Sometimes in Tokyo
I wake up feeling different, not in a way I can describe, but I know I'm not who I went to bed as. Something has changed. Like a tiny sand grain resettling at the bottom of a dark ocean. I brush my teeth and wonder what to do next, maybe a museum or a neighbourhood or a temple or just a day in bed. But then Tokyo calls, and I answer. I walk all day, gazing at art or at the sky or at houses. It doesn't matter what, they all overpower me and seep into me. Sometimes I eat, sometimes I forget because it's hard to eat more when you're already full, with art or sky or houses. I watch the sunset from somewhere, perhaps reflected on a skyscraper or a lotus pond. Or I blink and it's dark already. I write at traffic lights, or video game arcades, or in the train, in heavenly silence. The city empties itself and I keep walking, bathed in neon and cold wind. Sometimes I listen to Britney, sometimes to Brahms. Sometimes I ask myself if this is real but I never wait for an answer. I get busy singing, or counting street lamps, or texting, or playing statue until a car passes me by. I seek the shrines, I can almost smell them out by now, like a canine. I watch the lanterns float, pray like a poet does (for more beauty) and open my eyes to see the wish granted. The gods must really love me. I thank them and keep going. I walk through walls of darkness and befriend flower pots outside strangers' houses. Sometimes my legs hurt, they refuse to move but my mind refuses to listen. So nothing changes. Sometimes I pause in cemeteries, sit and listen. Sometimes I go to the river to look at the moon's reflection and think of BashÅ. Sometimes I click photographs, sometimes they click themselves. Sometimes I taste childhood when I drink water. Sometimes my fingers cannot type anymore in the cold, but poetry finds a way out, always. Like a battering ram. And that is also what this city is, a battering ram battering me into my future. I watch the sunrise from somewhere, perhaps reflected on a skyscraper or a lotus pond. Sometimes I blink and it's day already. Sometimes I remember going to sleep, sometimes I don't. And then I wake up feeling different, not in a way I can describe, but I know... [11:34 pm, 6th January 2023, Akihabara, Tokyo.]
