Month: March 2007

She told me she had just come back from Narita, where she was sending off her friend to Korea. I fell silent, keeping the day’s events —the roller coasters, the sushi, the long walk back home— to myself. As I stared into her face I realized how little I had strived to transcend the stage of mere hellos, how questions and comments flourished in my mind but never made it to my tongue. I would have loved to know her more, yet words had always failed me. Even then, on the brink of the last goodbye, I was left looking uninterested and unfriendly, letting out muffled screams into a mask out of which she had never been able to see me.

I’m so sorry. And yet, you will never know it, for I am still being selfish enough to translate my feelings into a language other than our lingua franca.

죄송합니다. I hope life entitles me to another chance.

There is a new presence in my room. Tall, slender, smooth skin waiting to be touched on the bed… or the chair, or the floor—who cares about places when the remedy for madness has come home with me this morning. I can’t believe I waited so long to bring happiness back into my life, to break the deadly silence that was already eating my heart away ever so slowly.

Unfortunately, my new companion cannot rub my cold feet in the night or interrupt an absorbing solitary activity with a kiss. I’ll have to wait a long, long, long time to meet the one who’s in charge of that.

Tiny brown imperfect spheres roll and roll on the desk.
They come to a dizzy stop,
Greeted by the light from the lamp,
Looking like gracious
Opaque pearls, like miniature
Polished dinosaur egg fossils.

It takes less than twelve seconds to turn
Views into memories,
Reflected light into
A subtle crunch.

The joys of life.

Chocolate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Chocolate with crushed almonds
Like a seductive piece of
Plywood,
Bitter chocolate with sweet bits of orange,
Chocolate-flavored
Powder
Refusing to melt
In a bowl of cold milk.

Precious maroon liquid
Flowing into a paper cup
In cold metal hands,
Bashful boxes pucker up—
Give me a kiss,
Give me everything you’ve got—,
They die quenching a yearning
No Aztec king could picture
In the bitter seed trade.

Tiny imperfect spheres roll and roll in my mouth.
It takes less than twelve hours to turn
Memories into pain,
Beautiful opaque pearls into
Regret and flab.

The joys of life.