Chuuya

O acquaintances, grantors of dark disgrace, do not wake me again!
22
Yokohama
 

I. Pray

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.

II.

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.

III.

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

IV.

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…

Friends (3)