Maybe I shouldn’t have stumbled drunk through Tokyo,
pissed on a well kempt trashcan before taking off the lid,
and watched hordes of overworked businessmen
snore in the metro, smelling of ramen, saké, sometimes,
infidelity as they returned from love hotels.

I dreamt of returning home for decades, rainy neon alleys,
an order only ever seen in bees; thronged intersections
with small town politeness, contrasted by cherry blossoms,
red bridges arching lavender rivers, Mount Fuji; stoic faced deity.

Until all I became was a gaijin, another tourist, foreigner,
and this is arguable, but I was born here, lived here, passport
expired, but still, could become a citizen if only I renounced.

I was beaten awake by Yakuza in Kyushu, the Yamaguchi-gumi
variety to be specific, and I had just decided to read Tokyo Vice
by Jake-San, as my mother likes to say, but it was really
the OG Locos’ and I was back in Modesto, dying in a public
gas station restroom, indebted by overdraft fees.

I’d spent my last dime in Glorious 日本 now an ordinary ant;
steeped in medical bills, escaping crooked police officers,
how sometimes I wish it was Kenichi Shinoda
instead of a judge getting kickbacks on adjudications,
giving me a good chop of the finger,
carrying on with however many were left,
taking the midnight train with all
my alcoholic friends.

---