The train station at 6 AM,
fluorescent light pooling on tile,
and I am thinking in three languages at once—
belonging in English, 所属 in Japanese,
but neither word lands quite right
in the space between my ribs.

My mother texts me in romaji
because her phone's keyboard is broken.
Genki? she asks, and I write back
I'm fine because fine is easier
than trying to translate the particular shade
of loneliness that lives in a studio apartment
where the radiator clangs all night
and I wake up not knowing
which city I'm dreaming.

\
\
On the Jubilee Line a woman is crying
quietly, the kind of crying that happens
when you think no one is looking.
I want to tell her I see her.
I want to tell her in Japanese there's a word—
懐かしい—that means nostalgia
for something you can't quite remember losing,
but we don't speak, because this is London,
because the train doors are opening,
because I am very good at leaving.

\
\
At my desk I translate product descriptions
for a company that sells artisanal experiences—
whatever that means—and I make the English sound
smooth as river stones, make the Japanese
sound omotenashi, make both versions forget
they were written by someone who doesn't quite believe
in the grammar of home.

\
\
But sometimes, late at night,
I read Bashō on my phone screen,
the old frog jumping into the old pond,
furuike ya, and the sound—
plop—echoing across three centuries,
and I think: maybe belonging
is just this. The brief disturbance
of a small body entering water.
The ripples spreading outward
then settling again into stillness.

#poetry #identity #displacement #bilingual