x – something like a myth – x – a song shrouded in unidentifiable shapes – x – & when monsoon season comes – x – & when the flood rips in – x – & when she was engulfed by the water – x –  there rose a fleet folded carefully by the small children – x – whose voices crowd the stairway & echo through the waves – x – a body of water adorned with searching red paper boats – x

x – they decorate the memory – x – making garlands with bloody paper instead of ‘real’ flowers – x – they fold stories – x – like plucking a mango from the neighbour’s tree – x – & crashing a motorbike into a river of snakes – x – & accidentally falling asleep under the bed in a game of hide n seek – x – because it isn’t all ‘real’ – x – because it’s a carried thing we were never made to know – x – only made to stitch together – x – haphazardly – x

x – tell me – x – about biking with friends around the village – x – making spiders from sewers battle as if they were pokémon – x – it’s selfish – x – but I don’t mind how grim or ‘tiny’ it all is – x –  I want to know about the durian farm – x – the best technique to braid a flower crown – x – it’s selfish – x – but I want to know what she was like – x

x – I fold a red paper boat – – – – – – – – – –

x – she used to sew clothes for them every new year – x – the garments all stitched with the same patchwork – x – just cut into different shapes for different bodies of songs – x – like a narrative – x – like cloths of words given up – x – discarded fragments we give breath to – x – desperately – x – willing water to hold itself – x

– – – – – – – – – – I sew the soundbites of those children – x – their songs search for her story – x