in the kitchen at 2 a.m.
peeling an apple in one long spiral
the way my grandmother showed me
without looking at my hands

outside the window
neon からあげ sign flickers
a small red mercy
against the January dark

pīru she called it—
the English verb wrapped
in her Shizuoka vowels
pīru-shite, ne

now I stand in a London flat
still peeling in that rhythm
the skin unspooling like
a sentence I can't quite finish

in two languages
or in neither

---

someone's shower runs
through the wall at 6 a.m.
I imagine her routine—
the small soap, the cheap shampoo

we share this building
this plumbing, this early hour
but have never spoken

in the supermarket last week
I watched her choose apples
the same ones I returned to the shelf
too expensive, too perfect

she didn't see me

this morning the pipes sing
with her unseen body
and I think: this is as close
as I will come
to knowing her

two women
living adjacent lives
in a city that holds us
loosely, without promise

she turns off the water

I get up to make tea

---

my phone autocorrects
さびしい to delicious
and for a moment
it's true

the loneliness tastes
of something particular—
black coffee at a konbini
at the edge of Shibuya
watching salarymen
not looking at each other

or here: the blue light
of my screen at 4 a.m.
scrolling through faces
that don't know mine

lonely and delicious
両方、同時に

I eat it slowly

#poetry #identity #Tokyo #belonging #loneliness