Ohori

The scent of red licorice and crisp crunch of leaves walking underneath the arbors of northeast Portland.

Nights that blurred from youthful angst, peach Smirnoff, mason jars of tequila, weed, and the world feeling ten times too large without any arrows on where to go.

***

I walked through the dusky streets of Fukuoka as nighttime falls. I haven’t seen the streets since I returned to the hotel as dawn rose.

I realize I am at the beginning of something— of which I do not know.

But the end is not to be mourned— there are a million beginnings stretching out before me.

As long as there is time— there is hope.

Blue lights of hades and the cool undertones of snow.

Bats streaking through the air.

The walking reverie disrupted by the “zzzztt zzzztt!” of an industrial sized bug zapper on the lake’s edge.

Life in the galaxy beyond.

That itself brings an optimism that’s been lost for ages.

Feeling small in the best of ways.

A grain of sand on the beach of consciousness.