chinese pond, dreaming

twenty years after

i have always hated the imposture of such titles, i found them unsettling even when i would read the books with delight, in those early years (those early years - saying this loud, with different accents, yields different meanings, none of them right, though). it is not in front of god that the soul is groundless, it is in front of memory.  

(and still no lover's lips pressed upon hers taste as excruciatingly bittersweet as those crushed petals, that day)