Van Gogh's Ear
By Midori Chen
Sixty-two steps it took to get here. Sixty-four to go back. On the sixty-fifth step into the house I wanted to scream up at the heavens, sora, God, kami, inscribed in kanji over the door of “my room.” Define for me “prison,” kami, define for me a place that contains within the unwilling. The books and scholars and priests preach of Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, but that’s all just theory. I know Good from Bad, Right from Wrong. Theoretically. What’s the use of this knowledge if I can’t “apply it critically,” as everyone is so desperate for me to do? “Their House is wrong, My House is right.” This was the hardest thing to admit to.
Beautiful red lanterns hung along paper-thin streamers that were breathed across the sky. Bitterly, I wanted the sun to rise quickly as to put those glittering stars to shame, fade them out with age, with shame, like a mother, leftover from the past generation, swathed in a modest gray kimono, wanting more from me than I have to give. The mother beckoned me towards the books and scrolls, the lanterns winked for me to desire. Desire pleasure today, and leave tomorrow for tomorrow. Tomorrow, ashita, the sun will rise again, will it not? In the Land of the Rising Sun, won’t I always have a chance?
Sixty. Sixty-one.
I was scared to go back. I didn’t want a back to go towards. Only forwards, through an aisle of red lipstick, red perfume swathing today, because tomorrow was too gray a kimono for me to ever want to wear. I wanted the red lights, an artificial sun to hide Me. Me was Good, red lights were Bad. Another thing I could never admit to.
How do I take the sixty-second step?
Kami was Good, that I could admit, because I believed in God. God and Good I believed in. Did I believe that Me was Good? Did I believe in Me? Swathed in red... What if it doesn’t wash off? Like a drop of India ink on parchment fresh from Europe, a blemish on thick and perfect paper. But what is the use of the paper if it is never marked? Will its blankness just be left alone to admire from afar, framed, marked off, so nothing could ever touch it? I couldn’t be pinned beneath the glass like that. The sky was still the sky, a blue sora or a black sora, it didn’t matter which one I flew towards. Red kimono billowing around me, I took the last step.
Sixty-two.
- - -
Midori Chen attends San Francisco Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, better known as SF's SOTA. She reads everything from Shakespeare to Lovecraft to J.K. Rowling, and she is a poet and playwright as well as fiction writer. She enjoys all kinds of genres of writing, and has a collection of tin mint boxes on her desktop. She has been published in the Umläut literary journal, Issue 2011.
By Midori Chen
Sixty-two steps it took to get here. Sixty-four to go back. On the sixty-fifth step into the house I wanted to scream up at the heavens, sora, God, kami, inscribed in kanji over the door of “my room.” Define for me “prison,” kami, define for me a place that contains within the unwilling. The books and scholars and priests preach of Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, but that’s all just theory. I know Good from Bad, Right from Wrong. Theoretically. What’s the use of this knowledge if I can’t “apply it critically,” as everyone is so desperate for me to do? “Their House is wrong, My House is right.” This was the hardest thing to admit to.
Beautiful red lanterns hung along paper-thin streamers that were breathed across the sky. Bitterly, I wanted the sun to rise quickly as to put those glittering stars to shame, fade them out with age, with shame, like a mother, leftover from the past generation, swathed in a modest gray kimono, wanting more from me than I have to give. The mother beckoned me towards the books and scrolls, the lanterns winked for me to desire. Desire pleasure today, and leave tomorrow for tomorrow. Tomorrow, ashita, the sun will rise again, will it not? In the Land of the Rising Sun, won’t I always have a chance?
Sixty. Sixty-one.
I was scared to go back. I didn’t want a back to go towards. Only forwards, through an aisle of red lipstick, red perfume swathing today, because tomorrow was too gray a kimono for me to ever want to wear. I wanted the red lights, an artificial sun to hide Me. Me was Good, red lights were Bad. Another thing I could never admit to.
How do I take the sixty-second step?
Kami was Good, that I could admit, because I believed in God. God and Good I believed in. Did I believe that Me was Good? Did I believe in Me? Swathed in red... What if it doesn’t wash off? Like a drop of India ink on parchment fresh from Europe, a blemish on thick and perfect paper. But what is the use of the paper if it is never marked? Will its blankness just be left alone to admire from afar, framed, marked off, so nothing could ever touch it? I couldn’t be pinned beneath the glass like that. The sky was still the sky, a blue sora or a black sora, it didn’t matter which one I flew towards. Red kimono billowing around me, I took the last step.
Sixty-two.
- - -
Midori Chen attends San Francisco Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, better known as SF's SOTA. She reads everything from Shakespeare to Lovecraft to J.K. Rowling, and she is a poet and playwright as well as fiction writer. She enjoys all kinds of genres of writing, and has a collection of tin mint boxes on her desktop. She has been published in the Umläut literary journal, Issue 2011.
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