Kristine Ong Muslim

A Random Event #1

All paths are contrived to look invisible
even if the source of the light is just
a single pinhole. Crowds gather
wherever there is something to see,
but the most memorable things happen
in private. So I do not join the crowd;
I do not care what I’ve missed.
I pull myself out of the husk
that attempts to recreate all
the trappings of a full-blown world.
I am the saddest subset in the Venn diagram.

A Random Event #2

I wear fear with ease; it is the hilt
that limits the descent of the blade.

Invisibility is flattery. I sashay to be ignored.
The colors of the party move on~without me.

Memory is a landscape dotted by uneven streaks
of time. I imagine tearing apart the duality~

the landmarks in such a landscape are randomly
placed, but the entirety of the scene is contrived.

Pressure Drop

Air slips in between the cobwebbed spaces,
under the chair where only dust and a half-light

reside, over the countertops, past the pickle jars
which contain last decade’s silences. I hear it whistle,

make the house groan as it infuses sky into
the grains of the wooden boards under my feet.

The rug crumples under my weight; it yields
for it has nothing to lose. I feel the softness sink in.
_____

Kristine Ong Muslim lives in Maguindanao, the Philippines. Her work has appeared internationally in such publications as Noneuclidean Caféé, Syntax, Chronogram, The Bellevue Literary Review, and Turnrow.