Confessions of Death
I am a wealthy writer
from a noble Kyoto family.
In Japan, my fans call me: Swan.
I remember when pale moonlight
illuminates the ashen stone.
A woman drapes herself in a white kimono,
adorned with strutting cranes
and blooming pink sakura,
gazing deeply at my figure.
She is my wife, an elegant swan too,
who carries the spirit of Bushido.
I do not long to embrace death;
I only wish to spread my wings
and self-destruct beautifully,
for redemption.
My consciousness submerges
in the weight of original sin,
rolling alone.
My family owns a villa during wartime,
where cherry blossoms bloom in abundance.
How shameful this is
to the impoverished.
Only death offers peace.
I want to cast my weightless body
into the surging ocean together with her.
I say, “As a mortal, I am so sorry.
I do not deserve to be happy.”
Two swans step into the water,
forsaking this ridiculous family.
In the moment of fading,
death is liberation.
A moment of silence,
my heart at peace,
with oceanic waves.
Within this vast wheel of destiny,
I surrender to the hush of infinity.
We long for peace,
and in the crushing of the great wheel,
only the moment of suffocation
beneath the water
brings forth
a profound and joyful illusion:
The setting sun,
spring snow,
floating chrysanthemums
in my first chapter of life.
We die for the suffering,
but for whom do the living live?
We destroy ourselves for our own expectations,
but who remembers the dead?
At last, we smile at death,
at nothingness.
Death becomes our final sanctuary,
a respite from a world
reeking of greed.
Like two delicate leaves,
we softly fall into the ocean.
Through the moon’s shadow,
flowers’ darkened faces
resemble death.
Slaughterhouse
In certain lands, people have
unearthed deposits of skulls.
People find skeletons of different sizes,
emerging from soft soil like jagged fangs,
counting skulls, mottled corpses,
and dusty remains of clothes.
The cruel reality remains
imprinted in the bullet holes
above their hollow eye sockets,
in the white centers, dried and bloodless.
No need to wait for the archaeological team,
anyone can see this is a hell.
There is another slaughterhouse filled
with the cries of lambs being butchered and
the laughter of men drunk on violence.
No need for a textbook to describe these scenes—
the scarlet fabric fading to brown,
their blood seeping into the earth.
Here the sea of blood belongs to them.
Here at the sacrificial altar, offerings
satisfy the delusional hearts of butchers.
No need for historians to define who butchers are,
they are many: Nazis, invading armies, or terrorists.
No need to open the dark pages of history books.
Look into the flank of the earth,
to discover how these soils become a bloodied block.
Hear the cries of the departed, and wonder
how the living record their lingering embers.
— Yucheng Tao is from Nanjing and an international student studying songwriting at MI College of Contemporary Music in Los Angeles. His works have been published in NonBinary Review, Ink Nest, The Arcanist, Wingless Dreamer, Synchronized Chaos, Moonstone Art Center, Poetry Potion, and Spillwords.