Maureen Tai
Breathless
Head down/I walk the unpaved and unmarked trail/each step makes soft crunching sounds like someone chewing on their granola/undecided whether the coconut flakes were a good idea or not/when really/all I yearn to do/is gaze up into the endless blue sky/feathered with floaty clouds/I can pretend I’m not in the wild/sitting instead on an air-conditioned balcony overlooking a beach/a cocktail with a mini umbrella in my hand/but I’m afraid/deathly afraid if I must be honest/of stepping into a hole or on a rock/tripping on a branch or a vine/tumbling into the deep leafy chasm running alongside my hastily chosen route/my downhill roll prematurely ended by a lichen-covered boulder/which also cracks open my skull/the iPhone in my hand open at ‘Camera’ so only a single blurry shot of the aforementioned sky exists to document my last moments/but wait/why is the blasted battery showing only two per cent. when I left it charging overnight/as I start to curse all manner of gods and saints and mothers and sons/as I rue my decision to take a solo forest hike/not telling anyone/because I was so pissed off by the carton of milk I discovered this morning/gone sour in the fridge/feeling an anger so immense it overpowered my inexplicable fear of mosquitoes and mud/sweat and stillness/I realise/I’m overreacting/I’m not yet dead/not yet/not dead/I wrench my imagination from the edge of its self-constructed precipice/refocus my eyes on my trainers and the ground and the steps I continue to take/because I’m looking so hard to save myself/I see a flash of red on the ungroomed dirt path/nestled among the twigs and leaves/the wings/a butterfly/a whisper of life/not flitting or floating or dancing or darting as you’d expect from such winged creatures/its antennae twitching ever so slightly as if being teased by the wind/but there is no wind/just my panting like a pug on an overdue toilet walk/my heart thumping from these exertions/my mind dreaming of my unnatural demise/when the world suddenly stops/I stop/sit/wait/as the butterfly’s breath/and my battery runs/...
Maureen Tai is an award-winning Malaysian writer living in Hong Kong who has published creative works in literary and online magazines such as Cha, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Kyoto Journal, Mekong Review, Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, Coffee and Conversations, Porch Lit Magazine, and the Hooghly Review, as well as in local and international anthologies. Primarily writing for children and teens, she has published short stories for children with Oxford University Press and Marshall Cavendish (Asia). Maureen’s work and book reviews can be found at www.maureentai.com.
