On the Road

Far off, pulling away,
fading slow,
taking back and taking back again
from the very start of life—
like every day—
the pain is already inside you.
 
It stays.
The earth is endless.
All the other lives?
Don’t matter much.
 
I think of friends—
they carry more pain than me.
But that doesn’t help.
Their pain isn’t mine,
and mine isn’t theirs.
So no matter how big
the pain outside,
it isn’t the weight that counts.
 
A tree has sprouted on my forehead.
It grows inward—
roots are veins,
nerves are branches,
thoughts are tangled leaves.
 
Today’s shade is from that tree.
Its blood is orange,
its pomegranate is fire.
It speaks inside my body—
“Come closer… you hear me?”
 
No one’s calling to take me away.
Modern folk,
like they can’t go forward at all.
The moving sorrow stays hidden,
the net still tightening around the heart.
 
Give the dream a little love for tomorrow—
be it fame or justice—
press your hand to your chest,
you’ll feel the hurt.
 
A time will stop in six beats,
an endless preparation for the road,
like the blind king’s court—
falling into the grip of a cold dharmaraj.
 
This nameless lump of flesh burns,
beats like fire in the ribs,
and in a newborn sky
you’ll see the line of a rainbow.
 
Hiding in a hundred faces,
I walk your eyes’ starry path,
my space-road coloured in rainbow paint.
 
Everything feels simple—still,
there are moments
I don’t know if it’s too much for me.
Don’t know if I should laugh loud,
or cry in fear,
or fake a cry,
hand to forehead.
 
After a while the laughter’s gone.
The silence is the reason—
a whole life of this foolery,
this acting,
this wearing of masks,
sitting quiet like a good man
beside the coffin of truth and law.
 
My transit—
from one darkness to another.
My turn—
from black to deeper black.
 
And all the burn of the road?
This crooked life is better than that.