a dead cat bounced once or twice
a dead man walked as a soldier from Qin dynasty
who dreamed about climbing the Great Wall across the vast
northern wasteland
and only found himself turned into a ghost in the bushes
like a shapeless shadow of wind
such vivid affairs one could not tell
in the midnight silence
and I knew nothing about the basement
where rats and cockroaches fought among themselves
I was alive, but couldn't walk nor bounce around
as a black swan or a white cat
while you said, come join the soldiers of the cockroaches.
Why not rats, I asked.
one inch seemed one million miles away
with two worlds apart
there was something inside me I couldn't reach
"tear me into pieces", you said,
"nothing is authentic or genuine as you will see
in pieces of me"
I was alive, but couldn't walk as a living being
the world surrounding me
was a tiny drop of the rain, dripping down
from a pigeon's wing-tip
time turned into a grain of sand --
-- the sole truth of the universe
with sore and pain in my back
I couldn't go too far from my flesh nor bring the true pieces of me
to the silent tides
I couldn't touch the shades of solidity
while my door was cracking --
the boundary of myself was disappearing
something completely foreign was reshaping
I felt the dim light of the rainy day came inside me
and shed on the cracked floor
when curtains were still tightly shut
Gapping, sobbing, and yelling in pain
I felt the dead man moving out of my body
and the grain of sand was free-flying
in the pouring rain
love or being loved was a state of quantum
-- rats or cockroaches didn't matter --
when a terra cotta soldier was walking
in the mighty wind.
