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We Forgot the Ice Cream (A Sestina)

we forgot the ice cream: a sestina
A sestina is a thirty-nine-line poem featuring the intricate repetition of end-words in six stanzas and an envoi. The form is as follows: 1. ABCDEF – 2. FAEBDC – 3. CFDABE – 4. ECBFAD – 5. DEACFB – 6. BDFECA – 7. (envoi) ECA or ACE. The envoi must include the remaining three end-words, BDF, within the three lines so that all six recurring words appear in the final three lines. [ Poets.org ]

***

Summer heat wrapped around them as she caressed the cherries,
silently pulsing in the supermarket aisles. She sipped her drink.
He, too, was thirsty. Someone opened the ice cream
freezer, breathing frost into his pores, but the bar of chocolate
he held had started to melt inside its wrapper. We need some eggs,
she said, for breakfast, and for a soft, fluffy omelet: milk.

The afternoon was charged with sweat. She cradled the milk
close to her chest as if it were something to be cuddled. The cherries
murmured among themselves inside the brown paper bag; six eggs
stirred awake inside their pulp packaging. She offered him her drink,
their fingers brushing. She noticed a trace of melted chocolate
on his wrist and said maybe they should have bought ice cream.

They drifted into her apartment, retreated to the kitchen. The ice cream,
he said he could get it if she wanted. She put down the milk
inside the humming fridge, the bottle inched closer to the chocolate
he had placed near a water-filled bowl for the swimming cherries.
For now, just rest and relax a bit, she said, and have another drink.
She leaned over the counter, leaving there the throbbing eggs.

He asked her if she always had breakfast with eggs.
Only on special days, she said. Now he thought of that ice cream—
he should probably get it—told her this, finished his drink.
Let’s just make it, she said. Sticky and sugary condensed milk,
thick, heavy cream whisked into perfect peaks. With cold, ripe cherries
between their lips, she unwrapped and broke the chocolate.

It was dark outside, the onset of a storm. To curl the chocolate,
slide the scraper at a 45-degree angle, she showed him. The eggs
shuddered as he leaned in, their shoulders touching. A few cherries
slipped from his fingers to the floor, splitting open. The ice cream
needed to freeze overnight. The air crackled with the sweet scent of milk.
She asked if he wanted something else to drink.

A deluge of rain. The condensation on the can of his drink
dripped onto his hand. Around them, curls upon curls of shaved chocolate.
Summer rain, she said, time for something warm. She heated milk
inside a copper pot, sprinkling it with cinnamon. Later, two eggs
burst open from their shells, impatiently waiting for the ice cream
to harden. Two a.m.—the floor was slippery with squashed cherries.

Breakfast was a leisurely pour of milk over coffee to drink
with leftover chocolate, an omelet with four eggs,
burgundy stains of cherries, no trace of ice cream.

hanny
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We Used to Say We Wanted to Be Rock Stars

we used to say we wanted to be rock stars

In our teens, we formed a band. The lineup was based more on who was in our circle than on musical skill. Maybe there was someone you liked, and even if they didn’t play any instruments, surely they could shake the tambourine.

We listened to songs on a duct-taped Sony Walkman that once belonged to someone’s older sibling, rewinding or fast-forwarding by inserting the 2B pencils we had used on multiple-choice exams into the cassette spools so we wouldn’t have to spend money on new ABC batteries from the roadside stall across the parking lot.

We already spent more than we could afford to rent a rehearsal studio at the other end of town. Someone skipped lunch, someone lied about needing a math textbook, someone saved pocket money for two weeks, and someone else had rich parents and paid the rest. The room was damp, the carpet stained, and there was always that smell of cigarettes and wet shoes—even though we weren’t supposed to smoke and had to leave our shoes outside.

Then we started playing.

The drums,
the bass,
the keyboard,
the rhythm,
the lead guitar,
the vocals.

And unlike us—yawning through civics, reading Shoot comics and Sweet Valley Twins novels in biology, writing unsent letters to our crushes in economics, ignoring geography because we didn’t like the stuck-up teacher—this time we were focused, determined, completely immersed. We watched each other for cues, counted under our breath, nodded when we almost got it right, and laughed hysterically when we didn’t. We wished the staff would never knock on the glass and tell us our time was up.

We packed up in a hurry; it was late. Most of us had to be home before our parents did, but we carried the day’s homework in our heads: lyrics to memorize, drum fills to land, guitar solos to smooth out… and tempo—everyone, tempo.

Of course, later in life, we realized we hit the notes hard but not right, that we were often out of tune, off-key, off-tempo—full of far more enthusiasm than competence.

But did that matter on stage, in one corner of the tile-walled school hall—with its uneven platforms, terrible acoustics, flickering lights, and cheap speakers?

One boy gripped the mic too tightly, hoping the girl in the third row would understand this was actually a love letter; one girl, her fingers so used to years of classical piano, ecstatic to play the keyboard far louder than she was ever allowed to at home; one boy at the back, failing almost all of his classes, hit the drums so hard as if he were trying to prove something to himself more than anyone else; one girl, doing her best to shake the tambourine during the chorus because this was the closest she had ever felt to belonging.

We used to say we wanted to be rock stars, but I don’t think we meant the stage, the tours, the lights, the fame, or the applause. I think we meant the moment right before the song starts—when someone counts in, when everyone looks at each other in anticipation and nods, when the air is electrically charged and reverberating with a mix of anxiety and excitement, when, for a second, it feels like something clicks and things might actually come together instead of falling apart.

I think we meant striking a chord with people who resonate with us without translation—who nodded their heads, tapped their feet, clapped along, and heard rhythm where others heard noise; who didn’t shush us or ask us to be smaller, quieter, or better to be loved.

I think we meant those rare moments when time faded out—when your hands moved before you could think, when the sound of your voice was echoed louder than your doubts, when you weren’t watching yourself from the outside but were fully inside it; when you weren’t playing the song—the song was playing through you.

I think we meant the freedom and confidence to be unremarkable: messy, too loud, slightly off—and keep going; to have fun while making something, anything, with the people we vibed with, without having to wait until we were ready, or good, or qualified. To take up space without first adjusting ourselves to fit what’s missing.

Maybe we really meant remembering those moments ten, twenty, thirty, forty years later: us standing in a damp room, sharing one dirty pair of earphones, passing around a dented microphone, missing half the notes, forgetting the lyrics, and just having a blast: the best times of our lives.

And maybe that’s the part we didn’t understand back then: how to hold on to that unfiltered joy as we grew older.

So sometimes I wonder, did we ever really want to be rock stars, or did we just want to feel alive in a world that often asks us to settle down, to play it safe, to wait until we are polished, perfect, ready, and on track?

We used to say we wanted to be rock stars, but maybe we just meant we wanted to be alive without holding anything back.

hanny
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3 a.m. Buddy

3 a.m. buddy

I was in my twenties
when a friend asked me
if I wanted to be his 3 a.m. buddy
—one of the biggest compliments
anyone’s ever handed me.

Because a 3 a.m. buddy is someone
you trust with unfiltered
hours, way past the middle of
the night,
where everything is heightened:
sounds,
silence,
sensations,
emotions,
memories,
histories…
loneliness.

A 3 a.m. buddy knocks on your door,
red-blooded eyes in a hoodie, with
MSG-loaded snacks you didn’t ask for,
turning the TV on to play a show
nobody cares about, that
you pretend to watch anyway, or

stays sober while you’re only
two sips away from dissolving;
bravely makes silly moves on the
dance floor of the city’s most
pretentious club, so you can laugh
too hard at nothing
before
you resume crying, or

drags you out into the elevator,
messy hair, sweat-stained shirt and all,
down, down, down the empty lobby,
past the night security,
to a dim 24-hour street stall selling
steaming hot instant
noodles that taste like survival, or

sits with you on the dirty sidewalk,
bathed in the eerie orange streetlights,
next to the overloaded trash bin,
parked motorbikes, late-night taxi
queues, stray cats, no judgment, no
interrogation, no questions, just
a presence without expectations or
explanations, or

squats with you on the rooftop, waiting
for the sun to rise,
plastic spoons and cheap desserts
from the minimarket below your
apartment complex.

They don’t have the language yet, and
you don’t have the language yet, just
feelings spilling, leaking, gushing over
the edges.

These ordinary, mostly low-budget, half-asleep
moments, where your 3 a.m. buddy
holds themselves together
or pretends to,
so you don’t have to
perform,
so you can just

break

down.

So, yes, I told him,
I’ll be your 3 a.m. buddy.

hanny
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What We Talk About When We Talk About Food

Perkedel Kentang

Like most Indonesians, my love language is food.

If you’re a tourist spending some time in the country, you might find it weird that hotel staff or new acquaintances ask you if you have eaten*. It was something that originated during the colonial times, they said. Most people couldn’t eat regularly those days, as food was scarce. When you met someone you cared about, you asked them if they had eaten—if they hadn’t, you shared your food with them.

It’s something that we carried within us, I believe. Food is something we’re always ready to share with friends, families, neighbours, and guests—from birthdays to graduations to funerals, we open our house and invite everyone to just serve themselves with food from the buffet or the dining table, or we pack a little bit of everything inside those carton meal boxes and deliver them to our neighbours, or carrying the boxes to the office to share with our colleagues.

Whether we’re celebrating or grieving, we mark every milestone in life with food.

So, of course, it was only natural that my cooking repertoire expanded exponentially when I moved to Amsterdam. I relearned how to make all the things I want to eat to sustain me and my mood throughout the seasons (so thankful for the Indonesian supermarkets around me, where I can get grilled fish paste, salted egg, or lime leaves). I slowly built my confidence and, after a few successful tries, tweaked the recipes and made them my own.

Stews, clear soups, porridges, and coconut-based broths such as rendang, sop, semur, gulai, bubur ayam, and opor for autumn and winter; stir-fries and grilled/fried/steamed dishes such as tumisan, pepesan, sate, gorengan, and balado for spring and summer.

Cooking the kind of meals I crave is my way of nurturing myself.

It’s funny because my friends and I are always asking each other, “What do you feel like eating?” instead of “What do you want to eat?” as if there’s a direct correspondence between how you feel and the kind of meal that matches the occasion (but, yes, of course, there is). We’ll brave 2 hours of traffic jam just to go to a certain street food stall, or even take the train to another city over the weekend for what we call “culinary adventure”—basically stuffing ourselves with good food the whole trip. Asking myself what I want to eat, going to the supermarket, and cooking it myself is pale in comparison to those efforts.

Food heals me and makes me feel better. I am a simple person at heart.

Naturally, cooking is my way of nurturing others, too.

They said you should not make any important decisions when you’re hungry. I don’t always have the right words, but I always have 20 minutes to cook more rice, can always whip some eggs with spring onions and shallots, and it doesn’t take 10 minutes to prepare stir-fried green beans and tempe with garlic and soy sauce. Hot jasmine tea pouring non-stop into your cups. Come, sit, eat. Take out some takeaway containers from the drawers. Do you want to bring some leftovers home?

This is what you need to know: if I ever cook for you, I actually love you.

—

*) Another common question tourists usually find intrusive is, “Where are you going?” Actually, the person who asks doesn’t really want to know where you’re going; they just want to make small talk, so you can reply with something like “jalan-jalan” (going for a walk).

hanny
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52 Questions for Your Deep Weekly Journaling Session in 2026

52 Questions

One week, one question, three deep breaths, and 20 minutes of uninterrupted, unedited stream-of-consciousness writing or typing—just recording whatever comes to mind, believing the first thought that crosses your mind and whatever follows.

  1. What makes you smile on any given day?
  2. What kind of thoughts often hold you back?
  3. What is essential to forming meaningful connections?
  4. What makes work satisfying?
  5. What makes you feel better after a good cry?
  6. What makes life worth living?
  7. What does “closure” look like to you?
  8. What do you wish people to know about you?
  9. What does it mean to love someone?
  10. What makes you feel the most alive right now?
  11. What are the things you’re curious about?
  12. What are some memories you keep replaying in your mind?
  13. What makes life not so bad at times?
  14. What makes people hurt others?
  15. What are you made of?
  16. What do you wish to know early on in life?
  17. What goes around and comes around in your life?
  18. What is going on in your life right now that you don’t understand?
  19. What are your life-savers?
  20. What do you need to be able to forgive?
  21. What are the things you still have a hard time accepting?
  22. What does it mean to see the world through your lens?
  23. What does it take to be at peace with who you are?
  24. What’s life about?
  25. What caught you off guard?
  26. What does it feel like to be in your head?
  27. What drains you of your life force and shuts you down?
  28. What does it take to make good memories?
  29. What breaks your heart?
  30. What are some things that are not really important in life?
  31. What rocks your boat?
  32. What do you wish to bless people (and the world) with?
  33. What keeps you awake at night?
  34. What are you afraid of knowing?
  35. What makes a feeling worth being deeply felt?
  36. What has slipped through the cracks?
  37. What’s not worth fighting for?
  38. What crosses your mind when you’re alone?
  39. What do you no longer believe in?
  40. What are some of your seemingly insignificant problems?
  41. What do good friends do?
  42. What role does time play in your life?
  43. What do you miss the most?
  44. What makes your world go round?
  45. What kind of conversations light you up?
  46. What are the things that give you nervous excitement?
  47. What are the things going right in the world right now?
  48. What does it take to lose yourself?
  49. What will make you initiate a conversation with a stranger?
  50. What are the things you easily fall in love with?
  51. What are your dreams made of?
  52. What have you grown tired of hiding?
hanny
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Picking Up the Pieces

Amsterdam winter night

The other morning, as I was waiting for my tram at the tram stop, I looked up to the heavy gray sky hanging low above the roofs of old houses in our street, and I saw 11 birds (yes, I counted) flying in a V-shaped formation, and I watched them until they were out of sight. For some reason, they reminded me of this whole year—a turbulent, at times heartbreaking year; it was like mourning 11 (or maybe more) pieces of my life that I had been separated from, and seeing those birds made me feel hopeful. There must be things I can do to get those pieces back—or to get them all to fly together again, so I can feel whole once again.

In a way, I felt better when I thought of myself as made of tiny little pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle missing a piece or something. Because even if you’re losing a few pieces here and there, the big picture didn’t change. You could still see that it was a puzzle of a vase of flowers, of a city at dusk, of a winter forest. Even if at the moment I am missing a few pieces of myself, I could still see the whole me in its entirety. This gives me the freedom to either find the missing old pieces or, better yet, craft new ones that will eventually fit the big picture. All the while feeling like I’m not entirely losing myself. That the “me” is still here, always here, and will always be.

I guess there are many ways to make you feel whole if you see yourself as a collective of tiny little pieces. At the end of October this year, I started picking up some of my missing pieces, and I found that giddiness of anticipation, excitement, and bursts of inspiration once again—a feeling I have been missing for a while. I told myself, “Let’s collect one missing piece at a time.”

Who knows, maybe the pieces weren’t actually missing. Perhaps I was misplacing them or forgetting where I kept them, but maybe, maybe they were always here inside of me all along.

hanny
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Hanny illustrator
Hi. I'm HANNY
I am an Indonesian writer/artist/illustrator and stationery web shop owner (Cafe Analog) based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. I love facilitating writing/creative workshops and retreats, especially when they are tied to self-exploration and self-expression. In Indonesian, 'beradadisini' means being here. So, here I am, documenting life—one word at a time.

hanny
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