Issue 3.2
Summer 2023
Fairuz Ikbar Octa
Reflection
As I am writing this poem, I’m thinking of film soup and expired film rolls. I felt burnt out and foggy as if trying to see something in a photo from a burnt film. I relate those feelings to what I had experienced, trying to remember something, but I can't. For me, life can be dissociating, and my memories can’t always be trusted, but one thing is certain when you live is death. But before that, I feel like I’m living in-between two opposing colors; two sides of everything; past and future. So, I want you to read this poem with two alternating voices.
Living in the Past of a Future Self
I watch myself taking a wrong left turn/
Betrayal of muscle memory/
I should be going to work, not uni/
Three years felt like just the other day/
But my high school years were lost in a fog/
Betrayal of mental memory/
I have been doing my meditation/
Breathing in and out to be present/
Yet time has lost its orientation/
Burnt rolls of expired color film/
​
Living in the past of a future self/
I breathe for someone who may not exist/
Mother hated me for wanting to die/
Was on the waiting list for the state shrink/
So I list the reasons for my being/
In my notes below the grocery list/
Here I am still writing poems for you/
Without all of the things I should’ve bought/
With everything I should be grateful for/
A self, finding their direction to death/
Fairuz Ikbar Octa is the author of puisipiyo (Deepublish, 2016), a book of her English and Indonesian poems. Her haiku, “Parted Lips” has appeared in the Skrews Syndication Issue 004. You can find her work and book reviews at: https://www.instagram.com/puisipiyo/
Fairuz's Book Recommendation
We Are Nowhere And It's Wow by Mikael Johani