May I look up when I die!
May not this small chin become smaller still!
Yes, I am blamed for what I have
not felt, an invocation to death, I believe.
Ah, if only I look up!
Then, at least, I might be as one who feels everything.
O expectations, stale and dismal airs,
leave this body of mine!
I want nothing anymore but simplicity,
quiet, murmurs and order.
O acquaintances, grantors of dark disgrace,
do not wake me again!
I will endure my solitude,
arms seeming already useless.
O eyes that open doubtfully,
open eyes that stay motionless for a while,
ah, heart, that believes in others more than itself,
O expectations, stale and dismal airs,
leave, leave this body of mine!
I enjoy nothing anymore but my wretched dreams.
there was a nine-year-old child
the child was a girl
and as if the world’s atmosphere were hers
as if she could lean on it
she tilted her head
when she spoke with me
I warmed myself at a kotatsu
she sat on the tatami
an exceptionally mild winter afternoon
my room aglow with sunlight
when she tilted her head
her earlobes seemed translucent
trusting me fully at peace
the girl’s heart was of an orange color
its warmth neither overflowed
nor shrank like a deer
I forgot about everything then
and gently contemplated time
Even so, my heart is lonely.
Every night, alone in a boarding room,
thinking thoughtlessly about thought, a monotonous
and wretched heart’s duet…
I hear the sound of a steam whistle
and think of travel, my childhood—
no, no, I don’t think of childhood or travel,
but see what looks like travel, what looks like childhood…
My heart, which thinks thoughtlessly about thought,
is closed, like a casket fuzzy with mold.
White lips, dry cheeks,
fade into the cold stillness…
The more I get used to it, the more I endure.
This painful solitude. Without
my realizing it they fall, sudden and strange,
tears which are no longer tears of love…
