A Prisoner's Love

"Throughout all these years that I have lived without freedom, our love was full of bitterness imposed by outside circumstances, but as I savor its aftertaste, it remains boundless. I am serving my sentence in a tangible prison, while you wait in the intangible prison of the heart. Your love is the sunlight that leaps over high walls and penetrates the iron bars of my prison window, stroking every inch of my skin, warming every cell of my body, allowing me to always keep peace, openness, and brightness in my heart, and filling every minute of my time in prison with meaning. My love for you, on the other hand, is so full of remorse and regret that it at times makes me stagger under its weight. I am an insensate stone in the wilderness, whipped by fierce wind and torrential rain, so cold that no one dares touch me. But my love is solid and sharp, capable of piercing through any obstacle. Even if I were crushed into powder, I would still use my ashes to embrace you."

-Liu Xiaobo, "I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement"

Nonsense

13 murders since the new year began within 485 square miles
these numbers mean nothing
statistical nonsense
the police shoot one another on the streets outside the club.

1.12.2010

today
death and all of his friends
are still very busy
the earth shakes
i remember the children buried under schools
the rescue workers collecting their backpacks
again, and again, and again… it shakes
but I barely feel it
I sleep through it
a year ago today, the most desolate of lands became more so
how long will it take to recover from 47 seconds worth of terror?
the palace is tipping over
the holy places but a facade
they were as good as dead anyway
they were already dead to me
no matter how much I wish they weren't

Poetry & Love

"Everybody can write poetry, just like everybody knows how to make love."

Gao Xingjian, The Other Shore

release

release
a lesson
not learned
experienced
touched
let go
exhale
breathe
groan
murmur
tighten
pressure
pain
still
scream
articulate
speak
listen
watch
receive
consider
and move
and move
and move
and move
and move and

Center of the World

no more time for wasted time,

wasting away

with loved ones close by

forgotten friends nearer still

worried about impressions

as if I was the center of the world

Language

“We, today, have a language to celebrate waywardness, but we do not have a cultural language to bring people back home.”

– Makoto Fujimura