I wake to the alarm's soft glow—
another mouth opening
to swallow the quiet.

In the shower, I speak
to no one, testing the weight
of my mother's syllables
against my father's.

Neither fits. Both fit.

The train smells like rain
and strangers' laundry.
A woman across from me
scrolls through a life
that looks just like mine—
coffee, inbox, the small erosions
we call routine.

At my desk, I translate
loneliness into 孤独
and wonder if they mean
the same thing,
if the space between them
is where I live.

---

My body is a subtitle
no one asked for—
too much here,
not enough there.

I practice smiling
in the language
of whoever's watching.

At the konbini, the clerk
doesn't look up.
I buy onigiri, a can of something
sweet I don't need,
grateful for the transaction's
brevity.

Outside, the city hums—
a chorus I don't quite
belong to, but know
all the words.

---

Tonight I'll lie awake
scrolling faces
in languages I half-understand,
each screen a small window
into someone else's
approximation of home.

I'll fall asleep
to the sound of delivery bikes,
dreaming in a pidgin
only I speak—
part memory, part invention,
part the rain
that falls the same
in every city I've left.

When I wake, I'll check my phone
to see if anything changed
while I was gone.

It never does.
It always does.

#poetry #identity #displacement #Tokyo