These days, we digitize what we cannot say.

📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱

I sit in your pocket,

tucked away in silence.

Too soft. Poor signal.

Too full of functions that you hardly use.

You punch my screen

For letters and numbers.

I do not flinch. I do not judge.

📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱

Tap truth.

Push “A” for apologize.

A crying emoticon for sadness.

Select a lip gif to show that I

want to say it without

A cross word.

📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱

Then, I jam.

The screen goes blank.

The keypad blinks, and

the backlight goes off.

📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱

Behind the fibreglass, I hold

untapped words for you.

The ones chilled on purpose.

The apps that stopped working months ago,

But still say “new.”

The letters that freeze with every no–

I don’t type them, to keep the peace.

📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱

I flash “pain” on the screen

In pixelated red.

You lose it, You curse.

And walk away.

📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱

But still,

I wait

For someone

To tap.

To tell me that I’m seen

Even when my keypad’s

Rusty.

📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱

And perhaps–

Perhaps

I will freeze on purpose.

Lock

My keypad

And the words

On the screen

You never knew

Were mine.

📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱📱

If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! ☕Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!

Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.

Let go of your presence- on your terms.

🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥

1. Start in the evening.

Light from your window must bend–

Enough to mar the edges

Of your soul.

🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥

2. Unname yourself.

Store the Alphabets in a box.

Leave it by the window.

Let the birds peck its sides–

Like forgotten worms.

🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥

3. Wear silence like a hat.

Worn. Veils the head and face.

Your speech in glances–

Or muted.

🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥

4. Walk with your memories.

Pick one that mattered.

Embrace it.

It mutes sour souls.

🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥

5. Let your shadow fly.

Let the breeze give it wings.

Let it forget where you are.

🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥

6. Find a place for nameless souls.

A place for small voices.

For the hush of a butterfly’s wing.

The silence before the never “yes”–

To my sound.

🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥

7. Forget the sound of your heartbeat.

Make your body still,

Soundless.

🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥

8. Don’t answer when they call.

Let your absence fill the space

Left in the room

A vastness

None can fill.

🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥

9. Love Stillness.

Not stillness of time.

But the stillness of life.

The kind the heart knows–

That doesn’t ask or wait.

🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥

10. Don’t look back.

The world will name more souls.

Not yours.

That’s the way it is.

🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥

If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! ☕Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!

Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.

Even forgotten, she remembers.

🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞

The potatoes on a plate,
Crispy as you like them.
He no longer recalls asking.

🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞

“How was work?” I ask.
He sees them and nods.
We both pretend you answered.

🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞

You used to be a rock,
Solid, grounded, sturdy–
Reliable.

Now, a sharp stone.

Moss-covered.

🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞

Painful.

🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞

I silence the jabbing pain
Of the pricks
As you roll.

🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞

The words that sting.
Your loud rage.

🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞

Instead, I fry
Your potatoes.
Bake your bread.

🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞

So I sit
With you
Waiting for you
To tell me
That you know me.

🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞

You whisper a name–
Not mine.

🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞

But I have
Your eyes.
Your love for the Rolling Stones.

🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞

For these, I fry
Your potatoes,
Brew your coffee

🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞

And sit,
Waiting

🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞With a
Quiet
Whisper
“Dad”–
For you
To hear.

🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞☕🥐🧈🍯🥄🧃🧇🥓🍊🍳🥔🍞

If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! ☕Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!

Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.

Old ghosts,new tricks–n scam and kopi at a time.

☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞

Detective Boon Teck. Kopi shop legend in the HDB heartland of Toa Payoh, whose palette distinguished coffee grounds with panache. His mind read case files with equal clarity.

His mobile came alive with a frenetic buzz as he tried to catch some well-deserved shuteye one evening. It was a neighbourhood auntie, voice racked with tears. Her son had vanished after getting caught in a robo-investing scheme hawked on Facebook.

“Tiok Beh Pio (He won the lottery),” Boon muttered under his breath. He swirled his kopi with his teaspoon. “Put in money, kena (and got) swiped!”

He traced the robo-investing scheme to a HDB unit with an altar glowing with faux red candles. Incense ash seeped from the boy’s mobile phone. On the cracked screen was a message: “Bro, she said I’ll be rich if I transfer money to you.”

The boy—Ah Seng—lay slumped against the wall, still warm. No scammers in sight. Only the robo-investor—a Hantu (ghost in Malay) Algo in the guise of an AI program smirking on the phone’s cracked screen.

The hantu’s bloodshot eyes took him in. A cruel sneer.

“Old ghost, new tricks.”

Boon slammed the phone on the floor, stepping on it with energy he never thought he could muster. The phone died.

But another ping sounded from outside. Someone else had clicked on the hantu.A haunting snark.

“Yiau kui (greedy),” a hollow voice echoed.

☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞

If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! ☕Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!

Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.

This poem explores our crossroads—the times when we experience cosmic shifts in our perspectives of life and are ready to embrace change. Truth is hidden beneath a moth’s dark wings and slowly surfaces.

Rouse what’s beneath dark wings.

🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉

Dark wings

Flutter at dusk

Flittering to the end

Light breaks water, almost before–

It leaves.

🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉

It leaves–

The pond stores the secrets unseen

Saved below the surface

Where eyes can’t see

But wait.

🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉

Light wings

Surface for sight

Flitter to light’s new glow

Unfurling their hidden glory

For all.

🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉

If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! ☕Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!

Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.