{"id":2801,"date":"2016-04-01T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T04:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tembusu.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/?p=2801"},"modified":"2025-09-25T15:59:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T07:59:15","slug":"what-happens-in-the-stairwell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/2016\/04\/what-happens-in-the-stairwell\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happens in the Stairwell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stays in the stairwell.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The column of stairs stretches,<\/p>\n

Towards the sky.<\/p>\n

On the twenty-first floor,<\/p>\n

You\u2019d wonder if<\/p>\n

It gets lonely here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Company has been scarce;<\/p>\n

Sedentary people prefer lifts.<\/p>\n

Contrivances to alleviate<\/p>\n

The discomfort of lifting themselves.<\/p>\n

It gets lonely here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Days on end with no light,<\/p>\n

Dimly lit by artifice.<\/p>\n

Powered by capricious sensors,<\/p>\n

Flickering on and off<\/p>\n

Like an equivocally misleading missive,<\/p>\n

That company was arriving.<\/p>\n

Was company enticed by the lift?<\/p>\n

Or was the stairwell invisible?<\/p>\n

It gets lonely here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The obnoxious slapping of slippers<\/p>\n

Floods the stairwell,<\/p>\n

With a rare cacophony of sounds.<\/p>\n

Once every few months.<\/p>\n

The stairwell meets the residents,<\/p>\n

It was built for.<\/p>\n

Fire alarms are assuring harbingers,<\/p>\n

Of transient company.<\/p>\n

Mostly it gets lonely here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Silence haunts these steps,<\/p>\n

Echoing up and down<\/p>\n

These nondescript flights of stairs.<\/p>\n

For those who seek solace,<\/p>\n

The stairwell beckons,<\/p>\n

With welcoming lights to receive you<\/p>\n

Like a treasured guest.<\/p>\n

Explore these dusty railings without<\/p>\n

An intention to plunge twenty-one lonely storeys.<\/p>\n

It gets lonely enough here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The stairwell is the most perfect place.<\/p>\n

For you to vent your pent-up emotions.<\/p>\n

A simple shout will enliven<\/p>\n

All twenty one lonely storeys.<\/p>\n

It is a luxury in a communal building.<\/p>\n

The stairwell\u2019s popular rival will not<\/p>\n

Keep your secrets,<\/p>\n

With lurking cameras and<\/p>\n

Unabashed invasive advertisement<\/p>\n

It may get lonely here,<\/p>\n

But whatever you do in the stairwell,<\/p>\n

Stays in the stairwell.<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

Images by Sarah Chew.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About the Author<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints\u201d \u2013\u00a0Billy Joel<\/p>\n

\u00a0If you don\u2019t know, I am all of the following: poet, writer, copywriter, contender for the biggest phantom of Tembusu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This poem by Blake Goh is our final feature from the Treehouse Writing Blitz, written in the stairwell, about the stairwell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":2860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","publication_type-miscellaneous","theme-college-affairs","scope-tembusu","flavour-contemplative"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2801"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2862,"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801\/revisions\/2862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}