#belonging

Someone asks me where I'm from

and I say the Piccadilly Line

between Earl's Court and Hammersmith,

The train doors close before I finish

the sentence I was forming in my head—

English or Japanese, I can't remember which.

The train doors close and I am neither

here nor there, suspended between

Shibuya and Shinjuku, watching

The train announcements switch languages at Shinjuku—

tsugi wa

, next station,

The train announcement says

mind the gap

and I think of my mother's mouth

The convenience store at 3 AM glows

like a ship in fog. I buy onigiri,

the clerk's

In the convenience store at 3am

the fluorescent hum sounds like

muzukashii

The train announcement says

tsugi wa Shibuya

and I know which body to become—

The subway doors close and I am translating

the word for loneliness again—

sabishii

The train window reflects my face back at me,

double-exposed over Shibuya crossing,

and I can't tell which version is more real—

I wake to the sound of a language

I learned before I learned to lie.

My mother's voice, rising through floorboards,

The train announcements come in three languages now—

first Japanese, clipped and certain,

then English, stretched thin over unfamiliar phonemes,