Ai (1947-2010)

Nothing But Color by Ai for Yukio Mishima I didn't write Etsuko, I sliced her open. She was carmine inside like a sea bass and empty. No viscera, nothing but color. I love you like that, boy. I pull the kimono down around your shoulders and kiss you. Then you let it fall open. Each time, I cut you a little and when you leave, I take the piece, broil it, dip it in ginger sauce and eat it. It burns my mouth so. You laugh, holding me belly-down with your body. So much hurting to get to this moment, when I'm beneath you, wanting it to go on and to end. At midnight, you say see you tonight and I answer there won't be any tonight, but you just smile, swing your sweater over your head and tie the sleeves around your neck. I hear you whistling long after you disappear down the subway steps, as I walk back home, my whole body tingling. I undress and put the bronze sword on my desk beside the crumpled sheet of rice paper. I smooth it open and read its single sentence: I meant to do it. No. It should be common and feminine like I can't go on sharing him, or something to imply that. Or the truth: that I saw in myself the five signs of the decay of the angel and you were holding on, watching and free, that I decided to go out with the pungent odor of this cold and consuming passion in my nose: death. Now, I've said it. That vulgar word that drags us down to the worms, sightless, predestined. Goddamn you, boy. Nothing I said mattered to you; that bullshit about Etsuko or about killing myself. I tear the note, then burn it. The alarm clock goes off. 5:45 A.M. I take the sword and walk into the garden. I look up. The sun, the moon, two round teeth rock together and the light of one chews up the other. I stab myself in the belly, wait, then stab myself again. Again. It's snowing. I'll turn to ice, but I'll burn anyone who touches me. I start pulling my guts out, those red silk cords, spiraling skyward, and I'm climbing them past the moon and the sun, past darkness into white. I mean to live.