Sing Lit Station
A Platform Where Writers And Readers Meet
0

Moving People With Words

Poems on the MRT

Unidentifiable Object by ArunDtiha

 

We come covered in mother blood, belonging to her
how snow belongs to the mountain it touches,
how rain knows the river which cradles it.
We curl into the nook of the womb;
fed creamy whispers and umbilical dreams
then burst from the husk to fall on the dirt,
the solid flat of the earth, warm and real,
cold and tangible

like the knives they use
to cut us out when we don't belong anymore
in that belly cocoon, stewing in sacred juice.
We are doctored early, planted by many;
we are flowers plucked from the stalk
by fingers more powerful than ours
and our future is decided by those
who will tell us they are the gatekeepers,
see not everyone is allowed to belong where they are born,
there are always those who draw lines disgusied as words—
race, religion, nationality, cultural identity,
"Where are you really from?"
“...but your English is so good!”

I am from an island of immigrants,
came sailing towards an iridescent future,
came beating wings into a sunrise sky,
in Singapore the streets are so shiny
it’s hard to look people in the eyes,
in Singapore we dream of life outside the box
since most of us live stacked in boxes;
tiptoe at the edges so we don’t plunge into the unknown,
in Singapore even the trees are accounted for
with an online portal, roots plugged into the grid where
each leaf sees its place, each person knows their category,
Angsana, Tembusu, Flame Tree, Rain Tree,
Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian,
yet all Singaporean, possessed by birthplace,
gripped by the fields in which we flower,
planted in rows to stay within borders

but what if I was born in an accidental field?
What if my parents were introduced species,
my petals the smell of distant lands?
What if I am not flower but alien,
an unidentified object with inky skin and wooly hair,
a foreigner in my own country?
What if I am a twinkle sparked by cosmic marbles,
a shiver in some galactic bosom,
the universe poured into a skin-clad jar?

You and I, we were told the earth is made of imaginary lines,
that we all fit within them,
we were told that there is somewhere we belong,
a particular place where our perfume is of use,
a hole in the ground where our flesh is meant to sit
but I have never belonged anywhere except inside this body,
it has taken long enough for me to inhabit these bones,
to grow my own colours and paint my own mind
and even then I am not here or there,
an alien flower in fundamentalist fields,
listening to the voice of a passport tell me my origin,
watching the words on a screen dictate my given name,
an interplanetary organism making peace with the void
belonging to nowhere but the spaces between.

Published in rib/cage (2025)

ArunDitha is a poet and shapeshifter born in Singapore— belonging to a larger universe which has no name. She is frontwoman for the band Mantravine and founding co-organiser at Opens, a para-academic forum which works to catalyse alternative discourse. ArunDitha’s work has been published and performed widely— from Penguin Random House (India) to Guernica Mag (U.S.), from the Barcelona International Poetry Festival to Wonderfruit (Thailand). She is in-residence at the National Gallery Singapore until January 2026.

READ MORE FROM:

 
 
 

Poems on the MRT is an initiative by the National Arts Council, in partnership with SMRT and Stellar Ace. Produced by Sing Lit Station, a local literary non-profit organisation, this collaboration displays excerpts of Singapore poetry throughout SMRT’s train network, integrating local literature into the daily experience of commuters. Look out for poems in English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil in trains on the East-West, North-South and Circle Lines, as well as videos created by local artists and featuring local poets in stations and on trains. The Chinese, Malay, and Tamil poems are available in both the original languages and English. To enjoy the full poems, commuters may read them on go.gov.sg/potm.

Sing Lit StationEnglish