wish i was five again, a thousand lego blocks plastered on the carpet on the 14th floor of an apartment building, a building with green tiles trying to look like a tree growing in the city, this is hong kong, and i am used to bicycling through the sticky stomachs of underground parking lots, or on dusty rooftops high enough for my hair to tickle the lovehandles of clouds. i am catching butterflies with my breath, letting my feet dangle on the outskirts of our balcony, trying to peer at the cracking sunlight running along the jutting contours of this city.

now i'm twenty-one, lying on the floor on the top floor of barrows, watching a spider try to tango along the ribs of a railing where andinh once threw a dummy from.

i sharpen my spine with the two front teeth i lost long ago. i don't know why i'm feeling this way, times like this, there's no room for nostalgia.