The branches are loaded with flowers

The way guns are with bullets.

They can’t tell between late spring

And early autumn.

Cherry blossoms killed many men.

 

Weeds hug the shore.

They may be the reason, I thought,

She never lets me too near

The water. Or is it because

She herself can’t swim

That she sent me to learn swimming.

 

She is afraid of many things,

And there are many more she never thought of trying.

She is so used to doing what she should do--

That time became used to it too,

And passes her by.

 

She is timeless, misinterpretation,

Nothing but (                             )

Something else.

She is the moon who

Allowed me to become a planet.

 

She is my identity

Reasons why I was led

To sit under Osmanthus trees.

She gave in and held me,

Months later

I finally saw conformity.

 

She took me to foreign places

Many of which I don’t even remember.

Youth is not to be cherished

But to be spent skipping

Across puddles, jumping

Into them, and--

Splatter.

 

Ink smeared on plain paper.

She tries to pull me back.

Her gravity internal, forceful...

I swam too far I drifted out of orbit.

 

Let me pull you into the water this time.

Roll up the bottom of your trousers.

Don’t worry about your glasses, 

Or our cats, or my father.

 

Let me take you somewhere we can

Be younger

Before any human voices wake us:

It’s autumn again.

 

The trees are saturated with color

Red and yellow.

The many shades we could rest under

Dry and cold.

 

I still like to hide under

Smooth white surfaces,

To stand tall at the edges

Of beds, and reach for your hands,

To crawl across the living-

Room, with a book in my mouth,

To speak: “                            ”.

 

Squirrels swam across grasses, branches,

Odysseus is still travelling--

Osmanthus flowers are killing many me.