Striving Body

Through the wee hours of the morning light,
Rushing from track to track.
A strange, far-away land that feels like home to me,
Barely able to keep my eyes open on the final train heading back.

When I walk onto the platform at Okegawa Station,
I'm almost home again.
A night of sweat, laughs, disappointments and minor successes,
I have to crash again.

"Should haves," "could haves" and "might haves,"
There's nothing to regret.
Despite my torpid body,
My mind alert and set.

Heels aching through my black dress shoes,
This time no dead cicadas on the ground.
This time no crows cawing with the cry of a hundred zillion mornings,
My orange and blackness drifting through the quiet grey I've found.

To close my eyes in a healing sleep,
To drown the care for another day.
A pushing of my limits,
A blasting fatigue to wash away.

I watch myself get younger with age,
As my body gradually decays.
Ah! To accept what life is - that is the goal of one who strives;
To long, crave, strive, climb and then slumber,
Like a sunset in a devil's a eye.