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THE VASTNESS OF THE SEA WITHIN YOUR CHEST
Image Source: IG@lenimarlina_starmoonsun
Poem by Leni Marlina
Within your chest, a boundless ocean scripts its history
in briny ink, unbounded by horizons.
Your waves roam freely,
scouring the surface for fragments
discarded by time.
Your bones are coral,
anchors in currents that have lost their way.
Your shoulders, twin lighthouses,
guiding the whispers of secret streams.
Your hands can cradle dew,
or shatter glass with a gentle sweep.
Your eyes are wilderness,
forests of voice nested in their crystalline depths.
Your silence is a labyrinth,
drawing shadowed roots
into fathoms unseen.
Your wounds are stars,
struck fast in the veins of your being.
Your tears rise, evaporate,
becoming mist that enfolds the breath of the earth.
Your hair is the ripple of night,
shimmering without moonlight.
Your voice is an echo,
sweeping valleys where secrets linger.
Your heart is an ocean,
weighing the tides of quiet.
Your lungs, forests of water,
nurture words that are never spoken.
You are no ordinary soul;
you are the current itself,
holding the ripple without surrendering its depth.
Your words are mirrors,
reflecting silence, longing, resonance.
The solitude you embrace
is an instrument,
not a prison.
Within your chest, the sea waits
for divers who dare to hold their breath alone,
to clutch waves that twist through time,
crossing layers of shadow,
becoming companions to the dew that has lost its way.
The ocean within you beckons those
who can read its ripples,
who dive, who grasp,
yet remain unshaken by the clamorous world.
Falling stars cling to your skin,
a map for those who can decipher silence.
The mist you exhale
tames the wind,
so it does not rush.
Night itself bows to your depth.
Currents sway to your rhythm.
And know this:
true power is born from silence
that holds itself steadfast.
The waves in your chest are history,
unwritten, unclaimed.
Their sands are secret,
awaiting those who can touch them.
Your oceanic currents are friends
to the few who understand their movement.
You are an ocean,
bearing the weight of the world in a single breath,
a net that measures every echo,
a pulse awaiting a companion
to journey through the adventure of its waves.
Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, 2025
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SILENT BODY
Poem by Leni Marlina
You were born from the crowd—
from a thousand mouths clamoring to be thunder,
and from the start, you knew:
the loudest often carry the emptiest echo.
Within your chest, language gathers like black birds,
seeking skies calm enough to take flight.
You hold your tongue, and the world begins to watch—
for silence is always older than sound.
In the eyes that behold you,
there is a mirror.
Within that mirror,
your body refuses to bow.
You are no ordinary shadow;
you are a shadow that refuses to be born in the light.
Power is not in clenched fists,
but in the mastery of postponing the eruption—
the one who restrains fire, commands it.
And then you understand:
silence is not defeat,
it is the earth inscribing law upon the sky.
Calm is not passive,
it is the consciousness that has traversed anger.
And when, at last, your voice rises—
the world halts,
for a voice that emerges from silence
cannot be denied.
Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, 2025
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YOU CHOOSE WHO DESERVES TO HEAR
Poem by Leni Marlina
You remain silent, yet the world trembles
in your throat.
There are words struggling to be born,
yet you lull them back
into the cradle of their own restraint.
Your lips have turned to stone.
Your breath feels like iron pressing against your chest.
To speak too much now
would scatter your voice into dust.
Today, it is enough to remain silent.
Yet even the tilted earth leans toward you.
This quiet is heavy,
like a night reluctant to die.
You do not refuse to speak—
you simply choose
who is worthy of listening.
Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, 2025
/4/
MIST OF MYSTERY
Poem by Leni Marlina
You are not a secret—
you simply refuse to become news.
They ask questions—you smile.
They grow suspicious—you vanish further into shadow.
Let them guess;
the only mystery is a body
that cannot be stolen.
Live for a while within the mist—
there,
you can be anyone,
without the frantic race
for the spotlight of the world.
Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, 2025
/5/
CHOOSING TO BE A WET STONE
Poem by Leni Marlina
Anger comes knocking.
You open the door, meet its gaze—
then close it gently, deliberately.
Outside, the storm screams,
inside, the heartbeat becomes prayer.
They wish for you to burn,
to turn to ash.
But you choose to be a wet stone—
silent, cold,
yet alive.
No force can move you,
except the gentle drop of water
that walks with you,
splitting itself to carry your secret
to those who have remained loyal.
Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, 2025
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THE GOLDEN BRIDGE OF TRUST
Poem by Leni Marlina
Do not promise the sky.
Light a small candle—and keep it burning.
Grand promises shatter beneath a single breath.
The small ones endure, etched in bone.
Come, fulfill the promise you once delayed—
that alone.
Yet the world remembers.
Padang, Sumbar, Indonesia, 2025
/7/
THE ROOT OF TRUTH
Poem by Leni Marlina
You do not have time to be sweet.
You are not sugar—
you are a root: bitter,
yet holding the tree upright.
They arrive bearing smiles,
and you meet them with eyes of honesty—
and they leave.
It does not matter.
What remains is always the truest.
Stand alone.
The earth keeps turning,
even if they do not witness you upholding the truth.
Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, 2025
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YOUR SMILE IS NO DECEPTION
Poem by Leni Marlina
Your hands are soft,
yet your bones are steel.
Your words are gentle,
yet their edges draw blood.
You are polite—yet never submissive.
They press against you;
you gaze back until their pressure shatters itself.
Your smile is no deception—
it is precise,
unyielding,
terrifying to anyone who denies the truth.
Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, 2025
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KEEP YOUR WOUND
Poem by Leni Marlina
Do not pour your heart upon the street,
lest strangers trample your tenderness.
Keep your wound.
Let it harden—become stone.
From that stone, raise your palace of light.
When they ask of you—
smile.
Let time speak in your stead;
time has sharper truth than tongues.
Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia 2025
/10/
SEEK NOT A MOMENTARY VICTORY
Poem by Leni Marlina
They are mistaken.
You know.
Yet your tongue holds still—
you refuse to let rage
spill its red wine upon the ground.
Let them learn
from the fall they sowed.
No master equals the quiet shame
that needs no witness.
Do not chase a triumph
that shrivels by dawn.
Answer no hollow drums.
You will conquer
by your silence.
Let them live
under the weight of their own echo,
if they still dare whisper
their trembling guilt.
Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia 2025
/11/
THE RHYTHM OF COMMAND
Poem by Leni Marlina
Your pace is slow—
and the world bends to match it.
Your voice, a low flame—
yet every door
unlatches when you speak.
Do not hasten.
Time already walks beside you.
All things will arrive,
as rivers find the waiting sea.
Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, 2025
/12/
A CROWN FORGED OF A THOUSAND RESTRAINED FIRES
Poem by Leni Marlina
Now you understand:
not every war requires a field.
Some are fought
in the wide chambers of the chest,
where fury is held—
not spilled.
You stand at the edge of time.
The universe holds its breath;
for once, stillness takes your side.
You have conquered the invisible:
the tremor in your hand,
the surge in your pulse,
the word that almost leapt—
you tamed it into light.
Your calm is no disguise.
It is a crown
forged of a thousand times
you swallowed fire.
You no longer chase honor;
honor itself kneels
at your unshaken feet.
In your gaze,
flame discovers glass
and becomes illumination.
You are no mortal echoing noise—
you are the echo
that forged its own form.
When you depart,
the sky does not bow—
it pauses,
remembering
how silence can birth freedom’s power.
Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, 2025
————–
About the Poems
This collection of poems above was born from cherished memories shared with fellow alumni during the Alumni Networking Dinner in Padang (Australia Awards) in 2025.
It also commemorates the heartfelt moment of presenting my two works — the single-author poetry anthology Beloved Teachers (2025) and English Stories for Literacy (2025) — to the Australian Ambassador to Indonesia, Mr. Rod Brazier.
The event took place on Monday, 29 September 2025, at Hotel Mercure Padang, from 6:30 p.m. until late evening, flowing with warmth, remembrance, and gratitude.
The poems within this book reflect the quiet depths and luminous strength drawn from those moments — where friendship, reflection, and silence found their voice.
About the Poet: Leni Marlina
Leni Marlina, born in Baso, Agam, West Sumatra, and residing in Padang, is a poet, writer, and lecturer whose life moves between the horizons of art and education.
She has served since 2006 as a lecturer in the English Literature Study Program, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Padang (UNP) — inspiring generations of students to discover meaning through words, silence, and imagination.
Leni began writing poetry during her undergraduate years in 2000, creating Langit — a private collection that marked the beginning of her literary journey.
Throughout her Master’s Degree in Writing and Literature in Melbourne (2011-2013), she continued to compose thousands of private poems — intimate reflections of thought, identity, and emotion on environmental awareness, humanity and peace.
In 2024, she began sharing her poetry collections publicly through various digital platforms, opening her once-private sea of words to readers across the world.
Her recent works include single-author bilingual poetry collection such as “The Beloved Teachers”, “L-BEAUMANITY (Love, Beauty, and Humanity)”, and the English Stories for Literacy trilogy — works that blend devotion, language, and humanity in graceful union.
Beyond her role as an educator and poet, she is an active member of writers organization of SatuPena West Sumatra (since 2022) and participates in multiple national and international literary communities.
Her writings — both creative and critical — appear in local, national, and global media, including Suara Anak Negeri News and numerous digital literary networks.
As founder and chairperson of several digital social, literacy, and literary movements — PPIPM-Indonesia (Indonesian Poetry Reading and Writing Community), Poetry-Pen International Community (PPIC), Literature Talk Community (Littalk-C), and EL4C (English Language Learning, Literature, and Literacy) — she continues to bridge generations through literature, nurturing a culture of reading, writing, and reflection.
In recognition of her literary commitment, Leni Marlina received the Best Writer 2025 award from SatuPena West Sumatra at the 3rd International Minangkabau Literacy Festival (IMLF-3). She also received the certificate of the ACC International Literary Prize from the President of ACC Shanghai Huiyu International Literary Creative Media Centre (2005) for her outstanding global contributions to literature and education.
For her, writing is both offering and awakening — a lifelong voyage across the boundless sky of words, where poetry becomes both home and horizon.
