Okinawa

 

               Maybe because I went there with the useless man,

Everything about this island irritated me. 

A 24-hour-flight-tour was enough for a pregnant woman

to have swollen all the way up.  The heavy, sticky air felt

like the breath of a drunken old man. 

It was like a steam room as if

the air was speaking out so loud that

everybody eventually got so annoyed. 

A tropical paradise?

Yeah right, it felt like a living hell to me.

                Most of all, the useless man was severely next to me. 

He used to like to say

                “everything is fine”, when it never was.  I was so angry with

 his decision to come to such a place.  It may be a paradise for

shallow tourists, who were to visit for a few days and

see nothing more. 

Too bad that I had to live there for the next 3 years,

thanks to the useless man. 

Getting there at any point of life must have been my karma,

since I gave birth to 2 children on the island.  Although,

I never wanted to admit

my connection to the place, where hated me so much.

 

Some “things” were around us,

things that were not supposed to be seen.

A boy ran through the living room, and disappeared

                into the front door.  The drapes slid all the way and

swung behind me, while no one else was in the room. 

Some nights, I woke up at 3 a.m. feeling pressure in the air

 

—something was watching me---

 

The useless man thought I was paranoid when

I spilled out of a series of the events.

Other wives on base had similar tales of phenomenon.  They said,

“the island is cursed,”

or I would say, the spirits had freedom to run through the island.

Soldier spirits came to attack me verbally,

I literally felt like a magnet to evil. 

One would quickly pick up my “mainland” accents and said,

 

“oh, what an unfortunate baby you have,

she will be ugly just like her mother.”

 

Before I would say a word,

the wrinkled face disappeared in the crowd. 

After the exact expressions from 3 different women,

I wasn’t sure anymore whether

they were living or dead spirits. 

               

Took sanshin lessons with a well-known singer,

who only sang of the islanders. 

Songs of loving the island,

songs of traditions, and

songs for the dead. 

I sang and sang a song after another in the tunes of 3 strings,

as if I were making a balloon-like shield

all around me with the sound.

If there were particles without membranes, the spirits would

have known my hatred against the people and

their homeland beneath my skin. 

But they never harmed me. 

Could be because I sang the songs for them

in tears for their misfortunes,

or were they only being the bad jokes.

When the time finally came to leave this place,

I took the children, and left every other spirit behind,

including the useless man. 

I never wake up at 3 in the morning any more. 

I see no nonsense during the day. 

Sad experiences of the island remained and

walked among deaths and lives.

Okinawa was such a place. 

Reviews

[JiltedButterfly]

wow - this is great. I really like the tone and the style. conversational and still poetic. It reminds me of Murikami's style ordinary and at the same time not ordinary...

lovely.