Regret

Sometimes I try to imagine: if I were about to leave this world in the next moment, what would come to mind? What would I be most reluctant to leave? After all, it's just a game of imagination — in the next moment, I'm confident I'll still be alive. So I've never found the most precious thing in life.

That September, that once-young and reckless me, who charged ahead without looking back, who once listened to the alarm clock and read the prose-poem's sorrow, that line shouted at the moon, that answer I was looking for.

What I wanted, I haven't yet obtained. What I should have lost was lost long ago. I still stand at the door of the inn, watching troop after troop of people pass by, as time slips away unnoticed.

Still that old wooden house — even if I paint it in color, how can the sunset's crimson change that?

Tears struggle in the sunlight, loneliness boils in the night. My stubborn pride shattered another stubborn pride; from then on, the proud remained proud, but the stubborn one vanished without a trace. How deep is the sea, carrying how many tears — which wave tells the story of which cloud?

That night the road was muddy and winding, that night the lamplight was silent, that night there was no moon. I carried a bag of concern, not knowing which kind you wanted, so I gave you everything, gave you the night itself — but you fell in love with the clear day, that spotless clean that touches no shadow.

I am a mirror. Since you looked into me, your image still lingers on my surface. Though I've been tossed in a corner, moonlight has washed me spotless.

The years I've walked by are long locked, the small path I trod is overgrown with moss, the scars on the river remain — but I am no longer the me of before, even though I still wear yesterday's clothes. Deep remembrance — why sigh?

Perhaps it's a wild path no one has ever walked, perhaps that road is overcast, perhaps if I keep going, everything distant will fade away, everything will be gone — my blue sky, my snowflakes, my wind… I will stand empty-handed on the gobi and, with the last grassfield, the last lyric, and the teardrop I cannot hold, fall together. The truth of life is right before me: a sliver of sunlight, two flying birds, a few yellow leaves — almost palpable, faint, nearly nothing, like the stars in the sky, visible only in deep night. Even so, it is a form of existence, and it does truly exist.

For life, for that faint, half-there light of hope — even if every day means torment in darkness, even if hope truly doesn't exist, it's still worth it.

I have an angel's heart, I have a mortal's wings, I flew into the blue sky, but can never reach heaven. Maybe one day I'll find an angel lost in the mortal world, and with my wings I can give her a chance to find herself again. I am waiting, waiting for my Yi Duo. So many people come and go — who among them carries a pair of broken wings on their back?

Every day, I am judged for no reason. I'm like that cat that lingers around our dorm, homeless — I don't even know what crime I committed. Wandering isn't my fault, nor can it count as a crime. If you want to say I did wrong, it's that I didn't sell myself. So-called sin is only a contradiction with the law, not a matter of right and wrong.

My prison, other people's laws — that is the root of evil.