murmur journal vol. 2 - Love & Other Drugs

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love & other drugs

loss

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Published in Indonesia in 2015 by the murmur house, Jakarta www.themurmurhouse.com #3 Love & Other Drugs Copyright Š the murmur house, 2015 All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Book Design by Devi Merakati, Dita Anastasya, and Nidya Prima Putri

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the starlings Founders Rain Chudori Syarafina Vidyadhana Editor in Chief Talissa Febra Editors Agustina Pringganti Ayu Meutia Shofwatul Widad Syarafina Vidyadhana Talissa Febra Translator Alyssa Syahmina Graphic Design Devi Merakati Dita Anastasya Katyusha Methanisa Nidya Prima Putri Shop Meisya Citraswara Uta Verina Maukar Program Director Shofwatul Widad Program Managers Anggun Yulia Audrey Eunike Hoyri Mohamad Triana Maulidina

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Marketing & Communication Melicia Zaini Nisya Kunto Poppy A. Utami Ratnayu C. Kirana Wiliana Lee Shipping & Distribution Elok Siti Aisyah K. Irene Aprilia Sevilla Putri Finance Indang A. Safitrie @themurmurhouse themurmurhouse@gmail.com

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table of contents Foreword

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Contents

Shadows 15 Sharing a Grave 23 Agustina Pringganti Post-Facto Notes and Whatnots 25 Andhyta F. Utami Guardhouse 31 Ayu Meutia Azevy

The Things They Don’t Teach Me About Love Ben Laksana

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A Sad Story of Time Quake and Necessary Bullshits Dea Anugrah

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Caged Freedom 53

Reciting A Love Poem 55 Dwiputri Pertiwi The Fantastic Center of Gravity 57 Dylan Amirio Constant 59 Erin Emily Ann Vance

A Very Bad Essay on Love Fajri Siregar

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A Sole Universe 71 Faris Dzaki Sad Sweet Torture Device 75 Heriyansyah

The Coffee Stain on My Blue Blanket Hoyri Mohamad

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Fuck 79 Marine Biology 81 Melicia Zaini

Defibrillation

Melisa Adisti

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Pseudo-Darwinian 87 Nugroho Haryoputro Because You Will Forget Soon Enough 91 Poska Ariadana Ask Away, Starlings 93 Rain Chudori A Certain Romance 97 Raunala Maruti

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Things About/Against Man Rebecca Kezia

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She, Swallow

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The Afternoon Turns Pink Sage L

High on Love

Shafira Annisa

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Basic Comprehension

Syarafina Vidyadhana

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Affairs

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Baptized in Contradiction

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You Will Learn This Too Talissa Febra

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Writer’s Block Virginia Segara

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Contributors

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f o r e lwoos sr d

Love: An Ancient Drug “Love” might seem too outdated to be the main theme of a literary project—what with all the alternatives this century has to offer to us—but our consciousness towards it as both an emotion and a concept is still very much alive. It is as if we are addicted to it. Love has been passed down from one generation to the next, much like the way one passes a joint to a friend, then another friend, then another, and before you know it, everyone is high and demands for more.

As much as we are tempted to cringe at the endurance of love as a part of our collective experience (“Love? Who has time for that these days anyway?”), we secretly yearn for it no matter how battered or whole that love may be. Love comes in many forms, and because it is almost impossible to determine— with enough certainty—which of them count as the love we want to cherish, we keep looking for it. And it is this desperate search that has successfully turned us into addicts.

A love poem is a temporary fix. An essay on love might get us through a rough night. A short story about characters that struggle with their feelings taunts us with its shortness and we end up consuming more than we should. This chain of addiction, however, only proves the impact that love has on words and art, and vice versa.

In the second issue of our journal, Love and Other Drugs, we would like to share the pleasure and pain of loving, being loved, and the dynamic range of emotion that comes with both.

—Dwiputri Pertiwi

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love & other drugs

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drinking tea underwater Al Kaisum Husnayah

The girl was furiously gulping the beer down her throat on a chair next to the window overlooking a street in a suburb. On the table behind her, two men were quietly sipping their cups in silence; one of them gave out a thin smile. A waiter behind his bar was fazed, looking at a kitten limping outside the door.

On the corner next to the dusty and shriveled books, I sat in silence under the dim light and imagined myself dissolving inside the black coffee I ordered a few minutes ago. Slipped from the tiny spoon and drowned inside the cup with the bitter and blistering hot black liquid. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, someone was stirring the cup and I was circling‌. circling‌until the bile rose in my throat. Until my head emptied and my skin peeled off my bones because of the heat, melting with the coffee beans. My daydream charmed me until the bell rang, signaling a visitor, and brought me back to earth. All along, my feet were hanging from my seat. Hearing the bells, I jerked and stomped them on the floor loud enough to surprise myself and the waiter behind the cashier. He stared me down; I tried to make myself scarce by stirring my warm cup of coffee and sipping it slowly.

The new visitor was a young woman with a ponytail.

Her shirt was disheveled and traces of sweat adorned her forehead all the way to her round nose. She hugged the man in the red shirt who was sipping his drink and the other one, the silent man wearing a flannel shirt, who then kissed her temple. I turned my stare back into my cup of coffee.

It was thick. Then, I lit up a cigarette and inhaled deeply, unwilling to let the smoke of nicotine and tar rise up in the air, and exhaled slowly.

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Have you ever felt that the world is like a bag of tricks from the clowns a child’s birthday party? One moment a green ball in his left hand, then it floats in the air before it landed on his right, and so on. Even sometimes you have to fall down when the clown is a clueless newbie. Or like the seemingly empty hat from which a dove suddenly appears and flaps its wings slowly, yet it cannot fly far away from the magician. I used to imagine drowning myself into dregs of coffee, moist with its biting cold, and reminisced, trying to remember whether it was the same like being inside my mother’s womb.

I frustrated myself by pondering on the reason why we can’t recall our memories as babies properly. To remember the mother living on borrowed time who spent them all on looking into your cute, round eyes and nose shaped like a tiny pear. I couldn’t recall her face. I couldn’t recall the smell of her body and the curls of her hair. She died after giving birth to me.

“Sir, more coffee, please.” My call caught the attention of fazed waiter who was still standing behind the bar. A couple of minutes later, a steaming cup came on to my table. The waiter stared in confusion when I put the new cup in front of me; the previous one was still three-and-a-quarter full. “Just take it away, it’s already cold.” * “Walking westside in the morning the sun follows from behind I walk following my lengthened shadow before me The sun and I don’t argue about which one of us creates the shadow

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The shadow and I don’t argue about which one of us must lead the way” Sato read the handwritten words on the wall beside the window in front of the bed on which we were lying.

“Sapardi?” He asked. “Yes.” Sato just smiled and tightened his embrace. We braced ourselves in each other’s arms again, moving in tandem. The clock showed three o’clock in the morning. I diverted my eyes to the shadow next to the bed. It shifted up and down without grace because clearly, we weren’t playing any music on a violin string. We were in a time where cold was just a word, scent was just the air, and whimpers and sighs became our language. A house lizard crawled on my mirror; it had no shadow.

Sato then pulled away his arms that held me all through the night. Cramps, maybe, or the heat. Maybe his bladder was full. He kissed my temple and walked, limping to the mirror.

The lizard ran away without sound and any trace. Maybe it was afraid of Sato, afraid of him finding it without a shadow.

Sato ruffled his hair and reached for his pants on the foot of the bed. “Where are you going?” I asked while pushing myself up and sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Home.” He answered.

“This early?”

“It’s not sunup yet.”

I didn’t say anything back. Indeed, the sun was not up yet. Even the call for prayers hasn’t been heard yet from the mosque behind my rooms.

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shadows

“It’s still dark. Don’t let your own shadow eat you up.

Nobody will know and nobody will save you.” I grumbled.

“Shut up,” his hands were poised in a gesture, like he was going to pull out his sword. But no. With a grip as if he’s grasping a sword, the back of his hand hit my jaw. No goodbyes. No farewell kisses.

“Why do I have to keep on living?” This question was ne­ver answered. I once asked Sato about this, and he said “Don’t be so dramatic. I’m going home, my wife is waiting.”

Once, and I never asked again. Maybe I dated the wrong person.

I forced my body to move. It felt like my hips and my butt were going to fall off their places. Still naked, I walked into the bathroom to commence my morning ritual. Beside the toilet, I picked up a thin razor with shades of yellow rust alongside the gray blade.

Satisfaction can come through pain. Happiness can be formed through scars. And so, that morning, like any other day when my happiness took the form of Sato and stayed for a while to bring words of sorrow, scars became my way to get through my sadness. I sat on the bathroom floor and put the slightly wet tip of the razor to the inside of my thigh near my crotch. I stroke it slowly, like giving a warning. And just like life, a razor won’t be dangerous until you use it. Then,­­­ I pushed deep and painted slowly to keep the strokes inside the lines I’ve planned.

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Just like tears, blood began to drop one by one, imperfectly forming a triangle. I leaned on the cold wall and enjoyed the sensation. My breath was held by the coming joy. I smiled brightly. Then, I took a flask full of water from the bath beside me and pour it on my triangle painting.

How pleasant. Water tinted with red flowed beside my feet.

I continued to pour until the triangle numbed me and rid me of all feelings.

I laughed. Laughed until my jaw fell off. My tears were gathering at the brim of my eyes, threatening to fall. And all of a sudden, the memories came back. The memories of my childhood, living in exile. I took the razor again and stroke the blade to my skin, feeling like adding a square to my tri­angle.

Then, I painted four lines around the triangle and blood began to flow again.

My smile came back. Closing my eyes, I felt happiness.

“Allahuakbar Allahuakbar..

Allahuakbar Allahuakbar..

Ashaduanlailaahaillallah..

Ashaduanlailaahaillallah..

Ashaduanlamuhammadarrasulullah..

Ashaduanlamuhammadarrasulullah..

Hayya’alasshalaah..

Hayya’alasshalaah..

Hayya’alalfallaah..

Hayya’alalfallaah..

Ash-shalaatu khairum minan-nauum Ash-shalaatu khairum minan-nauum Allahuakbar Allahuakbar Allahuakbar Allahuakbar Laailaahaillallah..”

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shadows

Perfect. Maybe this is why I had to keep on living; to find the answer to that question. * Still fresh in my memory was the beach of an Indonesian metropolis with its dusky sky. On a hill of sand where the orange sky bled its color at down, I stood up. My soul was captivated by the sun. I was not even 8 years old yet at the time, my nose was still pear-shaped and my eyes shone with innocence. I and a couple of friends lived in a fishermen village. At that time, they were playing a popular game; I forgot what it’s called. We were drawing connected squares on the sand and we gave them numbers before we jumped on them. I was bored. I was annoyed by them who were losing and swearing, shouting filthy words like the ones that came from illiterate fishermen I often heard. Because of that, I always preferred to read from the books my father gave me.

I didn’t want to be annoying. I had to know every word I said. Sometimes I played with a doll I found in the dumpster behind my house. I cleaned it and dried it under the sun in my small garden.

For a long time I didn’t play again with my friends. I was delighted with my new friend. I called her Mimi. A cute doll with the color of boiled corn—like Bang Rolis used to sell— for its hair. She was missing one plastic eye and I had no money to buy a new one for her in the market. I didn’t have the courage to ask my father for money. I told Mimi everything, about my dreams, my friends, my parents, everything. Mimi could talk. The shine in her eyes was sweet and genuine.

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I was very happy when I played with Mimi; we laughed until our stomach hurt. My friends didn’t like it. They started to leer and upset me.

1 “Dasar ho bawa songon boru boru do, lao ho tu san!”

They yelled and threw sand, rocks, or any small things around them at me.

I remember clearly the last time I played with Mimi. It was in front of my house when I played with her alone, and the woman next door who was airing her laundry talked to me.

“Ai boha do? Ho bawa alai marmeam boneka? Molo bawa 2 marmeam bola do!” She said and giggled. My father who was sitting in front of the house saw red. He dragged me inside and threw a fan at me.

“Dang adong bawa marmeam boneka! I boto ho do?

3 Molo boneka i meam meam borua do! Olo ho gabe borua?!”

Then he pulled Mimi’s head. She died instantly. Forever. ***

1 You queer boy, go away!

2 What are you doing? Boy shouldn’t play with dolls, you should be playing football!

3 No man plays with dolls! You know? Dolls are for girls! Do you want to be a girl?

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sharing a grave Agustina Pringganti

I willingly give a drop of sin into the open wound.

Enjoy the pain, Don’t ask me to pray…

For my lips are sealed for the words of flattery­fakery-mortality.

But peace, Tonight I will kiss God on the lips.

Death will not deliver Because of the lateness Of life full of emptiness.

Sadness guides death flowing, To the seam, willing, Into the crack of lips, pouring.

Give my regards to Chairil Tell him that you came to death, Instead of death coming to you like a salute in the morning.

And so Chairil will drag his bones To give you space to stretch yours. ***

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post-facto notes and whatnots

Andhyta F. Utami

Funny how our brains work. One day it fools us into believing that a colony of butterflies is building a home in our abdomen; a couple of weeks later, it tells them to completely migrate somewhere else. To their convenience, of course, there are leftovers—some haystack used to finish the ceiling, or dying flower petals in their kitchen.

This essay will not, however, talk about the natural habitat of animals in the Insecta class—although I must concur that it is a very appealing subject. Instead, we will talk about pain and ego, two mythical creatures that—just like those butterflies—share a nest inside our chest, although— unlike those butterflies—they usually stay. In fact, they stick with you religiously even when you want them gone. They’re loyal like that.

Pain Remember Anna Karenina’s first sentence—“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Let’s anchor that proposition down to an underlying possibility: all pleasures are similar, but every pain is irritating in its own way. Pain leaves a unique scar every time it touches you; depending on the degree, it also owns the power to change you into somebody you don’t want to be.

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post-facto notes and whatnots

Whoever said pain demands to be felt, had no idea that pain is just a side effect of healing. When your body’s temperature rises, for instance, it’s not because the virus wants you to be aware of the trouble it causes you—it’s your immune system fighting back. If anything, mortals should embrace pain, for it signals the arrival of the remedial phase.

In other words: pain is not an end, it’s a means. A resource, if you might.

Of all pains, the most politically supported one to claim throne is that of a broken hearted person. Because what could’ve been more wounding than an unrequited love?

To find out that the person you dearly care about does not reciprocate, must’ve bashed your heart to the ground; or at least numbed it off for a little while.

I would’ve thought so, too—had I not been introduced to another breed of pain: that of not being able to love back, no matter how hard you’ve tried. You might think that being loved is simple: it’s a blessing from the universe, to have another living soul beaming affection onto your worthless self.

But ‘being loved’ also endorses the power—or, as I’d like to call it, “the burden”—to hurt, to cause pain onto somebody else. And not just ‘somebody else’—it’s the very person who would trade the world to make you happy.

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Love is beautiful when there is give and take—life is created upon cyclical patterns after all. Our lungs breath in and out, humans return to earth as soon as they die, while capitalism prevails because market lets you buy and sell at the same time. Mutualism sustains, but imbalanced bond destroys.

Being the party who only receives does not only make you an involuntary villain, but also a depressed black hole, incapable of providing back. And the thing about black holes, they grow. The more you feed them, the bigger they get, and sooner or later, they will end up eating themselves.

The most deranged part of this scheme: you have absolutely no control upon it. It’s like standing just one step behind the line to “perpetual happiness” zone, and yet you could not move your foot any inch closer.

What a pain, don’t you think, to be deeply loved by someone you can’t love back.

Ego Centuries of civilization has benefitted from ego—it sent ships to conquer a new world, delivered humans to the moon, and killed several along the way. For all I know, ego is an opensourced energy, you are free to use it as you wish. When it

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post-facto notes and whatnots

comes to pain, however, one thing is clear: ego makes pain bearable. Your love for yourself, no matter how small it might be, helps you survive through pain—all kinds of them. The typically-evil thought of “you deserve better” or “this isn’t your fault” is exactly what you should hold on to, in order to get to the finish line and name yourself a champion.

Whenever an opportunity presents itself, ego walks around with hatred. Sometimes, the latter takes over and professes itself to be in charge. When this happens, of course, pain will hide and pretend it doesn’t exist, because obviously hatred makes you feel a lot better than pain does.

This is probably why most people succumb to hating the people they used to love. They don’t have to, you know, it’s just one of the easiest self-defense mechanism they could afford. Because the other alternative would hurt even more: declaration of dependence narrowly shows weakness, and one cannot bear pain unless they’re strong. Strong they’d rather become, without realizing that under the curtain, pain still works its due—altering them into a slightly less-trusting mind.

No two people experience the same pain, so maybe humans were never meant to really understand each other.

Regardless, I know for a fact that there are people who opt for the most genuine interaction with pain—they do not let ego (nor hatred) distort what they should have felt.

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They let pain humanize them, bringing back the primitiveness of being helpless and in need. * Together, pain and ego dance their way off whenever our subconsciousness calls for them. Their favorite music, to nobody’s surprise, is human connection—although they might as well enjoy the internal doubts humans cast upon themselves. ***

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guardhouse Ayu Meutia Azevy

“Let me know once you have arrived at the guardhouse, I will come downstairs to collect you.”

It was another break on Sunday when you were looking for a place to rest I realized that the space of our time has bent into this moment

You could not read the fear I saved on the back of my head likewise, I have failed to understand your disguise how I tried to convince you the sky was way too bright for an evening my spine could stretch that too long it was never a time for bed yet Because the space in my room has not fully grown to accommodate me and you it was still tiny for two

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So, we were pulling apart body masses, gaining twice heavy like gravity egos, battling control like warlords against enemies slippery skins, defying our loads

Could not you feel all the weight you surrendered upon me?

They were awfully heavy!

It was not top or bottom, I wanted you to start neither left or right, to know which part neither my neck nor my lips, I wanted you to kiss why did not steal a peck of my infatuated heart and turn my bad day into bliss?

Consider this little space that I meant to save you so I do not ever exhaust myself over the same question over the same anger over the same house key I weigh on my open palm for each time you are arriving at the guardhouse ***

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the things they don’t teach me about love Ben Laksana

I learn a great deal about life, my life that is, from my experiences with people. I reflect on these relational experiences to see and understand what I’ve learned. That’s why relationships, all kinds of relationships, are in the end illuminating even if it was devastating to live through.

It provided me with the means to learn more about everything there is to life, as life the way I see it is nothing more than a treasury of relationships with everything around us. And how I behaved myself within these relationships became crucial in defining the outcomes of these relationships.

It doesn’t matter if it was a relationship between me and my father, mother, brother, sister or my lover or my lovable dog or the society at large. Or a relationship between me and Mother Nature or perhaps even me and an ever endearing, omnipotent, omnipresent God, if there is one, or my relationship between me and this frantic yet mesmerizingly beautiful universe we all live in.

How I conducted myself and how I saw myself within a relationship has, is and will determine the outcome of my relationship. And more often than not, relationships are put in place for my own benefit. To satisfy or extinguish some kind of scarcity that manifests itself into fear, longing, lust and without doubt insecurity—all of which I know I have within me and I often would disguise all this with the staleness of love.

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t h e t h i n g s t h e y d o n’t t e a c h m e a b o u t l o v e .

And I guess this extends to almost everyone else I know.

I have grown dissatisfied and distraught with the answers of my friends, even my closest friends, when I ask them their reasons in getting married. Most of them, I have learned, seem to have married for all the wrong reasons; one of which hoping that marriage can salvage or repair a fundamentally broken relationship.

I am in no way here to judge without even having the slightest reflection on my own personal romantic/love relationship. And I personally don’t know if I’ll fall into the same foolishness as many of my friends have, but I do know that I’ll be mulling over this until I actually get married.

Or as I run wildly into the bushes in fear, mere minutes before the wedding.

Because perhaps what we have failed to see is that relationships are more often about ‘me’ and not seeing this as a problem. Perhaps we are too consumed by ourselves to see it as a problem. What am I getting out of this relationship? is a question we secretly lament when negotiating a romantic deal. And love as a supposedly ultimate emotion within a relationship that not only forms but also encases a relationship is poisoned by this blinding egotistical understanding of relationships. Love becomes toxic and egregious and damning and maybe that is love. Is it?

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What is love anyway?

We talk about love as if we already have the final say about it. Or are we just accepting the ill-conceived ­definitions of love unconsciously forced onto us by TV soap-­operas, relationship magazines, self help books and by a culture that is becoming certifiably insane, in order to have us simply nod our flimsy heads while whispering “yeah, that’s love”? Or perhaps the TVs and the magazines are just the incarnations of our already innate perceptions of love. The emblematic of the problem of love that we do not only merely fail but also wittingly neglect to see?

Should love be visceral? Should love be instinctive, instinctual, coming from the gut, deep-down, deep-seated, deep-rooted, inward; emotional? Animal?

Should love evoke the most primal part of us?

I sometimes fear of my relationship with everyone around me, as I am afraid that I am not “loving the right way.” If there is a right way, that is. I fear that I do not love as they want me to. And it’s not that I can’t but I don’t want to. Because to be honest, I feel that this description of love that society provides and constantly strives for is often too emotional for me, too extreme, too much of everything. Like an Indonesian pizza with beef rendang and pineapples as a goddamn pizza

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t h e t h i n g s t h e y d o n’t t e a c h m e a b o u t l o v e .

topping and like my moribund taste buds, love as described and showed by many is often too much of a roller coaster ride.

Exhilarating, heart pumping, even euphoric at first, but in abundance it is nauseating, sickening to a point of revolting.

And why does it seem that love can be so torturous when we’ve also been told that it is supposed to be empowering, elating, forgiving and often even ethereal?

The things I did for love or for the things I thought as love or for the things I hoped to be love had this gleeful, promising persona radiating from it. I remembered that love for me was once this sense of hope that helped me remained buoyant in a sea of desperation, thirsty for some kind of relief, although unknowingly temporary(?), from melancholy. But in the end I understood that I was looking for love because I was running away from my mournful reality. Surely love can’t be this pathetic, I would often mutter to myself while I gazed vacantly at my bedroom ceiling.

So then what does it mean to love? To just embrace this paradox that’s been plaguing humanity for an eternity?

I feel that we think we’ve talked so much about love but have exactly avoided talking and thinking about love itself.

We talk about the things around it, the consuming joy, the blinding bliss, the raging jealousy, the burning envy and the crippling anger. But seldom do we talk about love and ask if ­there’s another less damning way to love.

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Is there another way to love?

I am unsure of anything actually at this point, but I think I have learned to love in a less enigmatic way. And perhaps I can personally thank this to my dad. Like I said I learn a lot from the people around me. Family, friends, foes, and lovers—they all have a wealth of wisdom, maybe parting wisdom, to share.

Let me tell you one thing about my dad, he was undisputedly foul-mouthed. Where through his intricate usage of chain curses he would often rip a gaping hole in the hearts of the people he seemingly loved while smothering it with freshly squeezed metaphorical lemon juice just for laughs.

Yet despite his harsh contemptuous appearance, he taught me through his very own discrete actions, which I later learned after his untimely death that love was always about sensitivity. Not merely to be sensitive to others but it is to be sensitive, vulnerable and open to your self at first. It is to listen to yourself—it is to see, to understand the walls you have built that prevent you to love.

He showed me that love is quiet—not loud and obnoxious, but warm and guiding—it is not forceful and encaging, but liberating and empowering, it is acknowledging and understanding the needs of others, it is wholesome. It is not saddening nor is it elating, but it is calming,

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t h e t h i n g s t h e y d o n’t t e a c h m e a b o u t l o v e .

it does not place itself on either extreme, as love is resting. It is a rare mental place in this harsh, foreboding, demanding, forcing world where one can find serenity that although it is undoubtedly an ephemeral moment in time, is sometimes all we need to understand a bit more about ourselves.

For all one knows maybe love is nothing more than a chance to learn. It is a chance to learn to look at love itself, to look honestly and nakedly at love, to look behind the romantic curtain that vehemently covers love. Because to understand how we see love, how we fall in love, how we define this thing, this intangible thing called love, is to dissect one self and see how we see our relationship with not only with others but ultimately with ourselves. It is to see our limitations, our fears, our insecurities, our vulnerabilities.

“What do we actually want from love?” is a thing we seldom question. Is it nothing more than a place to hide and blanket our little insecurities, madness and fears? Or do we see it as an impetus for growth? An etheric understanding for the betterment of the self?

Perhaps that’s the problem in defining love as about being sensitive, because maybe to equate love with sensitivity requires a great deal of listening. And so I understand this as why love is so hard. We can’t or don’t want to shut up

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and listen. Seeing that to listen means to become less about me and more about the other. To momentarily disregard the egotistical brat raging in all of us, wanting to be heard and acknowledged.

But again since when is this conceited “me,� dying to be recognized, not on the top of a socio-personal equation? ***

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a sad story of time quake and necessary bullshits Dea Anugrah

“Hello, where are you?”

You received a call on your cell and started a conversation with a heavy voice. Very heavy.

“Later if I kick you out, you have to deal with the problems yourself.”

“Yes, where are you? Where are you now?”

Maybe it was a phone call from your wife or girlfriend with whom you share a house, and clearly, there was a problem.

But it seemed to be an old issue. From the way you talk, there was a feeling of simmering boredom, threatening to explode.

“Why aren’t you answering me?”

Maybe you told her to stay home tonight. But, women, with their skills, can turn tigers into kittens. Women. History has recorded the fall of great men in the hands of women.

Like John Dillinger and Arthur Schopenhauer.

“Are you playing with me?”

“Fine, deal with your own problems after I kick you out!”

Was there anyone who knew Eve better than Adam?

Wasn’t she, the one who was given the power of charm in the place of sincerity by God, the one who drove Adam to commit the original sin? Then what can you possibly do

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a sad stor y of time quake and necessar y bullshits

after this fight except accepting a very late apology, kissing your wife/girlfriend’s temple, embracing her tightly while holding back your tears, and hoping that everything that has just passed can be the last of your sufferings.

But there can never be an end to your sufferings.

You know that too well.

It was past midnight. You were in a 24-hour convenience store, buying canned drinks, cigarettes, and water bottles.

I know because you were standing right beside me with your load. I clearly heard you asking for the cigarette brand: one pack of Djarum Super, and two Sampoerna Mild, please. And I was the reason you were stalling inside the store. I was also the cause of your fight with that heavy voice. But it was impossible for you to hate me. We men have unwritten rules to ignore each other, right?

By the way, you know what’s the most annoying thing about a 24-hour convenience store?

I think the most annoying thing is their working system that is literally 24-hour.

In this planet, one whole day and night is exactly 24 hours.

No more, no less. Then how could a convenience store that spend all the spare time to sell stuff deal with the recap of transactions (and all the business other than sell-and-buy that involves the cashier computer and receipt printers) that happen in that span of time?

They have a brilliant solution. All of those things will be dealt with past midnight. So take it easy, people who are visiting the 24-hour convenience store in that hour.

The hunger, the urge to shit, the sleepiness, anything you’re

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dealing with, they have to wait for a while. Those who will pay cash will have to wait for the calculator sums, and those who will pay with credit cards will have to wait for the system error to be fixed. For how long? It’s quite hard to tell.

That was what happened. That night, I used my ATM card to buy some cigarettes, water bottle, eggs, and instant noodles because my wallet was practically empty. While I was waiting for the system error to disappear by itself like a bad flu, you were obliged to queue behind me. Then, your phone rang.

You argued with someone on the other end in a heavy, dragged voice.

And so, that was the story of you, plus my bullshit, that occurred before the time quake. * Time quake is the most possible explanation concerning déjà vu. In the words of Ramyun McClub, that less-thanfamous physicist who explained the phenomenon far before Kilgore Trout wrote My Ten Years on Automatic Pilot, time quake is a sudden disruption in the space-time continuum that causes a repetition of occurrences in a certain span of time without the involvement of free will.

That night, two seconds after I walked out of the door of the store, time quake brought the universe back to three days ago. And so, everything on Earth repeated themselves until those three days passed and we returned to the point where it happened.

The sign of a time quake’s aftermath is déjà vu.

A peculiar feeling that makes us want to say: I’ve been here before.

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a sad stor y of time quake and necessar y bullshits

Of course there are questions like “I’ve experienced déjà vu, but why the person next to me didn’t?” Ramyun McClub had explained this in his book that has stopped being printed, Time-Space Turmoil and Their Difficult Explanations.

Time quake does involve everyone on the same time, but déjà vu doesn’t. Déjà vu will only be experienced if someone’s brain detects the millisecond break between automatic control and free will. “Only 3,5% from the whole human population experience déjà vu at the same time.” McClub wrote on page 56.

After the time quake, my brain happened to respond to that millisecond break between automatic control and free will. So I waited for you to walk out of the store. And then: “Sorry, did you just experience déjà vu?” * Clearly, your first reaction was to stare at me with a freaked out expression, or to be exact, an expression reserved for freaks. Outside nonsensical fictions written by Kilgore Trout and other babbling writers, no one wants to talk with a stranger of the same sex with a suspicious manner at midnight out of their curiosity alone; except when their logic isn’t working right.

That night, your logic did cease to work. I was imagining a slow-motion montage of memorable trinkets smashed onto the floor, screams, regrets from loving the wrong person, weird colors clashing, a missed coffee cup thrown at your face, someone’s blurred face, pink blush on your shy first love, and many other images cramping my head.

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You didn’t say anything did happen. But, just like all of us, you have experienced déjà vu. Four or five times.

Especially when you were a child. Then, I asked you (with a little force) to sit with me in front of the store, bombarding your all-over-the-place mind with the simplest explanation of déjà vu and time quake, as I’ve learned from McClub’s book.

You nodded. “Of course. Sometimes I feel like experiencing the same thing all over again unconsciously, and when I realized, I was already in another situation.” You said. You were speaking while glancing at the ceiling of the convenience store. I bet there were kilos of rat’s droppings behind that thin ceiling.

You offered me your drink and cigarettes. I picked up one of the cans and lit my own cigarette. “I don’t like Djarum Super,” I said, “It smells like dirty laundry.” You laughed.

“If I have no money to buy cigarettes, maybe I could burn my mother’s clothes,” you retorted seriously. And then, I started counting down. 4, 3, 2, 1. “You heard me talking on the phone just now, right? You were standing right beside me.” * So, this is your story plus my bullshit after the time quake occurred.

Blind Blonde, a folk singer who claimed that his songs were more popular than any religion’s Holy Scriptures, once said that: “The scale of the world for someone depends on their involvement with another.” You started with that quote.

“The scale of my world is very small. Only fit for me and my mother.” You concluded later.

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Your mother was a good woman. Very kind. At least, that was what I could infer from your story, until five years ago when someone you called with that-name-that-make-evensailors-flinch changed everything. But we’ll get to that later.

Now, I will repeat your story about you and your mother.

The abridged version, of course.

When you were little, there were two things that you hated. First, the public service announcement ad about a model nuclear family. Second, civic studies. The reason: both of them regarded family as a unit of one mother and a child as something odd. An even family, a normal, ideal, or anything they called it in this country, consisted of a father, a mother, and two children.

You and your mother didn’t give any damn about that idealistic nonsense. She raised you alone with all her might and respect, like her character traits according to her Chinese zodiac, dragon. She was tough. She wasn’t only your mother, but also your father and your sibling. She made sure both of you wouldn’t starve and protected you from all kinds of fears—even those that only exist in a child’s wildest dream.

She taught you to play hide and seek and helped you with your school homework. Your childhood was the one that many children of an ideal family long for.

But it was an old story. Five years ago, your mother fell in love with a devil. In the beginning, their relationship was solely based on business. You mother was a seamstress and that man supplied her with clothes. Then both of them started meeting frequently, even if they were still doing business.

That man wanted your mother to be his business partner.

They built a new company with a new name, with higher productive capacity and wider distribution area. Then…

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Basically, you were kind of apprehensive toward them.

You started to realize there was something going on when a package of lilies and sweet-scented letters started to come to your house regularly. From your mother, you figured out that the sender was that man. She didn’t look like she was bothered by it, she even looked happy. Her lips and cheeks always tinted with red. And so, you considered ignoring your suspicion because your mother’s happiness mattered. She was getting old and lonely anyway, and you could already take care of yourself.

But you were wrong to ignore those thoughts. You knew you should’ve trusted your guts, your instinct never betrayed you.

One day, that man came to your house when you were out. He flirted with your mother endlessly and because of the increasing vicinity of their relationship, your mother accepted his offer to move to the bedroom, or to be more exact, to your mother’s everlastingly cold bed.

After that, came the never-ending sufferings.

You found your mother in a ghastly state, worst than a butchered animal: half awake, sobbing, naked, with both hands and feet tied. Your heart broke completely when you saw the thing: on top of her pale stomach, five centimeters below her breasts was a pile of human excrement. Brown and nauseating. You saw red and almost lost your mind. The only thing that held you back was your love for your mother.

But the mother you loved was already dead. After the dreadful incident, she was no longer the same person.

Always shaking from head to toe; maybe because of the insanity inside her head that was caused by that pile of shit. Those

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days, she refused to shower if you didn’t help her, and refused to comb her hair if you didn’t do it. And the worst part, worse than all the curses that came out of her mouth since that dreadful day, she would disappear if you didn’t keep your eyes on her all the time.

That was why you never had a girlfriend or a best friend.

You spent your time to work and feed both of you and to watch over your mother. For many times, you had to repair the doors, locks, and keys she broke.

At the beginning, you kept yourself together bravely. In the first two years, you always found your mother in a liquor store or lying around the house, blindly drunk. In the third and fourth year started to gamble, and since then, there was no longer a safe place to keep your money inside the house.

She even tore apart the tiles from the floor to find them.

For the past two years, your mother was at her worst. After you finally managed to brought back your house certificate from the man who loaned money for your mother, she finally did something you’ve always afraid of. Yes, she finally whored herself; became a whore in every sense of the word.

Yeah, you said, since then there had been countless effort to commit suicide with your mother. Turning on the gas after closing all the air vents, adding cyanide to the food, buying a gun, and such, and such. But at the end of the story, you just found your mother at her usual place, brought her back home, kissed her temple, and embraced her tightly while holding back my tears. You brought her to bed and tucked the

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blanket around her and hoped that it was the last of your endless sufferings.

But there could never be the last of your sufferings.

You knew.

That is why I want to leave this place, and end this conversation right now. Then, I’ll find my mother at her usual place, bring her back home, kiss her temple, and embrace her tightly while holding back my tears. I will bring her to bed and tuck the blanket around her and hope that this is the last of my endless sufferings.

But there can never be the last of my sufferings. Didn’t I know that? ***

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caged freedom Dwiputri Pertiwi

I dance from [cage] to [cage] each twirl an act of faith.

I sway and pray to expand

the space I fill, will fill with you.

Hold me tightly with your gentleness— release me from within.

Love is a a commitment (a cage) that sets us fr e e ***

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reciting a love poem Dwiputri Pertiwi

Crystalline stanzas are as fragile as their meaning.

One slip of the tongue sends them crashing to the floor.

You grimace as you walk across the carpet of broken metaphors, leaving a trail of blood, a displeased audience of one. ***

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the fantastic center of gravity Dylan Amirio

I’m not here to teach you how to nail yourself to the cross I’m not here to see you shine the light on yourself Neither am I here to see who your footsteps follow I’m a friend, Unsatisfactory conversation partner Critic Example Human (remember your place) Drastically changing colors From a vivid rainbow to a facetious gray Yet still a stranger Lurking and humming nonsense Light doesn’t shine through you; you’re a distraction in its path If you’re supposed to be the center of gravity Then your black hole is working Fortunately, the universe won’t have the time To sort your satellites apart Don’t become what we hate And disguise it as jolliness or uniqueness Us overdosing on you is overdue; It’s a cautious kind of love It’s either here or we left it outside. ***

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constant

Erin Emily Ann Vance the acne scars on your back are dark braille, three-dimensional tattoos without images your body is a soaking book, I want to wring you out and dog-ear your lips with mine, re-read you you are coffee beans and low blood pressure and I pay homage to the craters dug out of your skin by adolescence that ripen and swell soft can we be naked and shelve our book-bodies? spill like acid onto the linoleum of our high school the acne scars on your back are epsom salt mines minus the metaphors and in the world’s asymmetry they are rough they are blank diamonds in coffee cups you are a medical text in a dead language vandalized with water-color ***

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a very bad essay on love

Fajri Siregar

I – Love: A Frightening (but Sometimes Financially Rewarding) Subject To write about love should be a daunting task, I’d imagined at first. How could I, a twenty-something male with a certain lack of emotional knowledge (as somebody from my notso-recent-past would put it), write about love? Would I be able to do justice to this theme? To exaggerate a little more, how could we help ourselves from writing a pretentious, let alone corny and cheesy piece, when love is probably the most mundane, yet beautiful subject to write about?

Technically, the initial instruction was to write anything related to ‘addiction’. Given the vagueness of this theme, I thought that it might be easier to dwell on something that any human being could relate to. Crystal meth, for example.

But luckily, out of respect to the editors at Murmur who take their work quite seriously, I came to my senses and decided to talk about something very basic and humane, and all the while marketable. I mean, appealing to the masses. It is rather dull and unfortunate as you might agree with me, but love as a theme will always be high in demand.

So here we are, approaching the subject, not any wiser or brighter than the long list of poets, writers, self-help entrepreneurs or any ordinary citizen who have tried to deal with this issue. Since I am doomed to fail anyway, I dared myself to at least, do so with a wide-open mind.

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II – The Need for Love Now, having spent years observing people in their mental cages, I have come to the conclusion that anyone who has some basic human quality within themselves, must have come across that feeling. Since the most common expression to describe this feeling is ‘inexpressible’, I believe it is better to leave it that way.

Quite mysteriously on the other hand, a great deal of ambitious people has approached this subject ingeniously.

Scientists have tried to rationalise love by claiming to have discovered the hormones that are responsible for this rush of blood, while documentary filmmakers gave their best shot to capture the process of people attempting to fall in love.

There is no need to deny our need to love and to be loved.

As we grow up, it even defines our identity and self-image.

By interacting with the person with whom we share this love, we become more aware of whom we are and the kind of person we would like ourselves to be. In its most basic form, by loving someone (or something), we satisfy our egos by seeking approval and acceptance. We simply crave to feel the “impression” of belonging. At the end of the day, almost our entire social reality is a condition built upon and related to the presence, or absence, of love.

There are many overriding factors of course, but love is one important social fabric that is mostly unaccounted when speaking of social cohesion—at least within academic milieus. Well, except for a prudent sociologist named Anthony Giddens, who dares to think that while love has

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never ceased to exist, its actual form (if love has a form to begin with?) may have transformed over time. Although it is constant, love in a modern context has taken on new ­dimensions now that society has become more open, tolerant, and receptive to the changing constructs of gender, sexuality and intimacy. Simply put, love has always been out there, but throughout the years it might have become more complex and intriguing to comprehend.

III – Dealing with the Internal Tension

“…reciprocity in love is the most difficult

thing to find.”

(Arsene Wenger) Arsene Wenger, current manager of Arsenal and living football legend – often times also laughingstock- not only knows a thing or two about coaching. He even pinpointed what probably is the most important aspect of love. Love carries an inherent tension that probably all of us have come to experienced. We expect so much out of it that once we feel that our favours are not returned, we become insanely selfish beings. We have so often failed to identify our needs and wants while playing this eternal game of emotions.

Indeed, too often have we failed to understand how love functions as a form of exchange. According to an article in The Guardian, people only started to marry for love in the late 18th century. Marriage, they say, was a strategy to form business partnerships, expand family networks, craft political ties, strengthen a labor force or pass on wealth. Pragmatism, so it seems, is another aspect that has defined love and its transformation across time.

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Hence, there is always a big deal of expectation involved and no matter how pure or unreserved it might seem, to make a loving relationship last, negotiating is apparently an important part of it. As a consequence, failure in taming this tension, results in the feeling of incompetence and incompleteness. You suddenly feel that you’ve failed as a human being and as a member of society, or your closest group of significant others. This is where the vicious circle begins.

One of the most common failings in our attempt to master love is the inability to cope with what love is and what it should be. Somehow, each of us has a preconception about the ideals of love. These ideals are what guide us on this everlasting endeavour. Yet ironically, one so often finds love simply by stumbling upon it. This inability to make peace with das sein and das sollen of love is what makes it so frustrating. We have laid so much expectations upon it that once we fail to come anywhere near our target, love proves to be more damaging than listening to Jonru or following Ligwina Hananto’s financial advice (although to be fair, the latter might have more to do with my slim pockets than her economic trickeries). This is the moment where we suddenly start to question ourselves and plead for justice. You feel that you have been victimised, having gone through trial without prosecution. You begin to wonder whether it is your sense that has failed you, or that society—acting all punk-ass like it always does—tells you that unconditional love is yet another utopian ideal, just like North Korea believes in a world without interconnectivity.

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IV – Defying Social Expectations It has become a common understanding that love has long lost its purest meaning. Some even say that love has been devalued. As society altered, so did the meanings and forms of love, as a consequence of our changing social relations.

It has become subjected to increasing expectations and diminishing patience of its pursuers: people who long for authenticity but cannot afford to wait for it to materializ­e.

In this sense, together with many other forms of human expression, love has become a victim of a rapidly changing time and space constellation. Modernity has changed the way we experience love and the way it functions. It has been industrialised, compacted, McDonaldised and reduced as mass produced experience. In many ways, the pursuit of love has become similar to a transaction. Terms and conditions apply.

The boundaries of love are thus often defined by the norms and values within a particular society, rather than by the individual seeking for it. When trying to break free from these shackles, we quickly find ourselves labelled as deviants, pariahs or unfit members of our community. Our perception of love is limited to the way society has laid a meaning upon it. The way love is constructed determines our perception on relationships, marriage, and also the discriminating fact of being single or divorced. It is ironic, but we cannot deny the fact that while love is the most personal feeling there is, we always require some public validation to it.

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Thus, the act of following—and reacting to—our feeling is often limited in its effects. We are only allowed to follow them to the extent that is accepted by society. Romeo, Juliet, Siti Nurbaya and probably AADC’s Rangga have best exemplified this, along with countless other stories where love vigilantes took the center stage.

You don’t learn to get over a broken heart.

You just learn to carry it gracefully. (Jens Lekmann) There is an art in the acceptance of being able to live happily without having to love. Or in a firmer sense, without the obligation of being attached. This not only requires the slick mastery of self-deprecation, but also the courage to apply humour in embracing loneliness. When one has finally admitted defeat in pursuing love, giving in and striding a lone path is the most selfless thing to do. It is a consolation however, when you’re witty enough to monetize your jombloness by trolling on other people, creating memes and whatnot. At the end of the day, no matter how commodified love has become, it will never run dry as a source of inspiration. Quite akin to the Zamzam spring if you like.

It’s the gift that keeps on giving, especially when assisted by Google AdSense.

You might also agree that love is the one single force that never fails to deliver. It has always managed to give people a cause, contesting and redefining existing values. Love is the one myth that we really dare to challenge. It transcends existing social norms and barriers. It divides and unites.

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Epilogue Obviously, there are many perspectives through which we can discuss and discern love. But then again, none would bring us closer to the experience of loving itself. This essay, or whatever you might call it, was never an attempt to teach a lesson on the subject itself. Mind you, I feel as the most incompetent person to even study it as an object. Knowing that such a feeling exists and is worth to be vulnerable for is probably enough, I reckon. Alas, this has been a bad example on how to write about love. It lacks the sincerity and candour by which you can tell how the writer relates with the subject.

The greatest paradox however, lies in our confidence in actually understanding love. No matter how well we claim to have understood Neruda, Shakespeare, de Botton, Coelho and their views on the permanent subject, we will eventually lose our sense of direction when strolling along this path, which— depending whether you’re a believer or not—may already be predestined. Even the laziest, gloomiest and most pessimistic people I know are suddenly a changed person when it comes to challenging love. My shy self included.

In my humble view, the best way to embrace love is by acknowledging that you know nothing. You may know the drill but you still have no idea. Always leave room for surprises no matter how good you are at reading patterns, body languages and remembering – or inventing - stupid pick up lines.

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Thus, to write about love is to acknowledge clichés. And if you’re lost for words, just try to put in other people’s words into your mouth–or writing. Therefore, allow me to borrow the words of Herr Fromm: Love, experienced thus, is a constant challenge; it is not a resting place, but a moving, growing, working together; even whether there is harmony or conflict, joy or sadness, is secondary to the fundamental fact that two people experience themselves from the essence of their existence, that they are one with each other by being one with themselves, rather than by fleeing from themselves.

(Erich Fromm) Eventually, we may be able to try to make sense of what love ought to be, or whether love can preserve its ideal within an ever-changing society. But perhaps, it is not really our task to neither know nor understand. We can only keep guessing and wandering. And download the latest fun-dating apps. ***

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a sole universe Faris Dzaki

Before, he was incarnated as animal stunned in his reflective mind guessing—of what might have existed inside that deep hole, far too dark—too obscure too late, he missed the light that had been gone Extinguished—consumed by a black hole He caught the fragment of light Of what was left when he was once a star The shiny fractures led Into the black space So dark and lightless

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He entered through the hole And followed the course of its energy pool unashamedly sent his fall into a trance of crumbling ecstasy so beautifully its explosion was made to dim til the moment he arrived at the next dimension there was only a black hall an overcast, quiet room He had never liked the silence so he released the explosion out of himself to sweep the loneliness to create unexpected noises systematic, not amusing

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Now we are only planets rebounding light from the nearest star how weary it is Sometimes he missed the hole from yesterdays That dark Black Too obscure—piece of orifice But too late For everything has changed He had ran out of light Nothing to present to the dark hole The one, absorbing it all back Into the next universe A blind one without even a drop of light ***

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sad sweet torture device Heriyansyah

Before you create another goddess-like vessel Before you set that jaded eyes of yours to sell Thank you we cannot run Thank you for grinding our teeth to sleep with a gun We were kissing an hour before our lips even met We were grabbing each others hands long before you even remember our names Do you even remember my name?

We are all covered, carpeted, in fake smiles, million times We are so conditioned to fall We are tired but we don’t care We are alive but barely breathing But we will meet again tomorrow still in that sad sweet torture device that you’ve made ***

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the coffee stain on my blue blanket Hoyri Mohamad

I There are thorns of roses in my grip when I hold your eyes down with a stare.

The crows take a seat with us, And then we are drunk with the Night, laughing at the Day for its dullness You go with your warmth left on the bed So I brace myself under the blanket with the traces of your scent.

II I wake up.

The winter morning air pierces through my bones.

Slowly, I gather the traces of your scent, Immerse them with water.

To fill me with warmth, to fill the room with your coffee scent, And I drink.

Sip by sip Until the leftover silence gathers at the bottom of the glass And longing lingers on my tongue. ***

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fuck

Melicia Zaini

we forgot how to talk with our mouths soon after we learned the language of our bodies. one by one, our words started disappearing from the tips of our tongues and turned, instead, to the deft twirls they made inside each other’s mouths. it was as though we birthed a new mother tongue, one crafted by the amalgamation of heat and desire – a language that is ours and ours alone, a language that only speaks in wordless sounds. by the end of it, our worlds were turned upside down; no gravity sheltering our words, and without their weight, they floated up and away. with our heads in the clouds, opening our mouths was impossible lest we should gush out the rainwater that pooled inside like saliva. we were plagued with the lightness and weight of silence. in space, you can hear the echoes of every ‘i love you’ we whispered by the moonlight and sang by the sunlight. but without the gravity of the earth, without the gravitas of us, what are we so desperately clutching at? ***

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marine biology Melicia Zaini

we lunged at each other, creating a symphony out of breathless vowels, inarticulate but alive with the salty ripples of the ocean. we steeped ourselves inside the turquoise-blue waters that danced in the wind, tremulous with bated breath. fully submerged underwater, we drifted against the current - eyes shut red and lungs bruised purple. slowly, my ears filled with the crescendo of waves sighing in relief each time we came into contact; their cacophonous melodies echoing against the resonant hum within the chambers of our hearts. i clung to you as you held me, my heart beating in double time. don’t let go. i opened my eyes, and breathed in. ***

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defibrillation Melisa Adisti

it doesn’t hurt much not anymore before: it was hot glass, a wet wound peeled from a sticky gauze, boiled bleach teasing the teething air, a moth making a meal of me eating through a damp heart: can you see it? the way love can half-kill a thing then caress the rest to sleep?

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now: i can say your name and not taste it, not ignite a memory of before but we were young, and told each other the things our mothers couldn’t know we kissed and told our friends: forever then, how embarrassing this poem this eulogy of ‘firsts’ how, forever are we? ***

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pseudo-darwinian Nugroho Haryoputro

Falling in love can be both effortless and incomprehen sible. Logical and subjective. Pure and plain dirty. Yet nobody seems to care that much anymore.

In an increasingly simplified society, with smartphones that tell you where to eat and cars that almost drive themselves, relationships between men and women are also expected to “just happen.” “Kita jalanin aja dulu” (Let’s just do it and see how it goes) is now a common term in Indonesia between two people who seem to be a perfect match, sometimes as a result of hasty arrangements done by “concerned” mutual friends. Love has turned into something practical— an object of comfort, instead of a daring lunge born out of instinct and intuition (which might be why most of us miss our juvenile years more than ever).

Woody Allen said, “To love is to suffer,” yet “To be happy is to love.” In a modern culture that seems to be over-compensating its general dissatisfaction by promoting happiness and positivity, the idea of love as “suffering” might not be the best option amidst crushing expectations and seemingly unmanageable day-to-day routines. Therefore, a relationship tends to be something of a luxury—a social status that is expected to bring happiness and excitement just by being there and existing.

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People marry out of convenience, mostly out of fear of dying alone. Plenty found out the hard way that love won’t ever come to them just because they made it so. Mandy Len Catron, in an article recounting her experience trying out the experiment of Dr. Aron Arthur published in 1997 called The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness, said, “We’re in love because we each made the choice to be.” What she did was she actually created the necessary conditions and actions to fall in love (which consist of questions with increasing levels of vulnerability designed to each other’s persona, starting with questions such as “Who would you like to have as a dinner guest?” and ends with questions like “When was the last time you cried?”). The case now is that we’ve simplified the act of “falling in love and getting married” into just “getting married,” submitting to the theory of “marry or end up a lonely failure,” or the more traditional approach of “The parents want grandchildren. Now,” with both usually being time-constrained. There is just no more time for love, let alone the emotional capacity for all the suffering to come.

“Therefore, to be happy one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.”

—Woody Allen Our reluctance to admit our sadder selves into a time of acceptance and consolidation drove most of us into escapism—that which are usually fueled by self-destructive behavior from binge-drinking and substance abuse to making kinky weird love, all for the sake of being able to constantly radiate positivity in the presence of a general public. We preach about the importance of leaving our comfort zone, yet

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we do the exact opposite. We are getting further from being creatures of both logic and instinct—our constant expectations to keep up with our machine counterparts in the gear of globalization forces us to become more like them, going into the extremes of non-emotional behavior, only to burst out in pure rage and/or depression at (hopefully) scheduled times.

We create personas: we love as a persona, not as a human being. Truly, to love is to be vulnerable, and being vulnerable means being subjected to the risk of being hurt. And when vulnerability is no longer a part of love, two shells can never embrace—they can only stumble into each other.

So tell me this, what is love? A connection you build between two individuals (gender is no longer a case)? On what level? Emotional? Physical? Conversational? Sexual? Would it be platonic, would it be conditional, would it be mutual? Is there a right kind of love, or would there be a wrong kind of love? It doesn’t matter. When you spent your whole family’s savings for that epic wedding and honeymoon just so you can appease your partner’s desire to go skinny-dipping in Hawaii, that is love. Love evolves just like social values do. When the world is purpose-driven and people tend to care more about what they can get from you, you can safely assume that love works the same way. ***

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because you will forget soon enough Poska Ariandana

Have you ever felt like Falling in love without “who” Or “what” Akin to heaven without earth God without religion Like a painting without the painter Feelings without senses Or dreams without being in deep slumber Just try to describe this Beauty without manifestation An overwhelming feeling Slips into the empty space in the left side of your chest Nostalgia and euphoria And it’s like you know That—whatever this thing is—will disappear Maybe after you wake up in the morning Or in just a couple of hours Confused, you say?

Ah, it’s too sound for that You feel more alive than the whore of an animal When she braced for the bullets and scarred all over They say an elephant leaves his tusks behind when he dies This time the elephant is unwilling to die And he outlives his own tusks *** 91

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ask away, starlings Rain Chudori

In this issue of Murmur, we asked readers to send in their questions to Rain Chudori, on romance, sex, school, work, film, literature, music, art, or how the wind moves the leaves.

--Dear Rain, How can you tell when you’re in love?

-Anonymous Dear Starling, If you’re going to neglect composure, isn’t it better to do so in the safety of someone’s warm hands guiding you into the sea?

That’s what love is: the slow willingness of destruction.

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--Dear Rain, My heart is settled when I’m surrounded by art and sex. I live in an extremely conservative, science-oriented environment.

How do I live to the fullest?

-Anonymous Dear Starling, “Sexuality is the lyricism of the masses,” wrote Baudelaire in My Heart Laid Bare. Imagine flowers, the naked back of a lover, sheets (in disarray and completely romantic), books everywhere. That should be worth all the pain in the world.

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--Dear Rain, I’m in a relationship with a man. He’s Australian and in his mid-30s, and I’m 20 years old. I’m keeping it a secret because I’m afraid when people find out they will judge me. What do you think is the wise thing to do? Thank you.

-Anonymous Dear Starling, There are those who might react gracefully under pressure.

However, provocation is not a circumstance best entered in sobriety. If you must suffer, indulge in it.

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a certain romance Raunala Maruti

I crawled back into the position of a fetus With eyes glued shut as i remembered the days spent floating in wombs Sniveling in hopes that all else would dissolve and wash away In the actual patter of what’s left of the dusk’s tears In the actual matter of what’s left of all my fears You back there persistently asked for the time, As if you saw him came in and swoop our precious hours Well, he needs to know that panic in me was the filter of a zombie movie, and all else was melting All i knew was how time said that this was a search for greater beings and also hippies All i knew was how all else was real, and if lucidity was our God, emotions are our deities Would you please stop biting my head?

I’m already as black and blue as the night herself How many times do i have to tell you that you’re not a puppy anymore?

You almost jumped from the balcony, I couldn’t tell the difference between condiments & ichor I pulled myself together but you were about to pull the fridge up to the second floor, And for over too much onomatopoeia, you ran yourself against everything else and the door Who else should i balderdash for sanity?

What more gobbledygook can my muzzle utter?

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That the square in our mouth unleashed the Tartarus caged in you?

That you are now merely the naked puppet of your actual deep slumber?

That you pranced on all loved ceramics, books, and dairy products whilst holding Nataraja in your hands?

That love was unlike other drugs?

Despite it all, i lull you in words that will never ever come close to goodbye That love is quite like every other drug there is?

Making you wish for a restart towards your checkpoint in every blink of an eye And by the standing of the ticking clock, time surged to slap you into coherence The dominos fall along, as all the balderdash falter, yet all the rubbish wasn’t in its place Our love meant differently whilst under intoxication, but our chemistry remains You were making grass angels within, while i was grasping a rain check Scared by thunders in your place, while you bite every time i caress your face, And waiting for the angels to actually come by As deep within the chaos of my heart you found Your serendipity in all your favorite ties ***

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things about/against man Rebecca Kezia

HILMAN: 25 years old, an idealistic literary scholar with no clear

occupation. Is called Man, which means “man” in English.

HALMAR: 26 years old, a literary scholar with a steady job. Is called Hal,

which translates into “thing,” “problem,” “matter” in English.

SETTING: Jakarta, a romantic city in the rain with sadness within. * The two young men in their mid 20s are walking side by side in a Jakarta district filled with sidewalk restaurants and shops. They just finished having dinner while waiting for the rain to stop. The streets are wet and the city lights illuminate the puddles on them. The Monday night is quieter than usual because of the cold air in a rainy season.

HALMAR: That was delicious! Eating with you was a real pleasure. Spiced

Fish Head is a very fitting meal in this damp weather. It warmed

my whole body instantly!

HILMAN: Yes, a full belly in this cold air is a small luxury we can afford.

After this, our sleep will be dreamless. (Chugs down the canned

beer in his hand) HALMAR: Ah, what do you know, Man? I’m so damn happy to see you

now! You finally came out of your hermit cave to treat me dinner,

how thoughtful of you!

HILMAN: Stop talking about that damned hermit cave…. Well, consider

this a token of appreciation for our friendship, Hal. For everything

you’ve done for me.

HALMAR: Don’t sweat it, Man, that’s just what friends are for. Oh by the

way, are you sure you’ve got everything figured out now?

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HILMAN: You really can’t believe I’ve gotten a job in that newspaper,

can you? You think I’m just boasting?

HALMAR: Hey, don’t be so sensitive, you’re not some dainty test pack to

pee on. I just needed to know how you managed to get the money

to treat me. We both know you haven’t even received your

first salary…

They are turning to the direction of the park.

HILMAN: It was my money; you don’t need to know where I got them!

Before, it was a chore to spend if I wasn’t sure where I could get

more. So it’s not that I didn’t have any money at all—I was just

saving, you see!

HALMAR: (Pats Hilman’s shoulder) Awesome then! I knew you could

make it, Man! I never doubted you once, not even when people

said you have no future. You were the cleverest fish in High School.

In College, too! I knew that one day money wouldn’t be

an object for you!

HILMAN: Well look who’s talking. You’re the one who works in an

American advertising company. I’m nothing. If I were as good

as that, I’d treat you to steak for dinner, not Spiced Fish Head

in a Padang Restaurant. I’d buy us a bottle of wine instead of this

cheap canned beer, too.

HALMAR: Hey, this cheap canned beer has some historical value for us,

Man. Even the most expensive wine can’t top that. You remember

that time when you had a crush on the prettiest girl in campus?

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HILMAN: (Contemplating for a moment, then waves his hand in front of

Hilmar’s face) Come on, man, why do you have to bring her up?

I don’t want to think about her.

HALMAR: Why, Man? (Laughs) You’re scared to admit that you still miss

her after all this time?

HILMAN: Don’t pick a fight with me, Hal. I have Gita now; I don’t give

a damn about Anjani anymore!

HALMAR: Man, nostalgia always comes after this cheap canned beer.

‘Tis a folly to refuse reminiscing the past after one can. Remember

when you came to my place, drunk and senseless, calling Anjani,

demanding for her? You woke my mother and she threatened to

call the police because she thought you were looking for trouble!

HILMAN: Damn you! Just let it go already… (Sits down on one of

the park benches) HALMAR: (Stands in front of Hilman) Let it go? Let what go? Don’t

run away from your memories. Don’t you remember her? That sweet,

beautiful face under the moonlight? That soft voice like summer

breeze…? That’s what you said in your poem, right?

HILMAN: You want me to punch you in the face?

HALMAR: (Laughs loudly) Man, it was such good times. Why are you

avoiding them? They’re food for the soul, man. Nostalgia and

memories of good times past are refreshing winds, in the midst of

a dull everyday routine that can kill us instantly.

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HILMAN: Dull everyday routine that can kill us instantly… (Sneers) It’s not

that bad, I think. You know what’s worse than drowning in dull

everyday routine? Longing for them! It sucks out your soul faster

than you could possibly believe.

HALMAR: So that’s the result of the years you spent meditating in your

hermit cave? Never came out to meet people and friends, or join

a party… not even my engagement party?

HILMAN: You have no idea how hard it was on me, Hal. My soul screams

to get away from that longing. To tie yourself to a life full of rou

tine; a clear vision of your future tomorrow morning, going to

a place you’ll leave after to come home again.

HALMAR: Did you really trap yourself inside that cave without coming

out once?

HILMAN: I came out, all right, for a few months in the first year.

I still enjoyed going to places without obligation at that time.

Everywhere I went, the park, the mountain, the shop, and the

library, anywhere at all; I’d be happy. Then I got tired, Hal.

I became lazy. I didn’t have any motivation to lift my butt off

the floor and get the hell out into the streets. You know what it’s like?

Like a continuous darkness after the morning comes. Silence in

the middle of a crowd. I became sick, Hal, for weeks. I thought

my time was coming.

HALMAR: You were sick? What kind of sickness? How bad was it?

HILMAN: I was sick for a long time, Hal. If Gita wasn’t there, I’d be long

dead by now. For weeks I was trapped, and you were busy with

your fiancée. I was alone with my thoughts. Between the desire to

be free and to be tied up with routine…my head was in a riot.

The pain was unbearable. My landlord thought I was crazy.

He avoided my room because of the sounds; like a wounded animal

they said. My neighbors avoided me, too. I was banished, alone

with my messed up head. But I’m so damn thankful they didn’t

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HALMAR: (Sits down beside his friend, stunned) So it’s true? You really lost

you head because you couldn’t find a job?

HILMAN: (Stands abruptly and points at him) It wasn’t that I couldn’t

find any work, Hal. I can handle that just fine. I was… I…. Well,

reading a lot of books can do that to you. I wanted the dramatic

action in my life, like in those stories. I didn’t want to work, Hal,

not that I couldn’t find it. They’re way different!

HALMAR: Was it really that difficult for you? I mean…couldn’t you just

apply for some job to get away from all that stress?

HILMAN: (Walks away from the bench. Halmar follows, confused. Hilman

takes out a cigarette pack and lights one) Of course you think it’d

be that easy, Hal. I mean, I thought so too. I applied for a lot of

employment. They called for me, but I still couldn’t get up and

bring myself to go to the interviews. Every time they return my

emails, my head hurt. It was a pain, Hal. HALMAR: Why? Are those jobs really that mediocre? Or was it just your

insufferable idealistic self?

HILMAN: (Exha les smoke) I’m completely aware that there’s no job that’ll

fit our idealistic selves completely. My ideal job would be to work

for myself, make up some stuff, and go around the world to

promote them. Yeah, like prophets of the old times. What I’m

doing now is merely spreading my own words. With my name on

it. At least someone will know I once lived on this sodding Earth. If

I’m working in an office cubicle, what then? What will I become?

I thought I was clever enough to conquer the world. Turns out,

I couldn’t even do well for myself compared with you people…

HALMAR: Us people? What kind of people is that, huh? Are you calling

me a fool because I’m not an idealist like you? I tell you what,

I love my job and I’m proud of it! Yes, I get bored with it from time

to time, (Delivers his defense in fiery speech) but I can pay my

bills and mortgage, I can plan my future. I can pay for my needs

and for my wedding with Anjani as well!

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HILMAN: What the hell are you talking about? You’re marrying…her?

HALMAR: Ah, A….

HILMAN: Anjani? Hal, are you saying you’re marrying my first love?

(Pulls him angrily by the collar, his face red out of rage) HALMAR: (Jerks off Hilman’s grasp) You said yourself Gita is with you now

and you’ve moved on from Anjani…

HILMAN: But you know that one of the very few purposes left of my life

today is to tell Anjani that I love her as a “decent” and “honorable” man

according to your normal standards. Damn you average people!

HALMAR: Anjani knows you love her, Man. I told her. It’s for your

own goo...

Hilman cuts him off with a punch to the face. Halmar returns it and they start to struggle until they fall to the ground and roll onto the street.

Catching their breath, they sit together in silence. They are covered in sweat and bruises.

HILMAN: (Laughs his head off while holding his temple, injured by hitting

the tree) Hal, Hal….

HALMAR: (Slowly joins in laughter) I’m sorry, Man. I didn’t mean to hurt

you, but Anjani had waited too long. She came to me asking about

you, she was worried because you didn’t change at all for the better.

She had the impression that you couldn’t even take care of yourself.

I don’t mean to blame you for this, but everyone needs assurance,

Man, not only you and your damn head. (Stands and holds out his

hand to Hilman)

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HILMAN: (Takes the hand and stands. He stands still for quite awhile

before finally exhaling a long breath) Hal, I still can’t understand

a lot of things. Even until now. The mystery of man and their

desires... Who am I, anyway? The world has favored you to be with

her instead of me. Everything has come down to this, then…

HALMAR: Are you angry with me?

HILMAN: (Exhales) Man, we need to end this here tonight. A lot of things

happened just by walking with you here. My chest feels tight;

I don’t want to remember my helplessness when it comes to fate.

(Walks past Halmar) HALMAR: (Tries to stand and gather his conscience) Man… (He says

quietly. Hilman walks away. Getting far and further from Halmar)

Farewell, my friend. It’s good to see you. It’s good to see you well.

Hilman walks away. Under the park’s lamp, Halmar gasps. He’s overwhelmed by what he sees. His friend’s pants had been ripped and a big gaping hole on his behind is visible. Halmar just keeps walking nonchalantly. He silently hopes the hole is there because of the struggle, not because he’s still insane.

Hilman dusts off his clothes and walks the other way.

The night keeps getting colder. The city is silent. Other humans are asleep peacefully in a prayer. Hoping tomorrow they will wake up with a soul complete and warm by the sunlight. ***

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she, swallow Sage L

he feeds me. after i am full i kiss him, and his hands- i swear i know where they’ve been, but i forget to stop breathing her in. i dare not say his name, only spell it with my tongue on his

tongue.

lust now- my skin is burning, and he adds gasoline with his hands. rust now- the damp walls will erode us (don’t forget to breathe) i promise you this is not how my mother brought me up to be

like

murky lakewater, a body made out of clay (touch, knead, bend, break) eat the mud eat the mud, he says a little coin box***

feed it, and she swallows.

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the afternoon turns pink Sage L

the back of your neck is reddish, slightly rough.

grey

the spaces between your fingers are tight enough to trap me and i painted my nails

black last night so that they look more like my skin and less like yours. the walls are supposed to be clean and pure white but they are not white.

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the afternoon turns pink

watch my body stretch and put an angry grey hand on my reddened breast then turn your opiate eyes to me demand for me to take you to acme!

in my head my moans are pink. girls’ bodies are supposed to be pink, and pure but i was born brown

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and angry, my skin unremarkable.

strike me in between my legs where i am pinkest but not necessarily smoothest. if i cry out, something along the lines of i love you i need you please fuck me take them as gospel.

i want to blend in with the afternoon. ***

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high on love Shafira Annisa

The definition of love (n.) itself is: an intense feeling of deep affection.

To me, love has not one, not two, but so many other definitions. I have so many things to ask about love myself. Like, how could you be in love with somebody you’ve never met, but only seen? How could you love somebody who’s never talked to you, has never seen you, has no idea you exist in this world? How? Love and drugs is almost the same thing. You could be so in love with somebody; it’s addictive. The simplicity of just seeing them or just having a short glimpse of them makes you feel high.

Hearing their voice or just the sound of their breath makes you feel so calm inside and only they can give that feeling to you.

I’ve imagined seeing him and holding hands with him before I go to sleep. I make up these perfect scenarios in my head and I wish they’d come true one day. Love kind of sucks, too. Doesn’t it? Like, if one day I get to see him and hug him, it will feel like I’m holding my whole world and I’m hugging somebody I’ve known for years, but, to him…

I’m just a stranger, somebody that he’ll never see again or just a face in the crowds. It will mean so much to me and nothing to him.

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Love and drugs is almost the same thing. They consume you, they poison you and you can never get enough. Once you’re in, you can never get out. The thing about drugs is it’ll kill you when you’ve had too much. Much like love; once you’ve had too much and you’re let down, the feeling just kills you on the inside.

But love can be beautiful. Dangerously beautiful, I might add.

It gives you a sense of calmness and bliss. The look of their face makes you happy When you hear their voice you get goose bumps all over and other happy things you could imagine.

Love is something that you can’t put into words. Nothing could ever describe this horrifically beautiful feeling. It means a lot of things to everybody.

Love is somehow painful but it hurts in a good way sometimes.

Love is the devil yet it is the saint. Love is destruction yet it’s a salvation.

There’s a quote that says: “Did you ever hear that story about the red string? […] It’s this Asian proverb. It says that when you’re destined to meet your soul mate or your family or, you know, someone you bump into on the street, we’re all connected by this red string.

It can be tangled or stretched, but it can never be broken.”—And While We Were Here.

I’m hoping that he’s the person on the other end of my red string.

Maybe it’s just tangled and stretched to the other half of the world, but I still hope that one day we’ll meet or bump into each other in a coffee shop or in the streets and we’ll be in that perfect scenario that I’ve made up in my head.

Love is somewhat cathartic. It provides psychological relief through the open expression of strong emotions; causing catharsis. You can pour love into music, art and all sorts of other things.

Being in love is cathartic in a way, I guess. *** 116

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basic comprehension Syarafina Vidyadhana

It was 2011 when I first set foot in university. Like any freshman anywhere, I was very enthusiastic for all the great things many of my older friends talked about when they talked about “the best time of my life” (e.g. smoking pot by the lake, flirting with assistant professor, etc.). I’d imagined the next four years—six, if I’m having too much fun—to be filled with magic and dreams and good madness, lived by reading exquisite oeuvres (the list was never-ending) and kissing pseudo-intellectual lefties (there were many) who think I’m wonderful (not as many).

I couldn’t wait to unravel the greatest mysteries (e.g. what the fuck Jane Austen really wanted from life) and raise the most convoluted arguments (or at least pretend to understand Ulysses). Simply put, I couldn’t wait to learn everything and become somebody.

I remember coming early to my first ever class—turned out it was the one time I didn’t come late. I sat in the third row, fifth seat from the wall; it was a small classroom with approximately twenty seats. Waiting for the clock to strike eight, I anxiously took out my red Moleskine note and my dad’s fountain pen from my tote, trying not to draw attention to myself while at the same time secretly begging for some recognition.

Fifteen minutes later, my professor came into the class. I told myself, This is it, as I fixed my sitting position. I was so nervous with the possibility that I might have to squeeze my rather mediocre mind to impress my professor and my potential new friends. And it turned out that I did have to. Just not in a way I expected.

1.

We were handed a piece of blank paper and asked to write down the values that we believed in and a motto to live by. My professor also

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mentioned that we would have to share it with the whole class at the end of the session. As a person who never really gave such things a thought, I struggled big time. I mean, I believed that people generally must not kill or steal, must pay taxes and abide the law, but I had no idea what my personal values would be.

Then I went What the hell, right, and wrote down “hard-work” and “practicality” as my personal values and “hakuna matata” as a motto to live by—it means “no worry” or “problem-free philosophy,” in case you haven’t seen The Lion King.

Feeling unsure of what I wrote, let alone proud, I took a peek at the answers of people sitting next to me. The girl on my right wrote down “honesty,” “sensibility” and the ever-popular quote by Marilyn Monroe that went with something like “…If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best…” (This essay isn’t about her so let’s stop there) while the guy on my left wrote down “carpe diem” and I cursed myself for not coming up with something more profound, like, perhaps, “C’est la vie” because at least it’s French.

(But of course I didn’t change my answer, and I think it’s pretty obvious why.)

“Some life motto you got there,” said the carpe diem guy, checking out my answers.

“Yeah, it’s silly. I really can’t think of something else.”

“No, it’s great, really.”

“Right.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I chose ‘Love’ as one of my values.”

He what?

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Then he showed me his paper and for a second I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Now that is silly.

And he could be the epitome of human beings that I was going to share “the best time of my life” with. I mean, is Love (yes, with a capital ‘L’) even a value?

“Okay…” I tried not to look too shocked.

“Yeah? Okay?”

After a short pause I decided that it’s so intriguing I couldn’t help but to be an ass and say, “Do you believe in love so much or are you just too lazy to come up with something better?”

And that, my friend, is the first step to becoming a predictably obnoxious lit student.

“You don’t think Love is a good value?” He sounded a little offended.

“No, it’s just that I never thought of it as a value, that’s all.” That was a lie. I didn’t want to make enemies on my first day and turn university into the worst time of my life.

“Well, to me Love solves a lot of problems. So.” Oh but did he not just ask for it.

“How can Love solve a lot of problems? How can Love solve any problem at all?”

“Ah, I see. You’re a cynic, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m just confused.”

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“I can’t explain to you how, but it does. I just know it.”

“You’re a hopeless romantic.”

“Maybe.”

2.

Fast-forward to the fifth semester of the supposedly best time of my life (which apparently wasn’t, unless by great you agree it means flunking Phonetics & Phonology twice), I had some extra credits so I took a course in Existentialism in hopes of figuring out myself and what I want from life (apology to the late Jane Austen for the cynicism earlier).

On the third week my professor, 29, talked about Martin Buber, a Danish existentialist who believed in Love being the only possible entity striking as a bridge of I and Thou, and the solution to pretty much every problem in the world.

I ingloriously cringed throughout the session.

When the class was over, I had an urge to confirm to my professor if he was just as queasy as me with all that cheesiness the notion brought up, and so I did. And thank God he admitted that Buber’s take on love sounded a little “stupid.” It was such a relief because it meant I wasn’t just being bitter, or at least I wasn’t the only bitter person in the classroom. I mean, how could a person talk to a tree anyway? How could two subjects encounter a mutual relation without objectifying one another? Even if it’s possible, how could one preserve such a thing?

As we walked down the stairs, and out of Building IX, he explained to me that Buber was very much influenced by the war; he had seen what lack of love could do to human. At the intersection between the canteen and the department building, he stopped and asked me, out of the blue, if I had ever been in love. He didn’t ask me in a manner that bothered me, but still I was taken aback by the question.

Of course I have, I told him. He looked at me in disbelief.

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I even quoted Jessa Johanson from the series GIRLS and said, “I’m attracted to everyone when I first meet them, although it always wears off.”

Unsatisfied with my answer, he then rephrased his question: Have you ever loved somebody—so deep that a part of you dies when it’s over?

Yikes.

“I’m twenty-one, of course I have loved somebody that way.

Somebodies, in fact.”

“You know that family members don’t count, right?”

“So you don’t think I’m capable of loving?”

“I think you don’t really allow yourself to get hurt.”

“With all due respect, Sir, that is very, very, very corny.”

“Well do you?”

“Of course I’ve had my heart broken—many times, too.”

“Look, don’t take this the wrong way but, why don’t you come to me when you have truly loved somebody? Then we’ll talk.”

He gave me his best smile and walked towards the department building.

I was going to go after him and convince him just one more time of how deeply and truly I had loved a human being, that my skeptcism on the notion did not come from the lack of experience but rather, in fact, empirical evidence and rational (and pragmatic) thinking, but something held me back. And so I just stood there, watching him disappear into the department building.

When my graded papers were returned at the end of the semester, it turned out I got an A for my Buber paper. But I never came to him again and we haven’t talked ever since. *** 123

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affairs

Talissa Febra

He tells me that a mystery is not worth solving, if it comes in the form of a love affair.

He puts his arms around my waist, before my shoulders, or my love. Then he plants purple stripes on my neck, and pushes my knees out from under.

He tells me that this one doesn’t count as mystery, just teaching.

I ask him what he means, but he is busy rubbing lessons into my thighs, until his fingers are raw and swollen from too many sins. His touches are seawater: every one of them makes me thirstier than ever before, and I find myself learning and asking for more.

I try to hold him between my palms, but he is smoke, he is water, he is blood slipping through my fingers and staining them red—guilty. ***

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baptized in contradiction Talissa Febra

I think in trees and rivers. I let the silence steal the words from my tongue and replace it with forgetfulness. I have dirt for skin, and I pray until my knees are black and blue. I pray and I pray, until the rims of my mouth taste like curdled milk.

You count in irons and flames. You let your words rest in the same cave where your secrets are hiding. You have flowers for fingers and you inhale sins. You never exhale guilt. I find in you—inspiration, and you find in me—belief. You are an exploding star and I have always had soft spot for blinding things.

And so there is unity. Opposing energies are always drawn to each other.

Opposing energies always connect, as we do. The right ones, will. ***

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you will learn this too Talissa Febra

I.

don’t you think love should be done backwards, that we are meant to love first and fall second, learning how to swim before we dive, so when we fall, we know how to hold our breath first

II.

do you think when we learn how to swim we simultaneously learn drowning

III.

is love anything more than learning how to swallow a sea before asking someone to swim

***

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writer’s block Virginia Segara

There is too much fucking information Swimming in my disposition Bursting in dire for Documentation I consume my surroundings These four walls of nonbeing Searching for something "Inspiring" Before the sun loses luster Before the mist grows mature Before it swallows my words Before I waste my rhymes Roses are blue Violets are red I can't get these nightmares of you Out of my head Nightmares of me constantly falling Falling, down a bottomless pit Because somehow, someway I Stumbled and tripped And now I'm falling Falling...

There I go again!

I let you confiscate my brain (Wasn't my heart plenty?)

When you are near

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My train of thoughts has no quarry And my fingers mount wary And instead, I would Amble on to Ramble on about Childish, nonsensical beliefs: The difference between like and love is like the difference between A cold and a flu Colds are common, But the flu...

Then some have the cold but think they've got the flu And some know they have the cold But dare to admit that it's not the flu Well, it isn't true Only someone specific passes you the flu (And for me, that person Is you.) ***

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contributors Agustina Pringganti p.15 Shadows p.23 Sharing a Grave

She is busy working on her undergraduate thesis. Not a paragon of college students. She hopes she will graduate in February 2016 and jump to the reality of life. Inject a little cheer into the dismal atmosphere of her days by sending something funny to @tinaprggnti or tinapringganti@gmail.com

Ami Saraswati

p. 83 Mix Media You’ll most likely bump into her while she’s munching on something. She also jams to black music, most of the time.

Andhyta F. Utami

p.25 Post-Facto Notes and Whatnots She is a researcher, a debater, a deadliner, a heart-keeper, a linguistic snob, a geek, a friend, a bad driver, a fact-checker, a daydreamer, a night-reader, and a perfectionist. But above all, she’s a writer. (Which is probably why her eyes are glued to a screen or paper most of the time, except during the conversation breaks that she loves.)

Andri Nirmala

p. 53 Digital Illustration She is a freelance graphic designer and illustrator based in Jakarta. She studied Visual Communication Design at Universitas Pelita Harapan and has worked for various companies including Whiteboard Journal,Studio1212,Manual Jakarta and Bank Mandiri. She hopes to publish her own graphic novel one day.

Annisa Aprianinda

p. 93 Pencil Color on Paper Hopefully, her bull-headed nature will make her wish to be an aspiring illustrator who creates astonishing artworks.

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Annisa Ferani

p.132 Digital Illustration She goes by the name Nisa, is a design student at a private university in Jakarta. She’s also a freelance illustrator. She likes drawing, especially anything and everything childlike. Say hi to her @feraniannisa!

Anzi Matta

p. 87 Mix Media She was born in October 3rd 1996 and graduated from high school in 2014. She has published an independent book when on her sophomore year. Now she focuses on writing essays, holding collective exhibitions and her mini solo debut exhibition in Porto, Portugal. Next year she’s applying for college.

Arswandaru Cahyo p. 79 Digital Illustration p. 81 Digital Illustration

He studied philosophy at Universitas Indonesia from 2008-2012.

He has been in many exhibition including his own solo exhibition “What a Li(f)e” in 2012, “72 Hours Featured” in Chicago, and so on. He also commissioned for many brands from Australia Japan, Indonesia and United States.

Astrid Prasetianti

p. 119 Digital Illustration She’s a graphic designer who loves to draw and take pictures with analog cameras. She is also one of the managers in a analog photography zine called The Future of the Past and dreams of building a tree house.

Asty Ramadhani

p. 115 Watercolor on Paper She is a 21 year-old illustrator who spends her time shedding watercolor tears.

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Ayu Meutia Azevy p.31 Guardhouse

23, a full-time advertising copywriter and freelance contributor with many pet peeves, including children who cry onboard and girls with princess-complex attitude. She finds joy in overflowing her Path timeline with part-funny, part-serious thoughts. In 2014, her poem, “A Family Affair” was selected and published for “Asian Center of Anthology of Malaysian Poetry in English”, telling a story about life of Indonesian immigrant. Until today, she cannot quit writing.

Ben Laksana

p.35 The Things They Don’t Teach Me About Love A caretaker of his ageing yet beautiful mom and six well fed dogs who barks too often. He lives in Bogor while doing too many things at the same time.

Dea Anugrah

p.37 A Sad Story of Time Quake and Necessary Bullshits He was born in Pangkal Pinang, Bangka Island, on June 27th 1991.

Studying philosophy at Universitas Gadjah Mada. His poems, short stories, and essays are published in a number of media and antho­ logies. Currently lives and works in Jakarta. His most recent book is titled Misa Arwah dan Puisi-puisi Lainnya.

Deni Iqbal Teruna p. 31 Mix Media

He is a good friend for conversations with a notebook on hand.

Diedra Cavina

p. 59 Digital Illustration 4 June 1993. Design student. Describing herself is one of her weakness. It’s so much easier getting to know her in real life.

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Dwi Indra Nugroho p. 91 Mix Media

He goes by the name Indra. Aesthetics and anything creative have always been his passion. He keeps on practicing his skills as a graphic designer to discover many happy things.

Dwiputri Pertiwi

p.53 Caged Freedom p.55 Reciting a Love Poem She writes poems and essays. When she is not busy writing and reading, she enjoys listening to music and spending time with her friends. Her interests also include photography and languages.

A number of her writings can be found on the Jakarta-based online publication, www.whiteboardjournal.com.

Blog: www.nowherelandian.com

Dylan Amirio

p.57 The Fantastic Center of Gravity Aside from writing as a journalist for a living, Dylan Amirio also writes to give his life more meaning. When not being tied down by reality or his own thoughts, he spends his time pouring his soul out through writing poetry and short stories; as well as composing music, to feed the hungry karaoke machine inside his head. His biggest fear is to someday lose the ability to express.

Erin Emily Ann Vance p.59 Constant

Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Grip Magazine, WAX Poetry and Art Magazine, The Gauntlet, and NoD Magazine. She is currently completing a BA in English literature and creative writing at The University of Calgary. Erin loves to travel, and works with children on the autism spectrum.

Faizal Rahadi Wibowo p. 75 Digital Illustration

He has a love for horror, dark, and gloomy things. He also has an eye for fashion. You can follow him @omfraw and on www.theblackenedtumor.tumblr.com.

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Fajri Siregar

p.61 A Very Bad Essay On Love He works at a local think tank but barely finds time to think. Appreciates independent media and has tried to establish one with his friends under the name Primitif Zine. His favorite texts are patterns.

Faris Dzaki

p.71 A Sole Universe He was born in Jakarta, April 6th 1995. Now studying journalistic at Faculty of Communication, Universitas Multimedia Nusantara.

Haikal Azizi

p. 97 Mix Media is Bin Idris.

Heriyansyah

p.75 Sad Sweet Torture Device He’s a 23-year-old fan of Merry Riana and Anais Nin, whose main hobby is to write haikus while doing number one and two.

Hidayah Ros

p. 61 Mix Media She is a full time Graphic Designer/Artist based in Singapore.

Raised up in a rustic Malay settlement, he is fascinated by the everyday quirks, street treats, 60s Malay pop culture and old world charm. Her works consist of simple line drawings, dreamy bubblegum hues and a slight satire.

Hoyri Mohamad

p.77 The Coffee Stain on My Blue Blanket A young student living in Japan studying (un)interesting and (un) important things. Right now doing a part time job at a takoyaki shop. Desperately in love with Manic Pixie Dream Girl characters, for the sole purpose of not growing up. Therefore, he is forever frozen in the phase of young stupidity.

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Katyusha Methanisa p. 125 Marker on Paper p. 127 Marker on Paper p. 129 Marker on Paper

Her best time on beginner level Minesweeper is 15 seconds. She is graduating from high school this year to begin a full time search for ramen-proof lipstick.

Kendra Ahimsa

p. 35 Digital Illustration Seven was the age Kendra Ahimsa said his first dirty word. It was also the age he first discovered the joy of drawing. He was one of those kids who ate paste when no one saw him. Curious. Armed only with pencils and a rubber, he wasted the money his mother invested in schoolbooks by drawing them with stuff he thought was funny. From the first photograph he took, roamed around museums and cornucopia of books, his fondness of art gradually blossomed as he grew up. He is also known by the moniker Ardneks, and has a distinct style that heavily hallmarks music and psychedelia while at the same time peels on the playful combination of various cultures and pop references.

Melicia Zaini

p.79 Fuck p.81 Marine Biology She shares her birthday with Roald Dahl, and aspires to be as influential a writer as him one day. She wanders around the rainy city of Vancouver clad in head-to-toe black, looking for ginkgo trees and secondhand bookshops. When she’s not reading or writing (or spending an inordinate amount of time in bed), she presses leaves, inhales the ocean, and craves tacos and warm hugs.

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Melisa Adisti

p.83 Defribillation She is a 5’1”, 23 years old, and resides in Jakarta, Indonesia. She is a graphic designer moonlighting as a writer sometimes, where her concentration focuses on Feminist Studies and Poetry. She smells vaguely of patchouli and some sort of bad behavior. Almost convinced she’s immortal. Craves the ocean. Believes in summer showers. Feels nothing until she feels everything. Will shrink if put in the oven. Eat after five days of opening.

Michael Henoch p.43 Mix Media

He was born in Bandung October 13th 1994. Currently studying New Media at Bina Nusantara University while exploring design illustrations and layout.

Mohammad Adli Hafidh

p.57 Digital Illustration

He is a professional dreams producer and distributor. Find him @adliadliadli.

Nadya Santoso

p.13 Pencil on Paper p.15 Pencil on Paper She makes art sometimes. Her new year’s resolution is to get out of the house more; so far she has not been successful. She enjoys collecting cute succulent plants and then completely forgetting about them, only to find them sad and dried up months later. Her favorite Indomie flavor is Soto Spesial, which is hard to come by where she currently lives in Vancouver. All gifts of Indomie sent her way are highly appreciated.

Nidya Prima Putri

p.71 Digital Illustration She’s a realistic one who lives in dreams. Find her @nidyapputri.

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Nugroho Haryoputro p.87 Pseudo-Darwinism

He is an over-analyst. When he’s not worrying about trivial pursuits, he writes bad poems and mingles awkwardly with global citizens.

His interests include anonymous Internet forums, Woody Allen and hugs. A Southern Tangerang guy.

Blog: kenjiayomain.wordpress.com

Poska Ariadana p.91 Because You Will Forget Soon Enough Poska Ariadana. pos-terbuka: meaning huge income, a banking term; aria: the founder of an Indonesian bank; dana: literally means money. twitter.com/poskayeah

Rain Chudori

p.93 Ask Away, Starlings She is a writer and light sleeper. She has written for The Jakarta Post, the Jakarta Globe, Whiteboard Journal, and other publications. Her debut short story collection will be released by KPG publishings titled, Monsoon Tiger and Other Stories. She likes tea, plants and highways.

Raunala Maruti

p.97 A Certain Romance She is a capricious self-proclaimed feminist who drinks her tea with too many spoonful of sugar. Graphic novels and rhyming her bubbling angst aside, she’s currently chasing her love for Sociology at the start of her college life in Japan. She strolls around town without knowing her left and right, and skips into the wonderful world of the interwebs under the username @marutizeus.

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Rebecca Kezia

p.101 A Certain Romance She is a capricious self-proclaimed feminist who drinks her tea with too many spoonful of sugar. Graphic novels and rhyming her bubbling angst aside, she’s currently chasing her love for Sociology at the start of her college life in Japan. She strolls around town without knowing her left and right, and skips into the wonderful world of the interwebs under the username @marutizeus.

Rega Ayundya Putri p.109 Manual p.111 Manual

Indistinct, serene, yet sometimes anxious, she was a 1988-born art graduate who secretly tends to get sentimental. She now lives in Bandung, working as a freelance illustrator and a part-time teacher, while she’s studying for her Master’s Degree of Art. For more of her work, kindly visit cargocollective.com/ayundya or simply mail her at ayundya@hotmail.com.)

Ruth Marbun

p.101 Watercolor on Paper She likes to spend her time diving in colors, laughing at herself and writing the unspoken. She is currently trying her luck on the visual world.

Blog: Iniruthmarbun.blogspot.com

Sage L

p.109 She, Swallow p.111 The Afternoon Turns Pink If she were a jellybean, she would be a vomit-flavored jellybean.

Shafira Annisa

p.115 High on Love My name is Shafira A. Oktaviani.

She was born on October 1st 1997, is a high school student whose hobbies include listening to music, writing, drawing and reading, and her all-time favorite: surfing the web. She’s kind of shy.

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Smita Kirana

p.77 Digital Illustration She is a second-year graphic design student. When she’s not drawing, she is probably on the Internet, playing the bass, eating instant noodle, or dozing off on a daybed.

Syarafina Vidyadhana

p.119 Basic Comprehension She likes Chinese foods, weeknight karaoke with friends, and getting haircuts for good luck.

Talissa Febra

p.127 Affairs p.129 Baptized in Contradiction p.131 You Will Learn This Too She (b. 1995) is a psychology student living in Bandung. There is a place in her heart just for literature—next to her love of the color black, cradled by her love of being underwater and late night car rides, and uplifted by her love of films.

Uta Verina Maukar p.25 Mix Media

She is a 20-year-old girl who’s stuck in animation major because of her early morning depression.

Virginia Segara

p.133 Writer’s Block Virginia, named after a U.S. state herself, is fond of places and has never stayed in the same city for more than three years. She does not write for the amusement of others and much less her own, which is odd considering how much time she spends recording her thoughts down. Currently studying international relations in Japan, she enjoys sliced bananas in her cereal, ‘50s dance music and trips to the supermarket.

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writers Agustina Pringganti Andhyta F. Utami Ayu Meutia Azevy Ben Laksana Dea Anugrah Dwiputri Pertiwi Dylan Amirio Erin Emily Ann Vance Fajri Siregar Faris Dzaki Heriyansyah Hoyri Mohamad Melicia Zaini Melisa Adisti Nugroho Haryoputro Poska Ariadana Rain Chudori Raunala Maruti Rebecca Kezia Sage L Shafira Annisa Syarafina Vidyadhana Talissa Febra Virginia Segara

artists Ami Saraswati Andri Nirmala Annisa Ferani Annisa Aprianinda Anzi Matta Arswandaru Cahyo Astrid Prasetianti Asty Ramadhani Deni Iqbal Teruna Diedra Cavina Dwi Indra Nugroho Faizal Rahadi Wibowo Haikal Azizi Hidayah Ros Katyusha Methanisa Kendra Ahimsa Michael Henoch Mohammad Adli Hafidh Nadya Santoso Nidya Prima Putri Rega Ayundya Putri Ruth Marbun Smita Kirana Uta Verina Maukar

the murmur house