My tears are flowing

for I have lost another sibling

of the hundred and fifty something

who slept in the same bedrooms

bathed in the same bathrooms

and sat in the same classrooms

We listened, or not, to the same teacher

watched the same movies in the same theater

and fantasized over the same Matron’s daughter

or the same ice-kacang server

at the stall by the river

We felt our scoldings all together

whether or not there was a scolder

for a midnight stint of football fever

an unscheduled drill without a fire

a flame in the store from a careless smoker

an over-creative plasticine sculpture

climbing up the laboratory louvre

to peek at specimens for the lab paper

or sneaking up the squash court ladder

to peek at Miss so-and-so and the doctor

Though any one misdemeanor

had only one perpetrator

who sometimes got caught and thereafter

had to face the cane of the headmaster

we all celebrated with silent cheer

as if the misdeed of the doer

was an accomplishment of the batch altogether

just as every good deed of any one or two

whose acclaim was shared by all of us too

Brothers we were back then

brothers we will be to the end

for we shared more than a school deemed good

it was the last transition to adulthood

like twins who shared a womb

in the formative months to infancy

and separated upon birth in the last trimester

for 2 years we shared a womb

in the formative years to maturity

and separated upon graduation in the last semester

Thirty-three years have gone by

and how many we were exactly is hard to remember

but names we still remember

and faces we still remember

though sometimes not both together

but we will forget never

every applause and every boo

for a triumph or a joke-boring true

was a celebration of the bonding glue

and the macho way of saying…

… I love you.

In loving memory of our departed brothers

Abdul Rahman Aziz, Sc 2

Abdullah Ismail, Sc 1

Amiruddin Kassim, Sc 1

Azhari Husin, Sc 3

Azmi Tambi Chik, Sc 1

Mohd Danial Yahya, Sc 3

Mohd Kassim Junit, Tech 1

Mohd Zaki Sulaiman, Tech 1

Ros Sazali Shaari, Sc 1

Razlan Yunan, Arts

Zakaria Ismail, Tech 2

Wan Hamizan, Sc 3

May Allah bless us all

whether departed or still in transition

and protect us in the shade of His big tree.