From My Previous Journals (27 April 2002)

I am a tourist in the Forbidden City. It is 1958 and my father doesn’t speak Chinese on the weekends. They banned him from the country but forgot to take his passport. I returned it to him after the journey in a Ziploc bag.

My Chinese is a bit rusty, like the wheels on my bicycle, which spin aimlessly while hanging on the wall in my garage. He speaks to me in riddles while I hum silently to myself. I catch one word out of five. Either he is auctioning me to the highest bidder, or offering me a glass of water.

The water is cool and takes me under. I have drowned once before in that tepid pool of self-realization in another poem nearly forgotten on the shelf. I’ve counted to ten and am not released.

Zheng Chao, a 16-year old boy from Pangkow, showed me the ruins yesterday. He did this in exchange for a pair of cufflinks I never wore anyway. I was reminded of my own son, taken from me many years ago in a boating accident near Wales. He, too, was 16, lost in a hall of mirrors I created. No matter now, all is lost anyway.

My thoughts are forbidden as well, no access to the masses. June likes to say I’m obsessed with the unattainable. I simply call it ambition. Who wins and who loses. My book is a bestseller in Cambodia, although the natives cannot read.

Red lamps frame the castle, shining down on our two still forms. Zheng is reverently kneeling as I look on. I wonder if it is his family name, if he would return with me to Rio. However, he would be drowned too if he followed, and I couldn’t have it on my conscience.

I am one with the subconscious, flying into New Delhi on my hang glider with you by my side. Minus the cufflinks, of course. I’ve eaten ice cream at the hotel before the flight. All so achingly ordinary and out of character for me. It is Rocky Road and the song is “Please.”

My mother does speak Chinese on the weekends and will be arriving tomorrow for a small holiday. She has never been to Rio and purchased the aforementioned cufflinks for me as a gift.

Freedom speaks,

Sam