When the winter chrysanthemums go,
there's nothing to write about
    but radishes.

I've b l  o   w    n        my lungs clean
                                                           ­       e
                                                   k
                                        o
                     ­         m
of cigarette s
So why would you asumme
I wouldn't throw you   o
                                          u

             ­                              t
with the rest of the         trash
that cluttered my life
and poisoned my mind?

Relief and horror paint the sight
of an empty airport
and an abandoned mall.
I've seen them both.

But how should I begin to describe
the dread and terror
when the people in my country
have souls like abandoned buildings?

How do you explain the absent faces
and the grey souls in a land
where everything is slowly dying out
and any spark of life is just a memory
from fifty years ago?

How do you explain that
instead of haunted houses
all the streets are haunted corridors
and even if you ran away
the real horror is that
not a single broken ghost will try
to stop you?

How do you articulate that
you don't want to go
but you also don't wish to stay
just to watch your favorite souls
wither away?