Loving is a muscle you can tire.

It’s a chore that loses its luster

within a week of acquiring

the garden shed.

After the champagne and the frosting,

there are the taxes and the property deeds,

the bathroom sharing, the new letterheads.

A drive to the dentist, a microwaved meal

turns you into a sinking pounamu shell,

used-up toilet paper.

You argue over menus and Thai takeout.

Your wife says she’ll make

Greek Salad every Sunday –

You extinguish into a cabbage.

 

 

Jamie Uy (黄洁美) is a Filipino-Chinese-Singaporean high school student. She likes guerrilla art, poetry slams, flute beatboxing, and editing Parallel Ink lit + art magazine. Jamie would like to thank her parents, Jerson and Cristina, and her brother, Jacob, for being wonderfully tolerant of her antics over the years.