what the cover said

singpowrimo week 1!!

okay I will now dump all the days stuff here!! yall can see the updates for every day of April on my insta @justariceplant yayayay

1

the hometown prompt

my mother always said
'living in your own world'
maybe it was my dreams,
the things running through my mind at 12am

it changes, fast
just like the real world
but the way I love, the way I say
the way I imagine better days

things I regret, things I hate
make me cry at midnight
here comes the temptation to circle back to love
I always loved thinking about that too

all that, squeezed into my little universe
towers of hope, dumpsters of sadness
I dwell in this 4th dimension
went off topic, didn't I?

2

the syntax prompt

I poem write. In a way, poem brain killed.
but do better I can. I 'L' grammar to sign.
words up mixed, need care no.

It absolute nonsense sounds, and right you're. Writing I am nonsense absolute.

Words jumble and lose sense poem of I.
Keep if wondering you can this understand.
'essence of this is prompt the this?' wonder I.
hard chaos is to stand.

Guess free-form call I it.
some language maybe sense makes this.
Know don't I, don't and bother I check to.
Worse gets, worse gets.

figuring have out fun with this.

3

the multilingual prompt

no confused, wo zai zuo shen me?
Me--meh? Mo? Meu? I don't understand.
But it's okay.
Gwenchana, gwenchana.

I try to take 'third lang,'
But nihongo wa way too hard desu.
U is silent, yao ji de wo.

Singapura tells me to be bilingual,
Its apparently an english word
But bi shi latin de, lingus ye shi,
Wo dao di yao ting shei de hua?

In the end, I only know 'aishiteru'
Yin wei na shoWatashiu 'idol' de ge
Its all an excuse to say gwenchana really,
And its okay.
Gwenchana, gwenchana.

4

the conversational prompt

'write,' I my brain says.
I say no.
'I don't have anything to write about,'
And so we argue, on, and on and on.

It calls it 'writer's block'.
I tell it that according to that workshop we attended
Two weeks ago, that's false.
"'writer's block' doesn't exist."
"Or does it?"

I stare at a screen.
'You write better when it's on paper,' my brain reminds me.
I stare at a notebook.
So many writing projects, so little motivation.

"write," it demands.
I write.

5

the emo-nemo prompt

It lies somewhere there
The solace beyond the clouds
I gaze at the sky
Wanting? No— longing to be there

Gravity keeps me grounded
I can't fly
Unless you want me to
Jump 1cm off the ground for 0.5 seconds

I suppose I'm delusional
Dreaming of my 'somewhere over the rainbow'
It's funny, isn't it?
The forever want, never have

And in the end, I'm just a cloudgazer
With an all-too-unrealistic dream

6

the sincerity prompt

You told me to be sincere
But that's kinda hard
I say what I mean, I mean what I say,
But I never say what I want

'Let it all out there' is a bit confusing
Contradictive? Controversial? Probably all at once
So I keep my opinions to myself

I write lies
It keeps me entertained
They ask 'is this from real life?'
I answer 'no, it's just for fun'

I'll end cliché, I bottle it up
The 'sincere' me hides itself in the dark
It's a little too hard
To face

7

the Singlish prompt

You shenjingbing ah?
Chill lah cannot take a joke meh?
So serious for what sia
No lah no lah ignore ignore

Singlish confuses me.
Red dots underline the words
We regard it as 'purely singaporean'
Isn't it a just of weird languages?

I 'tikam' one SPSO gold
Go 'smart smart' school
Still cannot understand simple thing?

But then again English is a mix of a bunch of weird languages
Every song has to be some part of another
Yao fa biao le
Oh well, oh well

wooo there's week one of singpowrimo