Japanese flowers of evil

The curtain rises on the night’s stage, and I stop a moment
Look hard at what is before your eyes
Don’t turn your face away
Love and death are muddled by fury,
Dissolving as it comes near
The keloid man sings
Your dress flutters
As you laugh, ‘Oh, how lovely!’
On center stage, I’m bared completely – but to whom?

Now it’s like you’re sleeping peacefully,
So I’ve closed your eyes
Perhaps, I’m tired of performing, dreaming…
Everything, everything…

Your lifeless fingers slip from my grasp
I was always watching you
My voice won’t come,
But I murmur
‘I’m going now…’
But I don’t even know how to escape this pale room
Before the full moon, you gently fluttered down
And were swept away with the waves
‘…for eternity’
If I sleep here one more time...

Atsushi Sakurai