Work Text:
[from the time-scarred, fingertips-marked pages of Ukina’s diary]
My dear loved one,
You are here,
here,
here.
- Mom
Dear Baby,
Today I told your father about you.
And your father told me about you.
He’s afraid. I’m, too.
But don’t you worry, my love.
- Mom
Dear Baby,
I hope you’re well now. I was so worried.
When I fed you, your Dad closed the door.
He tried not to make me hear that he was crying.
He cried like you would, eight months from now.
I cried, too.
When I finished it, I left the bedroom, held him tight in my arms,
dried his tears with my fingers,
put his hands on my belly.
I told him that I was pregnant of you,
and of our future.
- Mom
Dear Baby,
I wonder what you are.
A boy? A girl?
A ghoul? A human?
I wonder how you look like.
I hope you have your father’s eyes:
steamed-coffee, warm and kind eyes.
I want to see you.
I’m waiting for you.
- Mom
Dear Baby,
Yesterday I was teaching Dad how to make coffee.
He knows how to make one, but not one like I do.
Today he isn’t here; he’s off, working.
Here, let me tell you
our first secret:
There’s a trick I do when I miss him.
I close my eyes, and he’s there:
looking through the window,
always the same seat, the same coffee, without sugar,
and I’m falling in love again.
Last night I dreamed of the three of us,
drinking your father’s coffee.
When you grow older, let’s have coffee together.
There’s a small cup stored away in the cupboard for you.
- Mom
Dear Baby,
Today we bought some things for you:
Socks, bodysuits and shoes.
I took one of the socks in my hand, and imagined your foot in it.
It’s so small.
We’re preparing everything for you.
Dad’s in the other room, your room, painting the walls.
Shhh, don’t tell him that I told you already, okay?
- Mom
Dear Baby,
For the first time, you kicked me!
I’m so proud of you.
You’ll survive, you’ll be born.
You’ll live.
You’re strong, my love.
- Mom
Dear Baby,
This time, Dad felt your kick too.
Then he kissed my belly.
You felt it too, right?
You kicked again.
- Mom
Dear Baby,
Dad calls you a miracle,
and you move inside of me,
along with my heart.
Can you hear it beating?
I want to hear you too.
What will be the sound of your voice?
Of your crying?
Of your laugh?
- Mom
Dear B[cr
o
o
ked line]
Dear Eto,
Eto
エト
エト
You’re beautiful.
Welcome home, my love.
- Mom
Dear Eto,
I’m glad that even now
I can do this for you:
you relaxed in my arms
while I was feeding you.
No matter how much I had cried
before you were born,
the choice still was easy,
still was simple
to make –
it was for you.
- Mom
Dear Eto,
You have a month now.
We clapped hands,
we sang a song.
I wonder who the child is:
you,
or your parents?
Today, it’s the first time you smiled.
- Mom
Dear Eto,
Sometimes, I’ve asked myself
what I did to deserve this happiness.
I only gave your father words:
orange afternoons after my shift, spent on a bench in the park, next to the cafe,
kanjis written in a paper, sometimes in his palm,
by my fingertips.
In exchange, he gave to me
his love,
and you.
- Mom
Dear Eto,
I didn’t know. He didn’t know.
He embraced me for a long, long time.
--Later, much later,
I went to your room. You were sleeping so peacefully…
I covered you again with the blanket that you set aside.
Your small fist curled around my finger.
Because of you and him,
I fell in love with the world.
So it was not strange that you both made me feel like
everything would be okay.
- Mom
Dear Eto,
Probably, this is the last time I’ll ever write for you.
Please, whatever happens, don’t hate your Dad.
It’s not his fault.
This way, they won’t come home,
they won’t know you, they won’t find you.
I wonder who you’ll be in the days, in the years yet to come.
I hope you see beautiful things.
I hope you go wherever you want to go.
I hope you have a good life.
I hope you love someone as much as I love your Dad,
and I hope you are loved as much as he loves me.
I wa[blurred ink, drowning words] see you growing old.
And I want you to know
that you were loved.
- Mom
[from the last and old page of Ukina’s diary]
Dear Mom,
[strikethrough lines]
I do know that you loved me,
but there’s a girl clawing her way
out of the fetid
foul forsaken
hole,
walls of meat roaring and coming and closing
the way she came.
She cannot go back.
Certainly, there,
where she came from,
she could use
her skin:
it would be a land for soft touches,
forehead kisses,
lips kisses.
It wouldn’t break
under her own touch.
Mother.
Mom.
Is this love?
[from Takatsuki Sen’s “The Black Goat’s Egg”]
My dear lost one,
your parents
failed in raising you.