Room
(1)
March, three months, another, and after.
Empty rooms within empty rooms,
Obtained a bored person,
And a table of mineral water bottle caps.
Expired letters in the wardrobe,
No signatures and there will be no reply,
Probably because they are already dead, after I tried.
Unopened clothing packages at the bottom of boxes,
And garbage bins filled with plastic forks from instant noodles.
Wounds untended, unseen by all,
Idle soul, drifting without purpose,
Barren rooms, no spirits to share this life.
Entering and leaving at will,
Stains on the floor, tape marks on the wall,
Unwashed bowls and cups set aside day after day,
The room, you can no longer be clean.
(2)
Wiped over and over again,
Adding gentle wounds,
No one will care that dust is picked up, then falls.
Just like this cycle, from now on, only in never out.
In a room about to die,
Only for newcomers to enter, pass, and die.
Without any thoughts, through the only window,
To see the connection to the living world.
The city is full of people and rooms without people.
Room, how should you let people see,
The world is not all your fantasy.
Why are you staying here,
Watching people come and go,
leaving only disgusting scars.
What have you gained,
Just continuously losing.
People think you've gained beauty, gained money.
What do you want, what would you need?
I quietly lie on your body,
And listen to what you say.
I heard heartbeats from the concrete walls,
In one's twenties, with the fatigue of middle age.
(3)
You looked down and saw your own corpse,
I saw it, already, I am certain I have seen it,
I believe......
I lie on your corpse,
Thinking of your heartbeat.
You once had countless dreams like me,
Until trapped to death under this patch of public sky.
In this solid, compacted forest.
I sit on your arm and write everything down.
I am about to leave, leaving you here to rot,
To grow again, watching people walk toward death.
Dismembered limbs piled on the streets,
With remaining fingers, pointing,
At the sky and buildings that inspire infinite imagination,
In a view that no one sees,
Seeing the world that everyone has seen.
Cite as: Dai Pan, "Room," Three Worlds, Their World, poem 19, 2025. https://daipan.ink/their-world/room