“This piece was written in college and the story it was based on has long since been abandoned.”

“I exiled these poems to my "Retired Poems" folder. These two poems were written as part of an ekphrastic poetry writing challenge I gave myself last year and were abandoned since I wasn't inspired to continue working on them and submit them places.”

“I wrote this poem months ago. It is one of those poems that I feel like the ending is abrupt. So abrupt that the entire poem becomes not coherent enough to form a cohesive thought.”

“Game of tag is one of the poems I wrote in 2020. I always felt insecure because I'm sort of a late bloomer when it comes to writing. 2020 is the year I first write poetry at the age of 20. All of the writer's interviews that I watch, especially those who I considered as heroes, started when they were young (around 9). And so I felt isolated and you know … late for the party. When reading this poem it feels like I can't put the right words to it. I wanted the reader to have the impression of touch being a reminder of being alive, or to seek another person blah blah blah and I can't make it to that. I put this poem down and avoided it for 2 years. The poem sort of came back to me literally one week ago when I'm cleaning my google drive and then tonight I saw your journal (trash to treasure lit) and I said to myself "why not give it a try?".”

“Dragon fruit came to me months ago when my friend showed me the growth stages of dragon fruit in her backyard. Some of the young dragon fruits were damaged by the insects. Then after a while she said that her neighbor is beating their child frequently. I don't feel like sharing this to anyone because it feels like I have no right to speak about something that does not concern me, especially since I grew up from a conservative country where being nosy is frowned upon. For me, the poem itself has a self-defeating voice that doesn't give justice to the topic it wants to address.”

“‘Grief’ is a poem that I wrote shortly after losing my grandmother. I was overseas when I got the news and did not have the chance to fly back to see her one last time, and grief is a musing of how empty I felt, and a contemplation of how little death has affected my life personally. I trashed the piece because I did not think it would be easy to relate to, as most people who have lost people to death react with more grief, and more pain, rather than quiet contemplation and musings.”

“I wrote this poem 2 years ago. It was written out of anger because a big part of my family was being homophobic towards me and my sister. They tried to tell us that all of their bullshit was love. I never posted it cause I know it has a lot of mistakes and it can be hard to read, I'm not even sure if it can be called a poem.”

“I threw away these poems because they 1. Weren't that interesting in a literary sense. The rhymes were boring and it just wasn't that technically interesting. And 2. Because it just felt too personal, like nobody else would really get it. But hey, that's what trash to treasure lit is all about!”

“This poem came about after my mother and I played a game collating words relating to animals. This is the type of useless but fun way we both like to relax. I wrote this poem several years ago. I used to write the odd poem but have since given that up, preferring instead to read poetry. When I found this poem again recently, I realised how much I enjoyed the wordplay involved in crafting it.”

“Saccharine garbage. No point of view. Could have been written by anyone. Didn’t even happen.”