‘i just have a lot of feelings you know.’
– 2016
a feeling is a thin place,
sometimes the thumb
over an unread message,
a loathing that loathes
itself. at times it is an elation,
precarious, left on an
apartment floor. some
times we wrap it in a
faraway place: the edge
of a remembered petal,
the groans for an unkept
body, the crunch of
desolate lands. at
times we swallow it,
just as it bursts into
shape, sour behind the
throat. and sometimes,
when it is just right to hold,
it is luminous, shifting,
like a marble.
Jonathan Chan is a writer, editor, and graduate of the University of Cambridge. Born in New York to a Malaysian father and South Korean mother, he was raised in Singapore, where he is presently based. He is interested in questions of faith, identity, and creative expression. He has recently been moved by the work of Suji Kwock Kim, Henri Nouwen, and Md Mukul Hossine. His writing has appeared in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, 聲韻詩刊 Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, The Shanghai Literary Review, the jfa human rights journal, The Foundationalist, and Synergy: The Journal of Contemporary Asian Studies.
Website: www.jonbcy.wordpress.com