aku laju ke masa yang nun | I continued to the time over yonder
February 12, 2026
This piece is part of the Imagined Histories folio, which features art by Devyn Mañibo.
Lewat Rotterdam Tengah Malam
Lewat rotterdam tengah malam
kukira hatta bersamaku di kereta
bagai dua siswa sekolah mula
tempuh ujian akhir tahun:
ia menulis sajak, aku gubah sejarah
tak boleh saling contek
Kami pandang langit, cari-cari inspirasi
rasanya baru saja bintang jatuh
memintas kanal dan puing kota
menemani peti-peti buku kiriman
di samudera tanah jajahan
jauh ke bandanaira;
melesat lewati kereta seratus kilo per jam
yang bikin lampau kota rotterdam
Puisi yang ditulis hatta
tak kutahu tentang apa
Sejarah yang aku buat
entah akan akhir bagaimana
Kami tak punya apa-apa
kecuali nasib buruk yang tanpa jemu
menikung langkah di setiap kesempatan
Dilanda kebosanan, diam-diam kami tukar karya
membacanya dalam hati
tak henti membacanya dalam hati:
berdua memisah arah
ia turun di stasiun, aku laju ke masa yang nun
puisi kami, sejarah kami
entah akan pernah sejalan lagi
Passing through Rotterdam on a Night Train
Passing through Rotterdam that night
felt like Hatta was there beside me:
two fresh-off-the-boat undergrads
on our final exams
Hatta chose to compose a poem, and I history
Don’t you dare cheat, he said to me
Investigated the sky for inspirations
felt like a star just fell
cutting through the canal and the city ruins
we sat with our book baggage
brought from our house of water—their colony
stretching as far as Banda Naira
In the High-Speed Line, we left
behind a war-torn Rotterdam
the poem Hatta wrote
had no idea if it’d be about me
the piece of history I made
had no endings for us both
Came from dust,
all we had was a track of bad luck
persistent to make us fall
Bored with the trip
we swapped our opus for the night
read each other in silence,
incessantly read each other in silence:
then we parted ways
Hatta got out in that station
I continued to the time over yonder
our poem, our history
no clue if they would ever align
again
