the walls of this apartment
thin as single eyelids —
I can hear the couple next door
streaming dramas in a language
I almost recognize,
the laugh track bleeding through
like loneliness trying to make itself
familiar.

I text my mother in Tokyo
good morning
which is her good night,
her reply arrives in kanji
I read by the light of my phone
at 3am London time,
timezone as the last honest measure
of distance.

ma—the Japanese word
for the space between things,
the pause that gives meaning—
but I live in the space between languages,
between cities that raised me
in different alphabets,
between the person I am in English
and the one I become
when I dream in Japanese.

Yesterday I mistranslated
natsukashii as nostalgia
but it's softer than that,
closer to the ache of recognition,
the way a stranger's perfume
on the tube
carries you back to someone
you haven't thought of
in years.

Today I'm trying to write
about belonging
but the words keep slipping—
home in English feels
like a locked door,
ie in Japanese
suggests a house
I've already left.

Maybe this is the poem:
the space between what I mean
and what I can say,
the static hum of wanting
to be understood
in any language,
the kettle boiling in my kitchen
sounding like rain
in someone else's memory.

I save my mother's text,
watch the kanji
blur into pixels,
close my eyes
and listen—

the couple next door laughing again,
the radiator ticking its small song,
the city breathing
through thin walls,
through the gap
between who I was
and who I'm learning to be.

#poetry #identity #bilingual #belonging