slaughter pig depot
by Benedicta J. Foo

when you say you miss me i wait
before telling you the same, and i mask
it with nervous laughter and a casual comment
on the grossness of lovers in their solitary bubbles.
when you say you miss me we

flip golden sand dunes, 43 weeks’ worth. our

dinner then was not chilled chicken tenders and soft
fries and barely edible biscuits, canned green tea chilled
from the air conditioner that had refused to budge. sustenance,
instead, was ethnic food, and when you say you miss me i

am reminded of your face when you took your time
deciding, your darkened eyes focused on the photographs above
our bed. pre-renovation images of an abandoned building, waiting
for fresh pantone and guests to inhale that and exhale intimacy back into
new walls. when you say you miss me i pray

for flinders to tell me – us, beneath the clocks – how
lonesome spirited girls in cabaret dresses took shelter within
these walls, waiting to entertain in a nearby theme park. kilometres
away from forbidden hill and home. but the only man available within
this road is flanders, and he was a slaughterhouse

in belgium.

when i say i miss you too:
i am breathing within the space of
a hundred dying stars. this enclave was built
on reclaimed land, made of secrets of multiple households.
when i say i miss you too, i am wishing

these palms, dirtied from oiled swings, had
never participated in this history, and even with
you i had long hoped we’d place our palms on oiled
swings somewhere. home is not within plastered façades
and when i say i miss you

remember too that it is not budgeted masquerade
balls, or preserved carcasses of previous wars and love
letters. home is not found in five-footways where businessmen
fed solitary bedroom performers, waiting for trains. when
i say i miss you too

i am wishing
flinders would tell
me to come home.

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Benedicta J. Foo writes lonely poems about lonely people. Her work has won merit in the inaugural Singapore National Poetry Festival, and been featured on LIVEpress.