Boxes

When Sunday comes
You bring out a box 
filled With Berita Harian 
newspaper you’ve kept for months
so that you make some money with the karang guni man
hopefully

When Sunday came
I brought out a box of
Berita Harian, The Straits Times, TODAY, 
and other flimsy clippings and faded articles
of my existence that my mother kept
all sealed in a box, and I gave it all away to the cleaner
so that they make some money with the karang guni man
hopefully

Memories of my mother
compartmentalize in brown boxes
but the heaviest one came in the smallest of boxes
the one I brought home from the hospital after she died
with her brush and olive oil,
her many colourful tudungs
the floral red pattern she wore during Eid
the plain black she adorns on her Sheng Siong shopping runs
the white one, the last one.

On her mattress, I found strains of fallen hair
which used to be hers
I comb it away
as I imagine myself brushing her hair in the morning
extracting the grey ones as she requested
nitpicking on her greasy scalp
feeling the warmness of her curls
onto these barren hands.

I collect every single strain of hair in a Ziplock bag,
sealing every memory of her in 5 by 5 bag
with air entirely sucked out of it, I wonder:

How can hair feel this heavy?