Before the plane

It's the last night before I leave for home, and I still haven't chosen whether I want Kiyono in my life or not. This last week has been one of the hardest in my life. I hate the girl and love her at the same time; I need her laugh, her smile, her unaffected way of touching life which is so against the cynical boredom of my culture; I hate that I can't talk to her, and that even if I could we would have little in common; I hate her for daring to love me, I hate her for her devotion even when I hurt her, I love her for loving me when I hurt her.

She lives her life fine without all the abstractions that I love to think about, but I think perhaps I will not be able to respect her in the long run, if I can't talk to her about what I am thinking. Or perhaps I am the fool. She captured my churning thoughts with one line - you needed me here in Japan, when you didn't know anyone and when you are in Australia you won't need me anymore - and I stopped thinking for once and looked at her because she knew all the time and I didn't, rushing back and forth in my mind, pitting obligation and guilt and the debt I owe her for being my lifeline here versus our inability to talk, our inability to share the nuances of language which I love, the longing I have to wake up next to her against her deceptive simplicity.

This has been the hardest week of my life. I can't decide, I really can't fucking decide, I'm killing her and she's killing me; one night in Okinawa, both naked in the shower and I decide that the answer is a definitive no, that I don't love her so much as need her and that it would be unfair to continue, and she, blind, sobbing, rocking on her haunches, this mute expression of need in purest form; she worked herself into a frenzy and I spent the night and next day crying next to her hospital bed, crying at the strength and weakness of this crazybrave girl, this fucked up girl, this girl whose simplicity covers a deep, deep pain and the tears I mistook for love and I said the next night, I wept for you which means I care about you which means I was lying to myself so please come and let's try it in Australia and then two days later, aware of the gap between us, aware of everything that was wrong I flipped again to no and I can't write about what happened next. It's agonising, it's fucking killing me, I am glad I am leaving tomorrow; I am sad she won't be on the plane; I will be liberated from the sweetness and blood of her; I will miss our mute animal silences, our nest, I will miss how her body fitted next to mine and maybe on the plane I will change my mind again. All I am hoping is that once I am out of Japan and my head is clear that I can find out if I did love her or if it was need covered by self-deception, and how on earth to tell the difference and how the fuck they came to look so similar. This isn't the way I imagined leaving Japan, but then nothing here has been how I imagined it; it has been wonderful and terrifying, ugly and beautiful, frustrating and depressing, joyous and terrible.

I suppose it means I've been alive here and that it, far from being a dream, is one of the most real experiences of my life. Yesterday I was feeling like this whole thing was a waste of my life but today I feel older, like I've just had a birthday which actually meant something in terms of the passing of time.