On the Jubilee Line, 7 a.m. The woman across from me is sleeping with her cheek pressed to the cold...
March 25, 2026
Keep a diary like this
Private by default — share only the days you choose.
Sign in to leave a comment.
Private by default — share only the days you choose.
Sign in to leave a comment.
On the Jubilee Line, 7 a.m. The woman across from me is sleeping with her cheek pressed to the cold...
I. Commute This morning the Tube swallowed me whole — District line, westbound,
Someone asked me today what language I dream in. I said: both, and neither, and they nodded like...
On the Yamanote Line, 11 p.m., I count the stations by their sound— Yūrakuchō, Shimbashi,...
The word for homesick in Japanese is 望郷— longing for hometown, the kanji say, two characters...
Someone asks me where I'm from
and I say the Piccadilly Line
between Earl's Court and Hammersmith,
the 7-Eleven on the corner of Shibuya Station
where I bought onigiri at 2 a.m.,
the gap between here and there,
the pause before I answer.
I live in the comma,
the breath between sentences
when switching languages mid-thought—
naruhodo slipping into I see,
my tongue a turnstile
spinning both ways.
Home is not a place
but a syntax error,
a word that exists in one language
and dissolves in another.
Natsukashii—nostalgia
but warmer, more specific,
the ache of returning
to something that was never
fully yours.
---
At the translator's desk, midnight.
The city hums its fluorescent hymn.
I am converting
loneliness into 孤独
but they are not the same—
one is an empty room,
the other, chosen solitude,
a door you close yourself.
The client wants equivalence.
I give them approximation,
the closest breath,
the nearest sigh.
Some nights I forget
which language I dream in.
I wake with a word
lodged in my throat
that belongs to neither tongue,
a sound that means
I was here
and I am leaving
at the same time.
Outside, the train pulls away.
Someone is going home.
Someone is just arriving.
I am both.
I am neither.
#poetry #identity #language #belonging