Kristine Ong Muslim
- Sleepless, Silent Room -
You must not knock for this is
My room
Where carnage broils and seeps
At each unheard footstep
Across the white-washed still corridors
Outside. The walls pulse and quiver,
A diseased nameless lover
Obsessed with perfection and symmetry.
Gently, you must enter my door,
Your fears cast aside like beloved sins
Clinging to you from ages and ages past,
And you can never leave.
Like evil, this prison is a one-way
Mirror, gaping and leering at each
Restless turn of the head.
We are all black and gnarled within
And this room is as dark as the others.
My youth is trapped inside
For I shall live forever
Shuttered, lipless, screaming
Within this secret silent room.
- Dead, Deap-Blue Eyes -
His eyes are deep-set
Cold and blue--
The eyes of the man who knows precisely
What the darkness represents:
A saint’s foreskin encased
In a warm necrotic membrane
Wet with rage and longing,
An aborted child’s malformed soul
Whimpering from hell,
The doors that swing open
Once every century,
The familiar scent of doom
Which stings and intoxicates the nostrils
Intoxicates and stings as the scent
Quivers on its way to the open world
Where everything is muffled, real,
And painfully grotesque
In an effort to imitate reality.
His visions are no longer his
By the time he sees them come into play
Within shadows upon shadows
Burning black with each graceful interplay.
“One day, I will be god,” he says
With nostalgic tenderness
As he couples with the myth that is eternity.
Kristine Ong Muslim’s publication credits/recent sales include Star*Line, Dreams & Nightmares, Kenoma, The Fifth Di, The Martian Wave, The Horror Express, Between Kisses, Revelation, Jupiter SF, The Dark Krypt, Electric Velocipede, Dead Letters, Wicked Hollow, Penumbric, Flesh and Blood, Black Petals, Midnight Street, Seasons in the Night, Night to Dawn, Trunk Stories, and many others.