Allison Thung

Allison Thung is a Singaporean poet and project manager. She is the author of Reacquaint (kith books, 2024) and Things I can only say in poems about/to an unspecified 'you' (Hem Press, 2025). Her poetry has been published in ANMLY, Heavy Feather Review, Cease, Cows, and elsewhere, and nominated for Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and Best Small Fictions. Allison is an Assistant Poetry Editor for ANMLY. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @poetrybyallison, or at www.allisonthung.com.

Easy read of the poems in the images above:

Unseen

The poem is written such that most of it is faded and struck-through, except for 5 words that are stark black and un-struck, drawing your eye to read: do not look at me.

The poem in its entirety reads:

All I ask of you is that you do not merely look at, but truly see me. Perceive me, in all my strengths and failings. Saturate your eyes with me, till I brim like hot tears that promise to fall, only to reverse cry me into your brain. Feel me wash over every ridge, and collect in every groove, so that all thoughts that follow filter through my existence, and all acts after consider me.

(Apologies in advance)

Breathe manual. Blink heavy. Return the nose to the eyeline. Move the lips unnaturally, so they parch and catch on the teeth by conversation’s end. These arms—are they swinging too much or too little? These feet—should they land heel or toe first? Run fingertips over the cuticles, over the free edges, over and over. Then when awareness turns to hyperawareness turns to self- consciousness, ask—have I been human for even a moment in this life?