living in the edit by Deanna
in singapore dreaming, everything smells faintly of plastic and ambition, the flat always a little too warm. a lone fan whirs. plastic chairs sigh under bodies carrying unsaid dreams.
at the dining table, cutlery clicks too loudly. someone says, “why you never study harder?”
the words taste like kopi left too long on the counter. rice dries. soup skins over. no one reaches for seconds.
i learn early that wanting must be useful. that desire comes with paperwork. that love sounds like savings accounts, insurance, and conversations ending before feelings begin.
later, someone says, “this condo is our future.” off-white walls, polished tiles, new paint thick with promise.
the city outside hums. mrt tracks singing distance, construction drilling time into the ground. even at night, singapore does not sleep, it recalibrates.
another line follows me everywhere: “you think money easy to earn?”it lodges itself beneath the ribs. shoulders held up by it, rest treated as conditional.
my days smell like recycled air. my hands learn the weight of keys, of access cards, of things that open doors but not relief.
does life imitate art, or does art imitate life?
does the screen teach me how to live, or do i keep returning to it to explain what i have become?
years later, i watch the film again. the palette has changed: fluorescent white anxiety, brown fatigue, greys dulled by evenings waiting for something unnamed.
i realise i’ve been living inside its silence, keyboard clicking without pause, elevator rides with eyes glued to screens, love tasting like leftovers on the kitchen table.
i turn the screen off.
the room stays warm. the city keeps humming.
but for the first time, the future does not smell like fresh paint.
it smells like rain, uncertain, warm asphalt cooling, drains sighing open, and the air finally soft enough to breathe.
Deanna is a Singapore-based writer who writes poems about feelings, relationships, and the strange work of being a person. She believes poets write better sad, but is stubbornly learning to write happiness too. Her work is confessional, and occasionally self-deprecating, shaped by quiet moments and emotional housekeeping. She believes most things make more sense with time, honesty, and a cat nearby. When not writing, she is overthinking, making lists, or being bossed around by cats.