hotel room, ikebukuro.

hotel room, ikebukuro.

cold sake and a cigarette a delicious pair make (why travel always turns me into a smoker, I don't know, but I'm happy to embrace minor vices).

the city is all lights and rush and cool rain. our host is overly impressed with plastic food but buys us a devine dinner, fresh tofu in soy milk, soft and light and a ripple on the tongue.
A girl in the subway wants to practice English so voices a question but shies away when I respond with a few of my own. I appluad minor braveries and give my most dazzling smile.
Dylan still my soundtrack, Japanese knives still full of allure. One with a wooden handle large enough to split you stem to stern, oiled and dull in the light.

And I'm over Japanese women, like breaking an addiction, kicking a habit. Or quoting Tom, out of order and context:
"be careful of them in the dark
they're just thorns without the rose
you wave your hand and they scatter like crows"

tomorrow I hop a train to the far north, where the sprawl gives way to rice fields terraced down mountain sides and the sake suddenly acquires flecks of gold. I'll find a shot bar and chain smoke my gauloises and chat up thorns in cowboy boots still a few months behind the times. send me kisses and prayers.