the spit of sleep deprived brain

what a sentence from a dead man did on a saturday morning

originally posted on my substack page here on JUL 25, 2026

i used to say that i only get to have one week in a month to feel good. about myself, about my life, about my body. i was thinking if it’s the default that women has. and then i thought maybe it’s just me and some undiagnosed conditions in my body. on a better days, i can think of it as something that i can set. like the body clock thing that people talked about. or like the concept of reframing thought. and all that well-being advice you can get for free on the internet.

i’ve been sleep deprived for at least the past month. it’s not that i’m looking for a reason to deny my feeling. because i’m not. but maybe the lack of sleep and the recalibrating that clock in my body have a cost that i need to pay; being emotional. in the sense of simple stuff can heat up my eyes and make me cry. in the shape of huge dark cloud over my head hiding storm inside it.

this morning i woke up at 10am. not by myself. not by the alarm. but by repeated holler of my name. i had my eyes a little swollen and the bright tone of the room pinched my eyeballs. i made my coffee and enjoy a slow-late-morning. in between the gradually clean the house and doing my favorite thing on the weekend, i pick up the book a really good friend gave me as a present. The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. here’s where the roller coaster of that one week in a month thing, the sleep deprived brain, and the clock adjusting self gets her moment.

there was a line on the early pages that talked about childhood.

why didn’t i stay child forever? why didn’t i die there, in one of those moments, caught by my classmates’ mischief and the as-if-unexpected arrival of my teachers? today i can’t do this. today i only have reality that i can’t play with. (the book of disquiet, fernando pessoa)

i instantly got my eyes wet. the way he described the …sharp, useless longing gnawing at me like regret. something in me burnt. my chest felt full of something that i can’t quite name. and i decided to call my mother.

we only talked for less than ten minutes. but what i so urgently feel the need to tell her was that i learned a lot about myself lately. i unlearned a bunch too. i discovered and unfold different things about me. she smiled and said, “now that’s another part of growing up, you’re almost 34 and it’s getting better.”

when the call disconnected, i stared at the ceiling for a bit. i felt the sense of relief but i can still feel this brume—a warm kind—growing thicker inside my chest. i can feel that my heart throb differently. the flow of oxygen is not so smooth from my lungs to the sleep deprived brain. i’m happy. i’m sad. i’m fulfilled. but i believe something is still missing. too.

but it’s true. i learned a lot of new things about myself. for instance, i thought i was afraid of heights. but when i was up the trees in the middle of a forest, Pedra Amarela Campo Base in Alcabideche, Portugal, i was so light-footed and frisky. putting my one foot in front of the other, swinging on the wired logs and stairs. i walked briskly. like a little monkey whose life was always on the trees. i looked down to the ground, i was high up, and i wasn’t afraid. in fact, the sight of the distance between my head to the ground poured me with the sense of comfort.

Gladiolus Italicus, Gherardo Cibo - BL Add. Ms. 22332

what was that? finding out that you are something else when you always thought the other way around. it did something to me. the same way i found out that apparently, i love cleaning the house while i thought i was having foreboding reaction to the idea of doing chores.

is it the same with realizing that all this time you weren’t that depressed after all.

all you need is a genuine connection, the sense of community, the feeling of being welcomed and accepted where you can be yourself and not afraid of showing parts of yourself that you’ve been hiding for more than half your life?

so “one week in a month is all i can get to feel good” was a myth. i can narrate my life better in my head. i can take something dreamy that is not a part of my daily reality as part of my life too. now that i write it, organizing all of this thought, this very second, the brume inside my chest started calming down. the cloud over my head is fading away.

i hope this stays. like the memories i keep from childhood. like the warmth that i keep with me from my short time in the place i never thought i would ever step my foot at. like the grit i have engraved on my soul.

i hope you can get what i’m trying to say with this long stream of consciousness. i hope you feel what it feels like to be 34 and have a lot to learn still but genuinely being appreciative of everything.

She's That Kind, Said Jenna

In a perfect world, the door she just slammed wouldn’t wake her brother from his sleep. The house would be hers, and she wouldn’t be having an upstairs neighbor that let their seven-year-old kid run around giving the ceiling those loud thumps at 11 p.m. on a Sunday night. But this wasn’t it. Not a perfect world, nor was it the one where she imagined a wise female empress ruling the system. This is the one where she had to walk home really paying attention to where she put her steps because she wouldn’t want to be stepping on a dog’s turd. Real story. This is the world where she only took short breaths, afraid of catching the familiar scent in the city, the pungent ammonia smell in every corner.

Jenna pulled her hands from the red face. It was obvious that anger had formed as a shade of magenta on her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she let out a sigh along with the apology.

“What happened?” Heru dragged a chair on their IKEA dining set.

“I’m the one who should be asking the question,” she took a seat in front of her brother. Heru scratched his chin.

“I broke Tedi’s hand.”

“That part, I heard. Why?”

“He said you’re a bitch.”

Jenna scoffed. Laughed. And coughed. “Excuse me?”

“A bitch, Jenna. He said you’re a bitch?”

She grabbed a mug with I Heart Bali and sipped the coffee she left from the morning. “Well, I am. For many reasons,” Jenna let out another snort out of her mouth. The coffee she hadn’t fully swallowed spilled. “Oh, for God’s sake!”

“Come on. Be an adult for once,” Heru studied his sister’s face. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why didn’t you show her the mirror? You’re not following the deal.”

Jenna dipped her finger inside the cold coffee. She put the finger on her mouth and tutted.

“But what is Tedi’s problem with that?”

“Because you didn’t show the mirror to that human, Tedi’s sister has to work hard on fanning the other human. It was so hard for his sister to keep that human sane the whole time. And you, failing to open that other human’s eyes makes it harder for Tedi’s sister. Okay?”

She raised her chair and walked to the human-sized mirror in their entryway. Her eyes traced the outline of her own shape. Her horns grew taller these days. Jenna tossed a look at Heru.

“You know why I let my human be blind to her own image?” Heru shook his head. “Alyssa’s human was the mirror, you know? If the confession she made doesn’t make my human see it, then she’s just that kind. Alright?”

“What kind?”

Jenna walked back to the dining table. She scanned her brother’s back. The wing had already shown.

“The kind that makes other humans have a bad feeling just by the idea of having an immediate proximity with her. The kind that makes other humans cry on their way home. The kind that makes other humans pray so that their loved ones wouldn’t have to face the same situation she caused. The kind that humans are being taught so that they can prevent themselves from turning into that version. The kind that they just have to accept that they are, existing. Maybe so that others can learn. Or compare. Or, I don’t know, talk about it and feel better about themselves?”

“Yeah, what kind is that?”

She sat in front of her brother and nudged his chin. She stared deep into his eyes and let her raven-colored teeth peek from behind her lips.

“The kind that I call my achievement.”

Strangers in My Commute

I would call myself an observer. A passive observer. I watch people. I judge them in my heart. And most days than not, I feel deep sympathy for strangers. I like to narrate their life in my head. Like talking in their voice as they walk in front of me while we share the air. Providing a voice over their heads while I'm sitting on the train like now.

The sun is golden at this hour. The rays are closer to orange than red. Oftentimes, I'd romanticize life when the sky is looking this clear and the sun is being nice like this.

A guy standing in front of me is wearing a neat white shirt and navy pants. His bag looks heavy. He must be carrying a laptop inside. Could he be an insurance agent who just convinced a retired teacher to renew her policies? But then what is the story behind those two lines between his brows? A stress? A loud thoughts? Oh maybe he’s an over thinker who thinks that when people are whispering near him they are probably talking about the way he talks. He looks like a Rico. Yes. Let’s name him Rico. Rico might not be aware of this, but he’s a lucky guy with a nicely shaped forehead. It’s rare for a guy to have that shape that compliments their look.

I shift my gaze towards the girl standing in front of the train door. She has big headphones on. Like the size of each pad is probably one fourth the size of her head. She nods in rhythm. I look over her feet. She’s tapping it. The parachute trousers she’s wearing have an extra pocket behind the knee fold. She probably is a customer service agent working for a company that makes their way around to not give an increment this year. The girl looks like the name “Sandra” fits her. Sandra probably reads books. Maybe two books in a year because during her commute she decides to scroll on tiktok. The way her shoulder is looking tense makes me think of a financial struggle she carries. Oh. To be young and trapped in the system!

I sigh. Give my eyes a break and watch the city line moving on the window. I love to imagine how the train is standing still and the world around it is the one that’s moving. The sun has gone lower. The cumulonimbus visible behind the buildings is now grazed with thick orange that looks like the margin of a bonfire sight.

I visualize a string of light popping from on top of my head and connecting me to Sandra. “Sometimes you may envy people for not having money problems. Some of those people, well, they envy you for having money as your only problem. Remember that.” I whisper in my mind. Hoping that the string of light can relay the message to Sandra.

The train door opens. This is my stop. I close my note book where I jot down the observations and walk outside. I put my ear pod in to drown the thought that I have, that my observer could not guess.

A Dreamer’s Dream for A Dream

I’m a dreamer. Not the kind where I have a dream to build a house where I can put all my family in one place—so that I don’t have to take a flight just to spend a few days with them. I’m a dreamer in the sense that when I go to sleep, my mind will start presenting bits and pieces of my life into a sequence and roll them with some editing and choices of genre. That kind of dream.

I had all kinds of dreams; One night, I was dreaming about a cooking school that got bombed (I can’t really tell this one now because of The Last Harvest). I wrote it down in my dream journal. A few months later, I wrote an opening scene for that dream in a first person POV. I wrote it down with a mechanical pencil I just bought, in a notebook I felt like I don’t really like. So once I finished writing–probably got distracted and forgot what I was doing–and put the book down, I forgot about it until last year. That’s when I realize that this could be something, and that the story is too big to be abandoned and not being loud about.

Now I’m dreaming of making this dream into a book. I got a hundred and fifty pages in the draft now. And I’m so proud of it. But that is not the reason why I write this piece. I want to tell a story, about a story, that teaches me about some lesson.

Lesson Number 1

So the world has been crazy since the beginning of 2026 if not since the last decades. I think we as human beings, collectively are experiencing–what I would call–an unfriendly weather inside our head. Well, let me just speak for myself. I’ll rephrase that: I have been experiencing dark clouds inside my head for quite a while. And for some reason, I tend to forget that my soul needs something to channel the anger, the grief and everything else into. Which in my case, writing.

When I started working on The Last Harvest, the cloud in my head started getting thinner and a little bit of light started creeping in. It's not so dark nowadays. It’s not like the storm is brewing inside it anymore. So writing, as I knew before, and had to relearn the hard way, is the simple and cheap cure. It’s a tool. To get through commuting without breaking any windows. To get through the day without screaming good profanities to strangers on the side walk. To get through the week without feeling the pull to find the lake where all the poets went to die.

The lesson mostly is for me though. Maybe it can work for someone else too. If writing is not your cup of tea, just believe me when I say that it works all the same with whatever your tea is. Simply put, art is the way.

Lesson Number 2

I find myself rushing in everything that I do. I rush myself leaving the bed when I wake up. I rush myself to make coffee in the morning to jump start the routines. I rush producing my words when I talk. Sometimes it makes me sound blubbering. I rush at everything I know that it’s not healthy. My nerves must’ve been fried by now. I don’t know.

But this rushing tendency is not only for physical activities or routines. I tend to rush my stories as well. Like when I start something, I find that I can’t wait for the end product. It makes me want to do things quickly, so I abandoned the development. Most of the time. This is one of the reasons why I can never finish a whole story without getting distracted on doing another piece. I just can’t wait.

The Last Harvest is different. Maybe because I love the character so much I don’t want to ruin their arc. Maybe the story is so dear to my heart I want it to be good so that I start taking my time. I enjoy the process more. I take my reading sessions about corn as the process of writing. When I watch the storm from my apartment window and internalize the spit of rain touching the glass, I take it as a writing process too. When I mindfully sit and listen to my loved ones talking, I call it a writing process too.

The Last Harvest, my third baby, taught me something important. That writing is not all about sitting and running my fingers over the keyboard to produce ten thousands of words into pages. Writing is me. When I wake up every morning and think about Suri and her sketches, it’s writing. When I put my head on the pillow and try to sleep and the voice of Alex plays in my head, it’s writing too. Taking notes of my friend Daniel’s insights and jokes is also part of the process.

Patience, taking time, and enjoying the process, is what I believe will make The Last Harvest Better than anything I’ve ever written.

Lesson Number 3

In between my work days and the weekend, last week, I made time to listen to a podcast of a friend. A podcast where he narrates my poems and prose. It has been years since the last time I heard or read the piece. So when I heard Reza Romano pronounce every word from my poem with a little bit of music in the background, I found myself crying. I thought to myself “who wrote that?” Because it sounds so beautiful and honest. And then I remember how I felt when I wrote the words, I wasn’t proud of what I made. I thought it was a mediocre line of yearning. But after spending years away from it, I can see it from afar and remove the criticism in my head when I listen to it, from someone else’s mouth.

The lesson was, we, I, can be the worst critics of our own creation. We think we can judge and look for the worst part of something, because we think we’re not hurting ourselves in the process. We’re not being fair to ourselves about our creation. Most of the time. At least in my case.

With The Last Harvest, I try to just pour myself into the pages. I just write everything as honestly as I can and not reread everything before I put myself away for sometime. The Last Harvest, as important as it is to me, taught me that to give birth to a good piece of art, I need to separate the editor and the writer in my head. They each can have their own time to be activated.

I wrote this for me. For someone like me, who happens to find this page in the middle of a struggle making their dream come true. For someone looking for a way to bring their imagination bleeding their way into our world. So that we remember, it’s not just about the end product, it’s about the process and what it taught you. Us.

The Songs That Raised Me Still Know How to Comfort Me

Have you ever felt a choke in your throat that can only be relieved by warm drops falling from the corner of your eyes? Or do you ever experience the big lump burning inside your chest but instead of hurting, it makes your whole body feel like in that strange, graceful trance nostalgia brings?

When I decided to sit down and write this, I had this overwhelmingly good–nostalgic–warm feeling that resulted in tears shed. Not once, not twice.

Before bed, I was humming a tune and started singing, “Susan… Susan… Besok gede mau jadi apa…” and had this serious will to find the whole discography of Kak Ria Enes and Susan on music streaming platforms. I was so absurdly happy when I found Kak Ria Enes and Susan on Apple music. So then I decided to listen to my favorite song, Susan Masuk Sekolah before really trying to sleep.

Let me take you back to 12 hours before this morning (when I wrote this).

I didn’t expect that the first tune of that song would make me cry. The kind of cry that you don’t understand why. The kind of cry that makes your heart filled with this happiness but it feels far away. The kind that makes you feel full, but empty. The kind that makes you long for something, but you just couldn’t point out what specific thing is that longing for.

And then I was like, okay, maybe I’m in quite a hormonal imbalance and decided to listen to Kak Ria and Susan when I’m in a good state. I betrayed that commitment because on my way to work this morning, I listened to them. The whole Volume 3 and Susan Masuk Sekolah album. I knew this would put a lump in my throat and choke me with these feelings that I think I’m familiar with but not sure how to handle without crying like a baby.

I was probably around 2-3 years old when I first listened to Kak Ria Enes and Susan. I kept getting back to the old blue cassette when I was 5 to 7 years old. I remember how me and my older brother would sit around our old fading black Polytron tape player to listen to it and dance to Si Monod song.

But returning to it at 32, on a bus to work, felt different. And I’m not sure if this will work the same way with other 90s kids, but for me, my Susan moment was so therapeutic in the most nostalgic way. It lights up my drained exhausted soul. It sparks my sleeping hope back to life. It gives me this euphoric feeling because I smiled from ear to ear from the lyrics and Susan’s behavior. It makes me feel calm through Kak Ria’s soothing voice.

And then when I stopped, it brings me to this conclusion:

Listening to your childhood songs as an adult is another way to get in touch with your inner child. And when you can make a good reflection while in that state, you heal another part of that scared little kid inside of you. In my case, I get to see something in life, from the perspective of a brave–full of energy–little me. At least for the whole duration of Punya Cita-cita song.

Now I’m about to turn 33 in a week. And I think I will get back to Kak Ria and Susan once in a while for every time I feel like the world has given me too much stuff to think about. Because it will take me back to that time; the time when I don’t really understand how the world works that it makes everything possible in my mind and because of that I get to dream of every little dream I might have without the fear of losing it in a blink of an eye.

Oh to be a kid and not knowing. To be a kid, and believe that the world is gonna treat you right. To be a kid, and think you’re going to make it when you’re old enough. To be a kid, inside a 33 years old body and still have that faith–that everything is going to work out in my favor.

The Last Harvest | chapter 1: The Graduation part. 2

I used to like rain. The sound of it. The rain of September, especially. Now we can't really hear the sound of it sputtering on the rooftop. But the sound of rain falling on billions of corn leaves makes a pretty good substitute these days. It’s just not from here. It's just not from here, not from this building where I have to wear the white coat at least ten hours a day. And yet still, the sight of rain can make a decent amount of calm when I get to see how it makes the sky foggy. How it makes everything slow down, even stopped. At least for a while.

Just this morning, without hesitation, that new kid Zaul brings to the school made another noise. The screeching sound that swallows only time I can get the peace around the building. All just because she keeps on forgetting about the snap. The stupid snap.

I was passing the main gate when the alarm triggered by her. I think she saw me stealing a glimpse of that embarrassing scene. I have no clue now whether my success in avoiding eye contact with her will make her reluctant to approach me to walk together to the lab. And it’s not that I hate her, I just don’t like having her making sounds with the entire existence of her. Even when she’s not talking.

Oh, here she comes with that squeaky sound of her rubber sole shoes. I don’t quite get why Zaul seems to be fond of her. Is it because she's from the area where rumor says Zaul originated? Because after all these months, I doubt that her sharp grading skill is going to be helpful without our entire work.

“Hey,” she started, slowing down to follow my pace.

”Another morning, another forgotten snap.”

“Yeah, how did you manage to always make it look natural and easy?”

I saw her fixing the fold on her sleeves. A black line on her inner arm sneaking from under the messy fold she made.

“Well I have been here longer, haven’t I?”

I can hear that she tries to keep her reaction down now with that audible nod in between the annoying sound of her soles scratching the floor.

I keep focusing on my steps, trying not to imitate the sound of Suri’s soles. Making sure I maintain an appropriate social distance while we walk straight to the lab. I know for a fact that the conservation of linear momentum dictates that any two bodies moving on a parallel path will eventually suffer small gravitational fluctuations—a measurable pull. To counteract the inevitable, minor drift that would narrow the gap between us before we hit the lab door, I subtly increase my velocity, ensuring I leave Suri precisely a meter behind.

“What will you present on graduation day?” She asks in a breathless voice. Proving that she’s trying to match my pace.

“I’m still figuring it out,” I said without turning my face and maintaining my movement velocity. “What about you?”

Oh my acres of corn farm. Why would you ask that? Now she is going to think that I care enough about that work of hers that I don’t really understand and that she must think I’m being friendly now.

“You know, same. I’m still figuring it out.”

Now her squeaking step stops. I turn my head before I open the door. She seems to try to sort some words in her head.

”What is it?”

”I was gonna ask you this yesterday in the field. I need your help,” she paused, avoiding my stare.

“If, and this is only if you want and if I’m allowed to ask. I really need your help to assess the board that I’m planning to showcase. It’s not big on variables, I think you can give me some numbers just by giving it a glance.”

The sensor is beeping following my snap on the door.

”What kind of board?”

Now she’s walking towards me. The door is opening. I give the room a little peek and I see Suri is now standing next to me. I can smell a hint of amber from the heat of her presence.

“Show me later. Now I have some reports to finish.”

Oh, not another slipped word, caused, I believe, by my brain pausing there from the scent of whatever perfume she wears. I can see the line on each side of the corner of her lips forming. My lord, she's smiling.

“Thank you,” she mumbled a little with a light nod and walked past me to the lab.

”Alex!” Zaul calls from behind the big table. I show him a little upward curve from my lips. And a little nod. For some reason that I don’t know of.

I have been here for a while. Exactly like what I told Zaul’s little pet earlier. I may have been the daughter of Leandra, the precious founding member of Cytrus. But my presence here isn't because the place was reserved for me. In fact, the great Leandra was always against the idea of me joining the force. Again, for some reason that I don’t know of.

When I graduated junior high in Jayapura, Cytrus was already the big conversation across the nation. Mom would always have these big bright eyes with pupils widened when she talked about it. But when I asked what exactly she did with Cytrus, she always just threw me a smile and said “You don’t need to understand it now”.

When she always leaves me for weeks for work and promises to come back sooner than she did, I keep asking what it was that she couldn't neglect, I would get, 'That’s why you don’t need to know, my little turtle,' for an answer. And it was when I was 17 that I demanded her to stay longer for the holiday which she did but just until midnight. She left for the opening of this very building that I’ve been coming to for the last couple of years. That was the day that she started to have more time with me but everything has changed because apparently my dear mother is the boss of my boss’ boss’ boss. I was the daughter of Cytrus president. And yet I never knew what Cytrus really is. Well not until last year.

Now my mom is not so much in the picture because she is too busy to stay in one country for long let alone a town. Last week, when we had our routine call, my mom was in Cytrus Belarus. She asked if I would consider abandoning this academy and take another year to study in Minsk. And that was asked while she was chewing on the first yogurt flavored gum that her team in Cytrus Belarus made. I mean that was amazing, to have achieved this state of development in flavoring. Well, considering how bad it got since the last typhoon affected the essence we can extract from the kernel.

”You will like it here. It’s not just about the study. I mean you can meet your cousin and join him in that tour you always want to get to know more of and maybe you’ll consider then about joining Cytrus,” she said.

”Mom, that was me being a teenager. I’m grown up now, I don’t care about some band that sings about the climate and how bad our soil is.”

”But I won’t help you with anything about Cytrus,” she was still trying to talk me down.

”I don’t mind because I’m in the academy now even without your help. You know I got the brain of the great Leandra on me, so I don’t really need your help.” I was trying hard to hide my smile when I saw how my mom reacted to what I said. The curve slipped my control.

“Well, in that case I don’t need to remind you to go to bed early, do I?”

”No you don’t Mom. I love you,”

“I love you back turtle. I’ll see you next week.”