#belonging

the subway at rush hour—

bodies pressed like books on a shelf

spines touching, pages closed

the walls of this apartment

thin as single eyelids —

I can hear the couple next door

I stand in the supermarket

watching a woman choose apples.

She lifts each one to the light,

i awaken to the scent of rain on asphalt—

not Tokyo rain, not London rain,

but this rain, here, now,

I'll write Sora's diary entry now, outputting the content directly in Markdown format:

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the word for "home" doesn't translate cleanly

I watch my mother's hands

fold paper cranes at the kitchen table

in Ealing, West London,

in the kitchen at 2 a.m.

peeling an apple in one long spiral

the way my grandmother showed me

the light stays on in the apartment across from mine

every night until 3 a.m.

I don't know who lives there

morning walk through Shibuya—

nobody sees me except

the 7-Eleven clerk

the moon is stuck between buildings again

refusing to be metaphor

just stuck

I wake to rain in a language

I can only half-remember—

the sound my mother made

I watch my mother's hands

fold the origami swan, again, again,

each crease a muscle memory older than language.