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MoMo Mar 2013
I used to cook for her all the time.
I wonder if she remembers. Can she?
Ramen noodles and toast
at 3:30 in the morning, churros at 8:15.
Sometimes in the middle of the night
she’d cat call my name and I’d always
run to her wondering- Is she hurt? and then
She better not have hurt herself.
I knew better though after the first few times,
yet I always went willingly enough through her
open bedroom door because she wanted me to.
But mostly chicken noodle soup on Sundays
and rice and jambalaya on Wednesday.
mmmmmmmmm.... Carminolas with a kick.
Pop pop pop and her buttons would fly across the room
and other times she’d be under the sheets, already
ready to press my hands against her caramelized skin.
And if we add a pinch of saffron, a dash a sumac,
and a teaspoon full of ajwain she will taste like
heaven and for those cherry lovers add a bit of mahlebi.
But I remember. She tasted like homemade chocolate and
marshmallows. Go make Mama something tasty.
She’d say afterwards and send me from the warmth of
her bed, a Saturday Night Live rerun echoing after me.
I’d bring her dumplings and udon and watch her while she ate,
wondering- Can she taste the arsenic?
A Dean Young Imitation

Title suggestions welcome!!
Akemi Feb 2016
His arm circling round her waist. Maybe . . .

A blare. Sweat of traffic. Muggy afternoon. The sun bounces off every surface, paints the surroundings white. I stand at the corner of the street, feel the pavement seep through my soles. Sesame drifts from the marketplace; cheap soba, oil and soy.

A cat stretches on the neighbour’s roof, white fur wafting.

Muffled speech. Hiss, hiss. A bus.

I kneel and pick up an empty bottle. Face merges into its sides.

“Ain.”

Someone, somewhere calls my name.

“Ain.”

Up there.

The school is closed for the summer. Walking towards it gives me a sense of unease. Obligation turned quiet tension. The summer won’t last forever.

Drip.

I’ve been holding the bottle upside down. Liquid sinks into the dirt. Almost looks like skin, all dry and creased.

It’s a precipice, right? The separation between the street and the institute. Like stepping over a grave. There’s a ******* bin, but I feel strange.

The reception is all glass. Sunstruck and bleeding at the edges—I catch a glimpse of something—is it me?

Lenin catches another raven in his hands. It sits still, head cocked calmly to the side. He lets it go, but it simply falls onto the ground, rights itself, then walks off.

He looks disappointed.

“It’s the same everywhere,” he says with his back turned. “Try it.”

I find a different one, cradle it against my chest. The bird looks vaguely annoyed. Following Lenin, I drop the bird. It falls and sinks into the ground about three inches.

Caw.

“Ain! How’d you do that? That’s wicked!”

Lenin tilts his head and goggles at the bird for a few seconds before running off to find another.

It’s really hot. I throw some sesame seeds at the bird, but it just glares at me. Sorry.

The bottle is still gripped in my hand. Why did I pick this up?

Lenin is running on the side of the school. His small feet tap out a regular pattern, like rain on a quiet night.

I really miss this.

I push the bottle into the dirt. Lenin leaps off the school. A running kick sends the bottle flying into the reception. Glass shatters and the summer unfurls into a kaleidoscope of light.

The raven rises out of the ground.

The reception reforms itself.

Lenin is running on the side of the school. His small feet tap on each window, sending small ripples of energy through them, distorting the reflection of the surrounding buildings and streets.

A cat stretches itself on the reception roof.

I kneel and pick up an empty bottle.

“Ain!”

Lenin catches a raven in mid-flight. Sees himself reflected in a window. Gravity pulls him down.

I’m sitting in the corner, waiting for school to finish. Waiting for my life to pass itself by. It’s the last day of school and everyone is leaving. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. I don’t know where I’m going. I feel sick, weak and pathetic. I look out the window and see my own face, Lenin falling through the air, sinking into the ground, a raven flying out of his outstretched hand.

There is a train and I am waiting. It is Autumn and the cherry blossoms will be bare for another half year, maybe more. There are golden leaves dancing through the station, trampled under the soles of rushed commuters and children.

Someone laughs with their friends, eating beef udon, yolk running into the broth, flesh filling his cavity. A mouth chews, but laughter still comes. I feel disgusted. I eat my tofu bento, but it only worsens.

Father visits, but I have no words for him. We sit awkwardly and he mentions work, but doesn’t elaborate. I pretend I’m busy and he eventually leaves.

where am i going where am i going where am i going where am i going where am i going where am i going where am i going where am i going where am i

“Ain!”

Lenin is kneeling over me. There are tears in my eyes and the sun hurts to look at. I try to brush them away but rub dirt in instead. Sleeves run softly across my cheeks. Lenin is hugging me from behind.

“It’s okay, Ain. It’s just play,” he says, nuzzling the back of my head. I don’t understand and cry harder.

The ravens have left the school.

A bottle lies on the roof.

A cat rolls in the dirt.

“Life is just a bad dream,” Lenin mumbles into my hair. “You’ve been waking every night, but it hasn’t helped.”

The sun is setting. Red strokes rise out of the ether and stain the sky. Streetlights turn and the quiet hum of night settles over the dying sounds of day.

“Isn’t this just so boring?”

A bus drives by, vibrating the ground beneath me. A mother and child walk past singing an old nursery rhyme.

“Ain?”

I sink into my lap and shut out the world.

“You don’t have to open your eyes. Not now, not ever.”

But I never closed them.

Hugs the ground. Flies through the evening. Do I eat a worm? Is that what I do?

I grip the pink flesh. The thing squirms, digging itself deeper into me.

A human female is laughing, or maybe crying. It’s hard to tell the difference.

Do they touch when they’re confused?

A small male soars down the side of a building. Why is he kicking his own head? The female splinters, but doesn’t shatter.

I’ve heard bones that don’t break cleanly are the worst to mend.

I reach out, hand brushing the feathers of a bird.

My head is an anchor, drags along the ground, grinds pavement to dust.

It’s so hot. Tar tickles my nostrils.

I’m alone, standing in front of a camera with all my classmates.

Lenin’s head is buried in the dirt behind me.

I raise my hand against the piercing sun, but really it’s an excuse to hide myself.

A raven hops onto the camera, unaware of the ceremony taking place. It shatters the façade, reduces the action to an absurdity, but no one notices. No one cares.

I pick at a rice ball. It’s cold, bland and under-filled. I stare at the shops around me and feel a deepening, crushing alienation. Perhaps, I have always felt this way, and it has taken me two decades to come to terms with it.

“There was a storm once,” Lenin mutters into the dirt, “the worst storm of the century.”

I remember. He held my hand all through it.

“But it wasn’t a storm, Ain.” Lenin finally turns to look at me. Meets my eyes through the dust and the tears and the sun. “It was existence trying to wake up.”

He didn’t let it.

“If it ever does, we will all die.”

It’s dark now. Lenin’s eyes glow the colour of warm honey. The last day of Summer rides away.

“Mum’ll be worried,” Lenin says, abruptly, “We should head home, Ain.”

We walk through the muted streets. This is my favourite time, when everyone is tucked into their homes and I can exist without others’ expectations projected onto my existence. I love the soft blue noise that fuzzes my vision. I love how ordinary objects are turned mysterious; the indistinct edges, the wistful gloom.

Lenin skips beside me, turning his head often to glance at the small pieces of art people leave behind through the process of living. A bicycle missing its rubber grips. A television set atop a toy wagon. A plushie stuffed between the ‘A’ and ‘I’ of a neon sign.

I buy two tea drinks and hand one to Lenin. We sit on the roof of an empty bus stop and stare into the harbour. Home feels further away than ever. The lights beneath the water reach the surface beautifully. They ripple and bleed, like phosphorescent dyes twining towards the sky. I sink beneath myself.

“Ain, don’t!”

I throw the empty bottle into the reception. I see my face shatter into infinity. I hear Lenin break into laughter. The cat leaps up. The ravens bury their wings. The worm writhes until it splits in two.

Blood runs down the side of my mouth. Twenty six dead in a hotel, bones melted like steel.

There is a gap I cannot fill because it is the platonic ideal of absence. An oak, weighed down so strongly by dreams that its branches have sunk deeper into the soil than its roots.

Sheets on the floor. I sink through the earth, head so heavy it compresses into a void and ***** the universe into itself; mangling, stretching, tearing.

My flesh writhes but there is no end. A pulsating womb. Flowers.

Everything is so bright.

I close my eyes.

Where am I?

Who am I?

A part of me is disappearing. I’m scared. I’m—

I can hear Lenin. He is screaming, but he sounds so very far away.

Oh. Oh.

I have been unfurling for a long time, haven’t I?

Guess she finally fled her body. Abandoned that vessel in the lacuna between. The tea! The tea must have reminded her. I must remember to pick up some mints. She’ll either laugh or breakdown into tears.

Whoops, I’m repeating myself.

It sure feels good to stretch my limbs again. Feels like it’s been an age.

Oh, a child boy is beside me. I better deposit him back home before I start.

Ain! Ain! Ain! Is this all this stupid child can say?

Everyone is moving so fast. Ugh. It’s lethargic. It’s absolutely stupid. What, do they think they’ll sink into the earth if they stop?

Ain! Ain! Ain! Oh fine, whatever, have her for a bit longer.

“Ain!”

Lenin? He’s pulling at my sleeves. Tears break, stream down his cheeks. It’s dark, so dark.

“I don’t want you to leave, Ain. Not like last time.”

It—it feels like I’m submerged. The harbour lights have dimmed. Soon dawn will come and wipe their existence from the world. It will be as if they never existed at all.

“Please Ain.”

I hug Lenin. He keeps repeating ‘please’ over and over. I have an inexplicable feeling that I’m leaving for a long time. That I won’t see Lenin again, and that I have to—

Have you stolen my body?

Yup!

Why?

Because you were scared and lonely and living a pointless existence.

I—

Don’t worry, there are a lot like you!

Will—will I ever see Lenin again?

Hmm, probably not. To be honest, I’m not really sure how all this works myself.

Please. Please don’t do this. I—

Ughhhhhh. Look kid, I’ve got places to be. Sayonara.

The market. The raven. The market.

A child petting a cat. A woman drinking a cola. Filling and filling and—

Postman runs past, knocks her arm. Bottle falls to the ground. Splash, crack.

Howling dog. It’s black, you know.

Lenin running on the rooftops. Ain asleep with her window open. He leaps in and wakes her with a grin.

“Ain! Ain! Ain!”

She throw a pillow at him angrily and rolls back into the bed, wrapping herself up like a caterpillar.

A lawman runs over to help the fallen woman. Hands her a mint.

Oh, isn’t it beautiful?

Don’t they all live beautiful lives now?

*Isn’t this what you wanted?
February 2016

Contrary to popular opinion, this is not a fanfic about Vladimir Lenin.

A continuation of the narratives in Lacuna and Child; Bright, with metauniversal references to Death Passing a Mirror, A Schizophrenic Laugh Track and Her Haunt.

Reading the others will likely not elucidate the story.

Lacuna: hellopoetry.com/poem/1428626/lacuna
Child; Bright: hellopoetry.com/poem/1497271/child-bright
Death Passing a Mirror: hellopoetry.com/poem/1537036/death-passing-a-mirror
Millie Harvey Feb 2013
There is something inexplicable delicious
about having your cigarette lit by a man
Crushed in the doorway
next to the Chinese restaurant
getting out of the wind
your hands around his hands
protecting the flare of a match
in a way you've been doing this all night
across a table
over stir-fried udon and saki
and British accents (yours real, his not)
something about the moment your face flicks back
as the smoke seeps into your mouth
and your eyes meet his eyes
and it's not until later
just after your lips are on his lips
and the world stops moving outside
that you realise you knew it would be like this
from the moment that flame burst open
behind two sets of hands.
Qualyxian Quest Dec 2018
Dogen in meditation all through the night
Udon and shabu shabu we ate
I from hospitalizations I return to fight
Fall 7 times, rise up 8.
Qualyxian Quest Oct 2021
I have written so many poems
Because I'm so unhappy

Some of them are pretty good
Some of them are ******

One day my middle son
Back to dear Taipei

Then to Tokyo
Land of Anime

If I'm the postcard poet
Who can truly say?

Mystery. Silence. Initials.
Dawn goes down to day

     Dragons find the Way
Qualyxian Quest Jan 2023
She remains out of reach
A phantom in my mind
A beckoning
A silence

Not gonna teach again
Not a lot of travel
My sons get new classes
Nagarjuna and snakes

She's 17
22
37
53

California snow
Blondes
Udon
Earthquakes

                    Spirit Lakes
Qualyxian Quest Apr 2021
She says American cops
All jacked up
Gonna move to Rotterdam

I tell her I agree
Wish her well
Call my sweet Cam Cam

She drives me to the bank
Says bye, my dear
Gratefully I am

Eating lunch
Udon soup
Blessings to her fam
Qualyxian Quest Jan 2019
udon noodles, twilight sky
   chill in the air, Cambrian Cai
          low full yellow moon
                 my, my, my!
Qualyxian Quest Jun 2023
Teilhard de Chardin
Teleology in nature
******* Stephen Jay Gould
Mario Cuomo did write

Me in Seattle
Who is God?
Reading on my lunch break
Libraries give light

I like grilled salmon
And salmon teriyaki
Miso soup, udon
Puzzling my plight

Train station Kyoto
Bainbridge Island memorial
Farewell to Manzanar
Tokyo - what a sight!

          City at Night! City at Night!
Tidal pools in Monterrey
My children still so young
I'm kinda California
Young sons sung

Cool grey city of love
San Francisco Zen
Vegetarian tacos
Udon noodles. Muy bien.

                I die when?
Dinner with my son
Deeply gratitude
Udon, edamame
Evening interlude

I remember you, Rieko
And I wish you well
Japan is amazing
Ain't no tongue can tell

— The End —