2022, the year that killed my mother and choked my brother into hell, has closed her tired eyes. Never have I felt so shaken yet alive. I am me again. The shattered glass of my loved ones’ souls has cut me open. It hurt. I thought I cried. That is, until tonight. The best New Year’s Eve of my life.

I was hungry. I was satisfied. Finally, the feeling that I have returned back home. Yet I am alone, in my 10 square-foot Osaka apartment. Bawling in the bathtub, the way I used to as a child. The ghosts exited through my blood-shot eyes and trembling body.

The pen is my teddy bear. I didn’t wanna take a bath. I just wanted my bear. But I wasn’t crying because I missed him. I needed him, to help me catch this flock of birds. When they gushed out of me, they flipped me inside out.

The strange world I found myself in was one I used to know. Where words have wings and you are never alone. I used to play here as a child, catching lizards and frogs. And then in college, writing papers on Heidegger and Kant.

Philosophy was my first love. Because it saw me, and I saw it. We spoke the same language and played the same games. Together, we were aliens on an upside-down planet. We didn’t need anyone else. They didn’t seem to want us anyway.

I finally had a teacher and friend. It felt like my first kiss. I was a real boy. She held my hand. Taught me how to ride a pen. The ink burst out like flames. It had the ferocity of a dragon.

“What the hell had I gotten myself into?” I mumbled under my breath.

“Shhh,” she said. “I am taking you home.”

We shot through the dark, and returned to the light. I saw Prancer and Dancer and Santa swimming in the sky. They waved to me and said I was a good boy. I smiled, because for the first time in my life, I believed it.

My snot-tear-covered lips were stuck on repeat, playing four tracks that I could not delete:

“Leave me alone.”
“I’m tired.”
“I don’t want to bother you.”
“I’m sorry.”

Distant echoes from a child, that looked like me. Trapped in a cave, screaming to be seen. Twisting haunted wind-up toys, about to burst. Then a dragon came in, seemed to make matters worse. He roared and shouted, shook everything loose. Ripped me open and brought me back home. Korea, Japan, alcohol, women - it was all just a dream.

Yes, I’m oversharing. Clawing myself out from beneath a world of undersharing. Going up for a breath. Soakin’ in the sun. Reconnecting to my soul and hopping back on my dragon.

“I missed you, good friend. I’m sorry I left.”

“Left?” he belched. “You’ve just been sitting there. And your pie is getting cold.”
“P..pp..pie, I remember pie. Oh, and it’s okay. I like cold pie. I don’t wanna bother you. And anyway, I’m used to it.”

“Cold pie, my tail. I’m not gonna have you freezing to death again.” The dragon whispered out a fire, just big enough for me. I cooked my onigiris on it. They were still in my pocket.

Maybe it wasn’t a dream. But this feels so real. When I write, is when I come to life. Whether hiding in books or blasting through my ink wand, words are the only things that have always been there for me.

When times are good, they leave me alone and let me play. I abandon them, but they do not complain. And when the cold winter strikes, and I’m shivering, scared, all alone, they come back to me, with the dragon, who breathes a big fiery hug into me.

Popping words through my head. Pretty birds leaving their cage, flying back to their nest. Me, snapping pictures as they fade away. I want to remember. I want to know who I am and what this world is. Writing is the camera with my favorite lens.

I lost it, forgot about it. Then my Mom died and my brother, the only human I’ve ever really loved, went homeless. He tumbled down a spider hole. 

....CONTINUED

Written and performed by: Michael Waite