#language

Someone asked me today what language I dream in.

I said: both, and neither,

and they nodded like they understood

The word for homesick in Japanese is 望郷—

longing for hometown, the kanji say,

two characters leaning into each other

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 announcement says mind the gap

and I think of my mother's mouth

forming English words like stones

The convenience store at 3 AM glows

like a ship in fog. I buy onigiri,

the clerk's irasshaimase soft

At the konbini at 3am, fluorescent light

makes everyone look like they're underwater.

The clerk says irasshaimase to no one,

The train doors open at Shinjuku

and I step out into a語

I almost knew—

I wake to messages in three time zones—

my mother's voice memo from Shibuya at dawn,

a friend's breakup text from Brooklyn at midnight,

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.