Pamela Seong Koon: “Strobes”
i move out of a place i love because i see a dead cat on my neighbour’s doorstep. i wipe the kitchen out of my memory. it comes back in dreams, fistfuls of cotton candy.
there is a discotheque with plants adorning the entrance. the journey is falling in love with every person in line. vomit drips off a monstera leaf and cakes only a minute part of its surface.
when i think of the synonyms of love i think of the man whose face i cannot remember. in diaries i record him watching videos and gorging on supper. i dive into a banquet and forget where i am.
there are books torn, the pages dumped into a chute gently. to look up to a face i do remember. all disappointment and distance and how softness is not enough. the mouth gasping, then pursed.
we are twenty until we turn thirty, my friends remark. i look at my own calloused hands, peeling into rotten fruit. a man in sunglasses stares and i keep my shame. i touch things and wish for the tang of recall. tonight i will sleep with everything i have.
Pamela Seong Koon works in the shipping industry and has vested interest across an assortment of things. Their work has been published in Cordite, superfroot, and Alien Magazine, among others. Their lifting journey is documented on Instagram at @pamgolins.
