even khmer words have silent letters
indicated by a squiggly symbol above
characters that have been “assassinated”

as with any rules there are exceptions
and some stubborn letters marked for death
rally to make one final dying sound

but sometimes it’s a massacre and
four or five letters are silenced by a
single heavy-handed stroke of the pen

i don’t know when to kill what yet
so i follow my instincts for now and
let everything live on just a little longer