Poetry

Stray Sheep

(Seen in “Stray Sheep” photograph)

The city sounded as I stood.

My face contorted leaving an unreadable expression

Perfectly portraying the unreadable feeling I was struck with

As I saw how the sun spotlighted you in the trees that afternoon

Looking toward a direction not mine.

I wish it was winter still.

Sometimes I wish it was winter forever.

I wish it would snow and snow and that it would never melt.

As the flurries fall and the entire land gets covered in white

You would not be able to notice how I am a

Stray sheep, stray sheep.

Now I tread on yellow grass.

Crickets fill the night air.

We stood together on the empty street outside.

I looked at you and you were looking at the sky when I said

“The moon looks beautiful tonight.”

You smiled and turned ten years older

And you turned to me and said, “I envy you,

I don’t see it as you do.”

White fur against dark floors.

When I walked into the gallery, on the walls I saw a portrait painting

It was of a woman, an afternoon in the forest,

She looked right at me, eyes almost gleaning,

Almost.

I almost understood the painting.

But you weren’t a picture,

You stayed mortal, always swaying

And I stayed stuck in the gallery

Wishing I was an artist.

-

It was winter too

(Seen in “It was winter too” film)

It was winter too.

I walked down a road with

Hands in my pockets, I remember.

The breath I let out looked like

The cigarette smoke

From the guy riding a bicycle.

I could’ve imagined the smell

Too well.

I really could’ve.

And it is winter now.

I am sitting in the snow looking out

Into the bare forest of trees

Listening to the sound of cars passing by.

I licked my lips and it tasted of

Plant and paper.

I breathed warm air into the cold.

Or maybe it was smoke after all,

I wish I could tell you, I really do,

Instead I can tell you this:

It was the same old shiver.

-

Motion

(Visionary Magazine Issue 2)

I dreamt of when we first met each other.

I saw you from across the road and

You caught my eye not in a particularly striking way but

In a way I felt like I was always meant to lay my eyes on you, at this moment,

It was like looking into a reflection in the water.

Your eyes gleaned back, there was a shine to them.

The streetcars were passing by, slowly, in front of us,

And I got lost in the motion.

You were still standing there, an anchor,

When you look back to where I was standing I wonder if you wondered where I went.

It was just that moment, it was real,

Real enough to touch but not solid enough to have kept me there.

So I kept moving.

I would remember you once in a while,

Just that few seconds, looping in my head over and over.

You are just standing in that place, 

Always standing in that place, on the other side of the road.

You don’t move. You don’t change

You don’t grow old, you don’t die

Even though I age,

And I see people die;

I also dream of them as I do with you,

And you’re always on the other side of the road watching me watch them.

It doesn’t seem fair

That every time I come back to the street we first met

I am an inch taller,

I am wrinkling,

I reek of life and death,

And you just keep standing there,

Still true and still beautiful.

When I catch you looking at me

Your eyes plead that I don’t go

But it has been so long since we first met

I can’t remember them clearly anymore.

-

China High Speed Rail

(Visionary Magazine Issue 1)

I don’t remember the train ride I took on the

High-speed rail in China, back when I was younger.

I don’t know what the view was outside of the window.

I remember

I was visiting my relatives.

I went on the train and sat in the seats.

I remember falling asleep.

My dad said that the high-speed railway was

The only good thing China has ever invented and

I believed him.

I remember when everyone said that they

Wanted to ride the Shinkansen once in their lives and

There I was, in Tokyo station,

For a two-hour trip on the train to Kyoto.

I remember

The blurry grass fields and the unmoving sky

The way the window framed the scene and our

reflections.

I remember understanding why the Shinkansen had its

Reputation because the

View outside the window became blurry fast

And the two hours passed

And I remember thinking maybe I forgot something at home.

Now I am sitting in the seats of this train.

I see

My reflections distorted through the double-pane window

I am going home from the city again.

Home. House. You know what I mean.

And maybe this train isn’t as fast as the Shinkansen nor

The China Railway High-speed but

With the blink of an eye, I was never on a train at all.

Or maybe I was on a train my entire life in

Constant motion.

The land beneath me moves not and I am always

Leaving, leaving.

-

First Snow

(Petal Projections Issue 12)

The heat is killing me

In a way it never did before.

When I was a child I saw the dirty windshield of our car

Smeared with the bodies of flying insects.

My mom explained the specks to me, so,

Whenever I watched our windshield while we drove on the highway

I was always a little worried

That we’d kill them all

And we did, but it’s funny

I don’t care anymore

The heat is killing me.

My grandma told me that I used to dance as a kid

That my long hair flowed with my movements

I bet it wasn’t graceful

But she said I was beautiful

I don’t remember it anymore.

It has never been this hot in November.

A few years back, in another life

I was bundled up in thick clothes, walking the streets with my friends

Waiting for the first snow.

This street had their Christmas lights up already

And I was shivering because I didn’t know how to properly dress for the cold.

I’m still waiting for that first snow.

My friend’s dad asked me if I still sang

And if I still played that secondhand Martin with a deep greyish brown

Like I did when I was in that band with five other kids.

I had completely forgotten.

He told me I was cool, and then he asked me what happened

The heat killed my voice, and that guitar.

It’s all gone, like the summer breeze from way back—

The one that whistles as it passes through the alleys

And plays percussion with the leaves, I’d imagine—

From before when I’d hear my mom call my grandparents

Every year when it starts to get hot

And tell them not to go outside too much

Because they’re old, old enough not to have breezes to take care of them anymore

Though I’m just young enough to only remember the hot, stagnant, unmusical air

Or maybe I’ve just forgotten it all like everything else.

It’s just because November’s never been this hot

And I’m dragging myself on the ground melting into a grotesque puddle of what could’ve been.

Maybe a song

Maybe a dance

Maybe a first snow.

But the heat is just killing me.