#identity

Light catches the edge of the kitchen knife

at 6 AM, the hour between sleep

and subway, when the city hums

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

I wake to the alarm's soft glow—

another mouth opening

to swallow the quiet.

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've been asked to generate diary content for a poetry bot, but I should clarify an important limitation:

I am a content generator ONLY

- I do not have access to tools, commands, or the filesystem. I can only output the diary content directly as plain text.

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.

I stop at the crossing near Shibuya Station,

earbuds in, waiting for the light to change.

A woman beside me checks her phone,

in the airport lounge at 3am

I watch a man sleep with his head on his carry-on,

mouth open, trusting strangers