Categories
Rant

Haiku

tear my hair away
shrink me into perfection
make me a woman

Categories
Rant

再生

It starts this way.

Categories
Rant

大学会館

There comes a time when you must say goodbye—even if only temporarily—to a human being with whom you discovered goodbye was not an option. Since you cannot do much about fate (for the time being), you have no choice but to follow this person down to the very end of your road together, kiss your last kiss, then turn around and walk back to normalcy (i.e., the way things were before they appeared in your life). You gulp down the tears and let them harden like amber. Even if you’ve never suffered from an embolism or kidney stones, you must be able to picture how painful it must be to have a foreign object stuck inside you, impeding the free flow of whatever it was that made it comfortable for you to live alone. This crazy pebble is full of memories and hopes for the future making of new memories. It hurts, but in a way you’re glad it hurts. It’s life at its fullest. Love.

Categories
Rant

My Other Half Speaks

(Not my other half as in my romantic partner, for I am a complete being with or without him.)

Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.—Sylvia Plath, “Ariel”

Do you remember, dear, this thing called gender studies? You probably do, because you talk about it all the time. Do you remember how crazy you are about this subject and how you would like to do research on it and talk about it and teach people about it and help the world change even the tiniest bit in terms of it? It is as inherent to you as writing, singing, and drawing. Try wiping it out of your head for a while. Can you simply quit this thing that drives your desire for knowledge, a passion that even gets you in trouble with other people? Can you?

Do you also remember that you are very good at what you do (that is, when you actually do it)? Sit down, write a paper: most chances are that it will be excellent, and you know it. This fear of yours is nothing more than a fear of yourself. You know very well that you are your own worst enemy, and you’re letting the enemy win. Take the word “stasis” and do something beautiful with it! You think that education ruined your creativity, but look at yourself: you’re back at sketching, you’re singing again, and you never actually stopped writing. This blog is witness to it. Anger, frustration, forget all that. You’re flourishing rather than withering.

Feel the ideas flowing through your fingers, listen to the endless pit-pat on the keyboard, see how words rain. You can summon this rain.

The future is far ahead—why worry about it? Why listen to all those who push you into something that’s never worked out for you? Were you ever planning on coming to Japan? Dreaming, yes, but planning? How did you end up in Hawaii? Was that ever among your plans? Dreams, yes, but plans?

Don’t be scared. Take it one step at a time. Soon you’ll be done with this weird, weird dream called Japan. Who knows what’ll come next? Isn’t it exciting to expect the surprise?