The subway doors close and I am translating
the word for loneliness again—sabishii, not quite
lonely, more like the room after someone leaves
and you can still smell their coffee. In English
I write alone but it lands wrong, too sharp,
a door slamming when I meant the soft give
of a hinge. My mother calls it solitude
but that's a choice and this—this is weather.

Today I watched a woman on the Northern Line
sleep against the window, her breath fogging
a small circle on the glass. She woke at King's Cross
and wiped it clean with her sleeve, erasing
the evidence of her own exhale. I wanted to tell her
in Japanese we have a word for that too—
hakanai, fleeting, like frost, like the moment
before you forget why you walked into a room.

At night I dream in subtitles. My father's voice
arrives in both languages at once, the way
a mirror holds your face and the face behind you.
He says you belong everywhere which means
I belong nowhere but that's not quite right either.
What I mean is: I am fluent in the grammar
of leaving. I conjugate goodbyes in three tenses.
I know the word for home in four alphabets
and it still doesn't open any doors.

This morning in Pret a woman asked for my name
and I gave the easy one, the one that fits
in English mouths. She wrote it on my cup
in looping letters and I thought of my grandmother
writing my name in kanji, each stroke a small act
of faith that I would know what it meant.
I drink my coffee on the walk to work.
The cup is warm. The name is someone else's.

#poetry #identity #translation #belonging