UWF 2021 E-book

2021 UNITY YOUNG WRITERS FESTIVAL Healing

Prelude

This E-Book is a compilation of local writings that represents the voices of today's youth.

The voices of the youths have been silenced and lost for far too long and it is time for change. shall we move towards a better tomorrow where their voices would be heard?

LEADERS OF ENGLISH PROGRAMME PRESENTS

TOGETHER WITH

S I N G L I T

U W F 2 0 2 1

S T A T I O N

U W F

2 0 2 1

Nanyang Girls' High School Miao Qianning (Flash Fiction) Clementi Town Secondary School Evan Wong Yi Feng (Poetry) Jurong West Secondary School Delia Yeo Yu Qi (Poetry) North Vista Secondary School Alethea Loh (Poetry)

Victoria School Wang Ray Kit (Poetry) Woodgrove Secondary School Jovy Chong (Poetry) School of Science and Technology (SST) Nicole Sim Rui Shi (Flash Fiction) North Vista Secondary School Julianne Delfin (Flash Fiction)

Our Guest Judges NURALIAH NORASID Nuraliah Norasid is a local author who did a PhD in creative writing.

She won the Epigram Books Fiction Prize for her first novel, The Gatekeeper, in 2016. In 2018, she was awarded the Most Promising Asian Woman Writer by IndiaSe Magazine. She also received the Nanyang Outstanding Alumni and Creativity-Leadership-InnovationCommunity (CLIC) awards from NTU in 2017.

DESMOND KON ZHICHING-MINGDé Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé is a former journalist and interdisciplinary artist. He is the author of two novels, five hybrid works, nine poetry collections, and several chapbooks, and his writings have appeared in over 200 literary publications. These titles span the genres of ethnography, journalism, creative writing, and corporate literature. His poetry and prose have placed him in literary appointments at the Notre Dame Poetry Fellowship, NAC writer-in-the-Gardens Residency and NTU-NAC Creative Writing Residency.

ARUNDITHA ArunDitha is a Singaporean spoken word artist. She is best known for her work in performance poetry and the dramatic arts. She has a diploma in Applied Drama and Psychology from Singapore Polytechnic and a Bachelor of Arts in Contemporary and Applied Theatre from Griffith University, Australia. ArunDitha is also the lead singer and lyricist of two music acts, Wobology (Singapore) and Mojave (Australia). She has also made appearances as a poet at the Singapore Writers’ Festival, Queensland Poetry Festival and the Bali Emerging Writers Festival.

Scan the QR code on this page to find out more about what the judges have to say for each piece!

Photos of poets/writers : Copyright Jon Gresham. All Rights Reserved.

1st prize Healing

Nanyang Girls' High School Miao Qianning

Chinatown was as red as I remember. It was the same hustling of people, the same smells, the same textures. I walk into a familiar shop, the sign hanging over the door looked older than it had been. I walk forward to the many dishes, stopping an arm’s length away from the glass shield, afraid. I hug my arms close. They had added an air conditioner in the years I’ve been gone.

The uncle walks out. His white beard was longer, his skin droopier. What surprised me more is that I still remembered his voice. He looks at me, adjusts his glasses, trying to remember. I do not blame him for forgetting. I abandoned him first.

I think he doesn’t recognise me, and he smiles under his face shield. A smile for customers. A part of me is glad, but I don’t smile back. He can’t see it under my mask anyway. But he does, and he straightens. He waits for me to pick the food, but I stay silent, staring at my shoes. The smell of chilli and the many spices are suffocating me. This place is too bright, too loud, too full. I have gotten use to the empty feeling, so much so the outside world felt strange. The atmosphere becomes tense. My mouth moved, but my voice was silent. It has been a long time since I talked.

And then he turns away and back to work, grabbing a plate, scooping out some vegetables and meat. He scooped out saucy rice cakes, green onions, fish, spicy seaweed, pig ears. The colors are familiar. I remember the same colors years ago in the late afternoons, slurping on noodles and buns in my uniform. I look at him, saw him raise an eyebrow. He recognized me, I realise. He remembered my favorite dishes. Suddenly I found it hard to swallow. The uncle doesn’t look at me, and pours two cups of tea. The shop felt silent. No one else is here again, just like those early days when the shop first opened.

I wonder if it was the same tea. The colour looked different. But I liked all types of tea anyway. I liked anything anyone gave me. I accepted everything. My therapist, Miss Lim, tells me not to. It’s bad for your health, she says. I remember writing down a reply, scrawling down uneven words because of my tired arms: if it’s up to you, everything I do is bad for my health. She looks at me, exaggerated, and replied: because they are. If I had enough energy, I would roll my eyes. But most of the time, I kept silent. Like now.

The uncle takes off his apron, grabs the plate and slides out the mini door. He puts the dishes on a table near the glass window, where sunlight was the brightest, almost making the white table glow. The same old table, the same old place, with the same smell, same sounds. “Sit,” he grunts a single word. I comply, sliding onto the wooden chair, allowing my fingers to linger on the rough wood, feeling the textures. The uncle walked silently back to take the cups of tea, and I stared at his back as he worked. He was not the friendliest with me anymore, the cheerfulness and brightness replaced by a low quietness.

Perhaps age, I tell myself. Perhaps anger, perhaps confusion. I wonder if he harbours any questions for me. I wonder how I would react if I was him, feeding a child for months and one day she just disappeared. Only after years she came back.

The uncle sits opposite me, facing the outside, staring at people walking by. I stare at the tea. The steam disappears into the air. I let the silence envelop us.

It felt like eternity before he spoke. I flinched at his voice. It reminded me of waiting at the hospital when suddenly the nurse shouts your name. I am unprepared of what will happen behind the hospital doors, and I am unprepared of what the uncle was going to say.

“How long has it been?” He begins his monologue. “Five years? Six? Seven? I still remember you when you were a schoolgirl, skipping down this path, with your white shoes and ugly backpack, pulling open the door, shouting my name and gulping down food. We have a specific place for you, remember? The old lady and I would reserve it for you, watching over you while you did your homework, and when it’s late, your mother would come fetch you.”

He sighs, shaking his head. He is old now, written clearly in the way he held himself, in his slouching shoulders, in his skinny arms.

He shudders. “When you suddenly didn’t come, the old lady and I, we waited, very anxiously. You were like our grandchild. We thought you were sick, and we waited for weeks, before realizing you were never coming back. You mother never said anything to us. And… two years ago, the old lady passed. She forgot a lot of things… but I think she still remembered you.”

When I didn’t reply for a long time, he sighed again, before standing up shakily to leave. “I do not know what had happened in the years you were gone. And I do not force you to tell. Everyone has their own stories, own wounds to heal. Eat, if you want.”

When he left, I still had not moved from my position, hands locked up in a fist, trying to keep in all my bottled up emotions. I will not cry here, I tell myself. When finally my heartbeat slowed, I picked up the chopsticks, my hands shakily took off my masked, and chewed.

All the pain come flooding in. I could not keep it in no longer. I cried, I teared, I ate. In years, I finally manage to spoke, my voice hoarse and my tongue slow and awkward. “Sorry,” I whispers. “Thank you,” I say. No one heard, but I was satisfied. Alas, a step forward. The uncle was right, everyone had their own stories to tell, their own scars to heal. But only before those could happen, one must make a move. One small actions leads to another, then another. This is what defines healing, not some medicine, not some surgery. This is healing. Courage is healing.

2nd prize

Clementi Town Secondary School Evan Wong Yi Feng

Things we contemplate when we think about healing peeling away the assorted blues lingering by our grazed

elbows.

returning to the souls of black-and-white polaroid (just) to relearn how to bend the edges of our ductile, parched lips into (forced) smiles.

and

and

locating newer kinds of solace. a makeshift moon maybe, with curtains (of light) to swallow away the emptiness, that emptiness – that emptiness as in the realm where all gradations of melancholy and (un)familiar pain linger. and holding onto the echoes of grandma’s voice (when she’s humming aged serenades near midnight, when she’s spilling moments of treachery and her chapters of history, when she’s falling into slumber.

and

a sunset in gentle-apricot hue. the same sunset we smear on timeless wounds stinging at midnight and a lake mirroring a sky of cerulean complexion, scattered with leaves of sangria and amber skin. the same lake along the patches of grass lined with moss-spangled rocks and sun-sweetened granny smith apples (those warped in crisped crimson tinges) and

garden scene in mid-bloom, the same garden we return to, to celebrate the coming of cherry blossoms. the same garden with the invigorating breaths of pollen-scented dew. the same garden with the same well (the well where we wished on a dollar coin, where we wished to be happy. to be yellow.) and grandma’s most trusted zambuk, its green tinge and dependable healing caress, the way it laces my assorted agonies in its gentle grasp and its aromatic herbal scent.

3rd prize

Jurong West Secondary School Delia Yeo Yu Qi

Spoiled bread

i. toast(er) when your cold metal touched me warmth --all that I could feel you were my sanctuary my home but then I flew too close to the sun icarus. ii. soggy I was crumbling down brittle fragile all that i was gone (just like you) I thought it would work moisture to soften the blow to melt me down back to dough (I wanted to be just like dough flexible unmarred) now I’m just a damp piece of paper (what an idiot.)

iii. mo(u)ld you left spots of green and blue bruises on my white pristine canvas without u I can never go back to dough but something new I can be shaped into

Consolation

North Vista Secondary School Alethea Loh

Untitled S.mcnutt once said, “Healing from pain is a choice. You have to consciously decide that you deserve to feel free, that you deserve to let go of the weight that has been holding you down for too long.”

Healing.

So simple and minimal.

Such small being but such big significance.

When energy fills you like an empty cup overflowing with the essence of life. When the old cuts start to heal no matter how deep or long or wide it was. When the pain that once slapped you at the back of your head disappears. When the silence is so loud, ringing in your ears.

Negative thoughts start to seem brighter and you float higher so you feel lighter, and the sky engulfs you in its grasp.

The soft, cotton-candy-like clouds gently run against your fingertips and turn into small droplets of purity.

The chains of the weight balls clinging onto your ankles weighing you down now turn into helium balloons and pull you higher than what you could ever imagine instead.

Love, joy, peace.

The three horsemen of healing.

The warm embrace of your significant other.

A home cooked meal by your grandmother.

The painful tummy aches after laughing at something “un-funny” with your best friend.

Letting go of your worries and enjoying a good movie on netflix with an ice cold face mask plastered onto your face.

Having a warm cup of chamomile tea and popcorn ona Saturday night. Taking time to take care of yourself.

Taking off that fragile porcelain mask that shows an “untrue, unlovable, ugly” self. The vulnerable vizard you put on daily that’s stuck to you like superglue. Accepting who you are deep within you, and embracing your insecurities. Learning to love yourself.

Relax, take a step back and learn.

When your problems start to get smaller, That's when Healing begins.

Consolation

Victoria School Wang Ray Kit

growing

Your parents are in Shangri-la and you eat at home alone. Your auntie is beside you -- she hasn't cooked, not today. There aren't enough people coming home.

Chicken rice that has gone cold and soup that scalds its way down your throat.

The television is on, but neither of you is really watching. In another room, your brother is on a Google Meet call. He coaches the Debate Team now. You think it's cool. You wonder how much he's paid. You don't dare to disturb by asking when he'll be eating -- or if you should wait for him. You continue stuffing your face. You wonder where your sister is right now. When does she end class? How far is Singapore Management University from home? She had a soci paper today. How did it go? Did she stop talking to you about these things? Or did you stop listening? You pick up your phone and open the first game on the home screen.

Your second brother isn't eating either and you wish he were. "Healing is not a linear process". You know that if you hear that word one more time you will do something, you will snap. He started Basic Military Training on January third. You can still remember the drive to the camp. The whole family, laughing and reminiscing and joking about yesterday with all the excitement of tomorrow. You forget the name of the camp, but you remember the songs you played. Songs that could truly capture the sorrow of departure. You think you're a "deejay" because you read the Perks of Being a Wallflower when you were in Primary Six. In that book, Charlie had been praised for always knowing when to play the right song at the right time. But you don't seem to know anything anymore. The funny thing is, he never liked your music taste. You haven't heard the songs he listened to in…

What were the songs he listened to? The only thing you know about them is that they couldn't have been released past 2nd Feb, 2021, est. 1215 hours. At least, that's what it says on the certificate. Once, you were excited to grow up. Now, you watch everyone grow apart. No, healing couldn't possibly be a linear process. Not when you're all stumbling in different directions.

My brother started Basic Military Training on January third. We never saw him finish it.

Consolation

Woodgrove Secondary School Jovy Chong

Untitled The black fog grew thick.

Voices echo across miles, Carrying thoughts of many, clamped into one, For they all had a similar origin.

Anchors wrapped themselves around my leg, Forced me immobile at the seabed. I called out for signs of life, But the abyss replied instead.

An orb had surfaced from the depths, A little flame, minuscule but bright.

Its strength pulled the chains apart, And it filled the dark with its light.

Did you know that orb was you?

Your little smiles and messages too. A simple kind word or two Drained the colours out of the blues.

Consolation

School of Science and Technology Nicole Sim Rui Shi

Untitled

The predominant of the household and baleful maker of scars. The vindictive hands vied for my throat. Callous remarks tittered on the edge of alcohol breath as I screamed. It was ephemeral as the fervour of hands blew pain on my face. Always the same spot…

Always…

The cascade of shards tinkled on the ground as the wine glass fell, my past pooling in the alcohol. No more the emaciated girl, my hands itching to grasp his throat.

“I forgive you,” I whisper. Scars never heal. Yet somehow, the shards in my body and heart seemed to lift an inch.

Consolation

North Vista Secondary School Julianne Delfin

Untitled

The sky is gloomy, like the funeral. My friend cries beside me. My words of comfort don’t reach her ears.

I look at the coffin. My eyes widen, but it isn’t the coffin that surprises me.

Above the coffin is a bouquet of chrysanthemums…

and a picture of my face.

Acknowledgements

Thank you

© 2 0 2 1 All Rights Reserved.

This publication is curated by the Leaders of English Programme (LEP), Elfie Peh 3E4 Emily Ow 3E4 Jovan Lim 3E4 Teacher advisors: Ms Janet Xu & Ms Siti Robi'ah Unity Secondary School.

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