January 19, 2026

I stand in the supermarket
watching a woman choose apples.
She lifts each one to the light,
turns it slowly in her palm.
My mother did this—
weighed fruit like a meditation,
testing firmness with her thumb.
I never learned what she was looking for.

Now I buy whatever is closest.
Speed over discernment.
Efficiency a poor translation
of what I've lost.

The woman places three apples
gently in her basket,
as if they were sleeping children.
I think: mottainai—
that untranslatable ache
for what we waste.

***

On the train platform at 6 AM
we stand in neat columns,
each body a sentence
waiting to board.

A salaryman's breath
fogs the air between us.
I count the visible seconds—
one, two, three—
before we both disappear.

In Tokyo I learned
how to be alone in crowds,
to wear solitude like a second skin.

In London I learned
loneliness is louder,
spreads across empty rooms
like spilled milk.

Here, now, between platforms,
I practice being neither—
just breath,
just fog,
just the small gaps
where strangers almost touch.

#poetry #identity #belonging #solitude