March 8, 2026

The phone rings in a language
I almost remember. My mother's voice
curls around vowels I can't quite
reach anymore. Daijoubu? she asks,
and I say yes in English, which means
something got lost in the three seconds
between continents. I translate
for a living but can't find the word
for this—the way I am fluent
in leaving, in answering
in the wrong alphabet.

Last night I dreamed in subtitles.
Woke up tasting someone else's
homesickness on my tongue.

displacement study

On the Central Line at 6 AM
a woman applies eyeliner
without a mirror, her hand steady
against the swaying carriage,
and I think this is faith—
to know where your face is
in the dark. To trust
the architecture of your own bones.

In Shibuya I watched a man
sleep standing up, his body
learning the rhythm of the train,
and I wanted to ask him
how he does it, how he stays
upright through all that motion,
but I was already three stops past
where I meant to get off.

Some days I am fluent in neither
staying nor going. I practice
the grammar of arrival: I am here,
I tell the mirror. I am
somewhere. The room
doesn't argue. The kettle
screams in a language
everyone understands.

#poetry #identity #displacement #bilingual