I'm late I'm late I'm late! ... I don't know why, but I'm feeling a bit of deja vu coming on right now.
Crimson Galleon
Yearning in the whim of a salty sea breeze
Should you dispatch yourself to sea,
Will you remember me?
•
"For half a year and nothing more, Kiku."
Mane and robes of silk
Tousled upon the gust,
My dashing teenation is fit to explore.
"Then I'll be back,
And we can love again", he smiled.
•
The galleon and her
Crimson sails
Beckon you back.
Wretched contraption;
To steal you away from my arms
For half a year!
•
My heart of sorrow quails at the prospect.
•
For I am a nation
Born of the sea,
I know her like a mother his babe.
•
I know of her
Belly's lust
For the daring and prude.
How savagely she swallows those vessels;
How they sink to the saliva of her
Guts,
To never return.
Ten thousand fellows of valour,
Their flesh a feast to the fish.
Leaving their widows to howl and covet.
•
"But what if you don't?
What if I never see you again?"
I hang my head.
•
It's not fair!
I've only been here in
This foreign land
For five years with you.
"Come back with me",
You'd said.
"I'll show you things beyond your wildest dreams",
You'd said.
•
And now you shall flight
On the junk that brought us back.
To more foreign lands and sweaty peddlers,
Far, far away
From anywhere I can whisper your name.
•
I'm selfish,
But I've come to treasure a dream that
You are mine alone.
•
Not Rome;
Not Persia;
Not those Mesopotamian fiends.
•
You're mine
And
I don't want to let go for anyone else.
•
"Now don't say th—Kiku?
Is that a tear I see?"
•
I shake my head furiously,
Snuffing the first away before it could fall to my chin.
•
The sea shall steal you from me.
Be it for
Half a year or forever.
Be it through wreck or reap,
The sea shall steal you from me.
•
I need you, Yao!
I'm cold and I'm small and I'm scared.
The bed will be twice empty,
The winter thrice blue
And the blue of the sky devoid of crisp,
Blended into the dark of my eyes
That shall be raw and red every morn.
•
"Don't leave",
I can't hide it anymore.
I cry into your arms;
Amber kimono against red robes.
As if the warmth of our colours
Will make up for the absence of your
Ambience
When the galleon takes you away.
"Don't leave me, Yao.
I need you;
I'm frightened here without you."
•
"Why so?" You laugh softly.
"China welcomes you like a lost lover.
I love you with all my heart;
My people appraise you like kin.
It is of warmth and joy
That awaits you here,
So that you are at home even when I shall depart."
•
"But it's to waste
if I can't be with you.
•
"Take me with you!"
I begged.
"Take me with you!
I won't be any trouble; you know I won't!
•
"I can't live without you anymore,
Yao.
It's an addiction",
I sniffled.
•
But he twirled me and
Laughing, said:
"You truly are a child, Kiku.
•
"You will be fine.
That
I know I can
Expect of you", he cooed.
"I am a child born of the river yellow,
but I know the sea
Like a father his babe.
I know
How she thrashes and roars;
She is a beldam
With the vivacity
To sink even the vessels of my craft.
•
"I can't bear with myself,
In this life nor the next,
Should I let anything so much as
Prick your slender fingers.
•
"Now I must be off."
The galleon's sails flare
Crimson against the robin plateau
Of the sea and the sky.
The roar of the captain,
Demanding that you board immediately.
•
You stare at me forlornly.
But why is it
That you are smiling with
Warm, dewy eyes
As you murmur:
"One last kiss before I go?"?
•
Choking back the tears,
I give in to
Your final wish.
•
"Take care of yourself and Yongsoo.
It'll be over
Before we know it."
•
And as you clambered aboard the vessel
And give me a wave of your hand;
And as the galleon,
With its dragon sails,
Fade into a dot in the robin quagmire,
I sob again.
•
Wondering if
You'll remember me
When you dispatch yourself to sea.
The day my Kiku came hurtling back to me:
Soldiers in the streets;
People on their knees.
•
The ships they sank to the bottom of the sea
On the last day of December.
•
Aa-ii-ya-ya
Aa-ii-ya
On the last day of December.
•
... *cries grotesquely*
-Plumeria-hi