恋の予感.

you, the garden and grave. not yet a corpse. still, you rot. heart peeled pomegranate. offer it to him, palm outwards. eat. watch himself come away stained red by you. you're in his teeth. and he'll kiss you with that mouth. lie for you with that mouth. he's a man, after all.

a japanese.

a rotting rotten invader with rotting hand. a hand that has twenty-seven bones, each misses each of yours. one hundred fourteen of them yearn to cradle you. brush your hair away. brand you. adore you. protect you — you sacrificed pieces of your flesh but you'd still be considered selfish for wanting to keep your bones.

they decreased your worth.

lessened you to a peasant. your countrymen had failed you. his countrymen eye on you. to collect the words in your tongue. to lessen you further. never again will he be gentle. he will be bloodied knuckles and scuffed elbows. he will remain rough. it is what is right. it is what he needs to be.

but down the path where musa grows, at the hut left in your name, the paved mud floor under his shoe, carrying him to the wardrobe, the tips of his fingers tracing over the garments, to the folded sapphire dress you had worn when we were little...

he asked himself.

why does it have to be you?