lavatory, washing my hair. I heard it first and wondered if some speedboat piloted by a daredevil was cruising dangerously close. It had happened more than once. I knew it would always happen. Such was life in a yacht. Or had been.

First night, the cold. The wood and fiberglass had shattered around me as though hit with a giant hammer or the fist of God. Earlier, I had fought to stay afloat. Hard to do, when "up" and "down" changed directions and "here" was a vortex. By nightfall, the sky was as dark as the sea. Far into the harbor, 400 miles away, the ubiquitous lights from civilization were not there. I was a strong swimmer - a necessity for a hobo living in the middle of the ocean - but sometime while I was being tossed and spun around like a piece of lint in a washing machine, I had hurt my leg. Or something, had hurt my leg.

Screw it. I was numb from the waist down.

Four hundred miles in two days would have been a piece of cake.

Four hundred miles in two days and no food and water would have been a push but I would have made it.

I was fish food.

I half-lay on a plank of wood. I recognized the doorknob that was still attached. It was the door to my bedroom. My bedroom where all the debris of my life had been stored, including my body. Had. Now all of it was scattered by currents in the Pacific.I almost giggled when I imagined my underwear washing up in Hawaii.

Second day, the heat. God, the heat! I could only splash water on my skin with one hand. The other held me fast on my precarious flotation device. It rocked and rolled over every small and big wave. At this point, hunger was turning my saliva to acid. I swallowed and grew more thirsty.

I briefly wondered why I hadn't been rescued yet. Why hadn't some great windy beast come to let down its ropey hair? It didn't occur to me that maybe the beasts were busy elsewhere.

Second night. The hope left, evaporated like each drop of moisture in my body. My eyeballs scraped their lids. My tongue was dried meat. My skin crinkled like paper. I was almost desperate enough to drink the salt water all around me. I didn't even want to think what was going on with the lower half of my body. As far as I cared, I was a mermaid now. The other half, lost to the sea.

Third day. Not one inch closer to shore. All around me, my life and escape in bits and pieces. I closed my eyes and prayed for rain.

*****

TBC