Charlotte
In response to Sofia Coppola’s film, Lost in Translation (2003).

Crumpled sheets and a hotel with no name.
He leaves her with a kiss that bruises her knees.
She looks below and sees the city,
Atlantic lights playing with red blue pink orange gold.
It has a different smell from her New York but tastes the same.
Urban trees bear the same fruit,
packaged under a different name.

The streets are beaten with stilettos
And pelted with runaway stars.
She can tell them apart after the third day,
they watch her as she watches them
The Shibuyas.
Same streaks of blonde,
fake like her pink hair,
But their renegade dreams too real.

The rain looks like it touches her
But it doesn’t, her 100 yen shield.
Transparent, it unfolds onto the skies,
turns back time
And removes his kiss.
The city was hers, not his.

She went as far as Kyoto,
Snaking through carmine temples,
Where monks painted loneliness on her wrists.

But she didn’t leave and still by the window,
Toe nails painted red, she whispers “Goodbye, Tokyo.”

- For Aaron.
Poetry Final Collection of 10 poems, 15.04.2011