metonymy of lost years by Pamela Seong Koon
my heart thinks it’s a hummingbird’s. i count the duvet creases slatted against my spine like a puzzle. i lengthen the night when i need rest, the work and the monotony fighting for it. back then, i never wanted the shackles. whenever the coins turned up, it was magic, and i spent them on little pleasures. instead of sustenance, because they would materialize somewhere no matter how little. outside of stability was help, and the recklessness of not knowing what it meant. everybody gave the night their time with ribs expanded. small, private groups of people sitting outside a shuttered something. the third place of not going home. in my room, alone, i have the freedom to close my eyes and drift. i lead myself to what i yearned for before, the places i hesitated with. in a bid to understand, i cabbed to a stranger’s home and let him use my streaming account. he kissed hungry, darkness egging him on. i only liked crawling through the window to enter and exit, as if a portal, somewhat shameful. i’ve always wanted the places that aren’t mine and to lounge on their daybeds. i needed power to placate the time. the modern offices with their meek security, the impossible length of the elevator shaft. when a place is quiet you can hear the whirr of their bones. the rugs seem cleaner to the touch. nothing like the filth and the ember of a bed slept on every day, creases predictable. i almost hear the din of midnight supper and the anxious tills of cabs. in a house i have grown to love, where else would i go.
Pamela Seong Koon enjoys many hobbies. Her work can be found in anthologies such as Alien Magazine, Cordite Poetry Review, AFTERIMAGE's substack publication OFTHENOW, and also in MRT stations and trains until 4th November 2026. She has performed as a feature for Spoke and Bird and sploosh!. She is looking to put out a book one day.