(Written between Tokyo, Kyoto - Japan)
Some things you will never truly hear
- Alice Yousef
I. Watch out for distance the line between land and water is cut by a merging of yellow lights must be very well-lit houses, all slanted, like in the movies I think to myself, but I would never guess: what's next?
There's something that arrives with you once you move in a space that is not yours to claim, a place that doesn't extend to the small body you have, one you thought was too ugly for love an extra heartbeat you may not even notice
A warm March, they said, yet it rains on both sides of the train perfectly parallel, parable droplets like those I will leave in major stations, on soft beds, on people's shoulders extra heartbeats  I cannot explain
I close my eyes for a second open them outdoors to brush Sakura from your smile it had fallen unexpectedly, a little earlier than its designated spring a little rounder, flat pink with envy of the earth that holds all of us
II.
There's wind in my lungs, whistling against the bamboo I lightly tap the trees, to make sure I have not made them appear from imagination, like I do when you go missing
I am greeted by a waterfall, a pot of tea too green to see a future at the end of its leafs, uncertainty does not concern you when water runs smooth
yet never bitter. This is how you find yourself with a simple desire to send grace, somewhere or to just  be, one who loses, one who wanders one who for once tries;
rolling the words, like sushi I leave alone the language that lends itself to Arigatou Gozaimasu thank you very much- a return to welcome change
Wash your hands, wash your heart throw a coin at the altar, clap twice then ask to be forgiven of what? Ask anyway there's nothing wrong in asking
because one day you will wake up to the ocean on your shoes, kissing with purple shells, laughing at the uncertainties you held about oceans; stormy no - just deep and calm, like people, but softer.
III.
From my window, the temples tell me how great man has become while I sit, on the floor writing a poem about past lovers, still present just outside of my body
I won't curse them, I don't thank them I just list them, like wishes round an old Oak tree in a shrine understand that habits are formed with days like friendships, like hearts
between the swan and the fable, in Gion I stop developing the innate fear I have breastfed with my mother's milk, I walk the night-streets, trail the Geisha's thousands steps to serve, to please, to shield, tell her she has beautiful eyes
I doubt that she'll even believe me sometimes I jibber when I cannot hold my peace yet here I am - bare from love, from clothes, from a desire to grow, or shrink, or shuffle my legs behind someone else's footsteps
but here I also invite sleep
in my dreams, same as in Kamakura, yellow Koi fish swim the ones closer to the surface of the waters open and close their mouths as if whispering in bubble gulps, the secret to happiness
something I will never really hear but I still understand.
