Naoumi Lugtu: “81” Square Arm Sofa”
Product details
This sofa has a demeaning brown plaid pattern with a red dot in the centre, like a piece of siomai. Built for solitude, stains, and substance abuse, it includes three seats, but time will only ever make space for two. Low-density synthetic cushions hide guitar picks, hair ties, and a wedding ring. Here’s a synthetic proposition: not everyone who is married is in love. Children will pick at the fabric as if it were hair on their skin. At midnight, the sofa will be assembled into a stage, and from upstairs you will push your ear into the floor to listen as your dad strums chords worth more than his seat, with silent pride, until you realise your teeth have gone rotten because you’re afraid of the dark, and the ghost on the sofa sings only to you.
Naoumi Lugtu is a Filipino-British poet and a final year undergraduate BASc student at University College London. Her journey into poetry began after studying Introduction to Writing Poetry at Yale-NUS College during her year abroad, under Professor Lawrence Ypil’s tutelage. She was a finalist in the Poetry category for the 2023 Yale-NUS Literary Awards.
