Jollin Tan (b. 1993)
SELECTED POEMS
peel open the concept of what it is to want.
the way you stretch your face to the sky to watch the crowns of trees
wave shyly at each other, no more than an inch away from touching—
space to breathe, they say—the blue sky peeks through, clouds with a chance
of the sun, the possibility of an endless fresh breeze. the heat
on your face is bright and sparkling like rays beaming off the sea,
your throat and guts tight as if a forest has taken root inside you and is
tunneling its way up your stomach and blooming out of your mouth, cracks
of moss forcing their way through brick—but this is only desire, this seizing—
a fright-freezing. instinct, the way the enormity of it softens
and paralyses you, roots coming out of your toes and leaves
bursting rustling out of your ears oh how loudly you want—
how violent and ugly the scale of it and how uncontrollable
and green, propelling out of you now and perfuming your lungs
with the luxurious scent of lavender and jasmine and obscuring
any warning you could’ve given with the sweet thick fog of it.
whittle it down—carve open the bark of a trunk layer by layer,
sleeve by sleeve. arrive at—longing. wake into it. because the sky fills
with the pink of one late summer with you. because when we speak
hushed in my bed you feel like a secret in my favourite colour.
sweat-soaked and mine. because i wake from green naked dreams
to a cool, inert wall. because i write until my fingertips are blood-filled
from gripping the pen so tight. because all these letters
i kiss and kiss and never send.
by Jollin Tan
first published by Writers Guild of Berlin (2023)
