Before the Mind Can Name It

我唔再數呼吸——
佢哋自己散開,
一縷一縷,
似黑暗忽然學識發光。

身體唔再係邊界,
而係一扇門,
開得咁慢,
連時間都忘記催我。

有一刻,
我只聽見血液行過自己;
冇名字,冇方向,
只有一股力量
從骨縫深處升起,
將沉默推到最高。

我冇捉住佢。
亦冇逃。

任佢經過我,
像潮水經過石頭——
唔帶走我,
只留下我終於知道
自己可以有幾深。

後來一切歸於靜。

窗外仍然係夜,
床單仍然係床單,
月光甚至冇問發生過乜嘢。

只有我知道:

那一刻,
身體曾經比語言
更加誠實。

I stopped counting breath.

It had become too large for numbers,
unthreading itself through me
until even the dark
seemed briefly illuminated from within.

The body ceased to be a boundary.
It became a threshold—
not crossed,
but opened,
slowly enough
for time to lose its manners.

Then came that strange instant
when blood itself seemed audible,
a private weather beneath the skin,
rising without permission,
without language,
without anything left to explain.

I did not seize it.
I did not resist.

I let the force pass through me
with the terrible ease
of water finding its level.

And afterwards—

nothing had changed.
The room remained the room.
The night kept its distance.
Moonlight, with impeccable discretion,
made no comment.

Yet something in me
had crossed no boundary
and discovered one:

that the body,
when wholly awake,
can tell the truth
before the mind has found
the courage to name it.

The Wind Won’t Stay

風過沙灘邊,
浪花追住一片葉,
夕陽唔肯停。

Wind crosses the beach,
Foam chases one fallen leaf,
The sun will not stay.

The Narrow Door

No candle knew what passed between us,
the room kept faith with its own dimness;
only the curtain, lifting once,
seemed to understand.

You came slowly—
not like a wave, but water
finding the patient shape of stone,
learning where the silence softened.

There are doors that open outward,
bright with hinges, asking nothing.
And there are others
that require the whole heart
to forget its hurry.

Your hand rested at my waist.
That was enough.

Beyond the ordinary geography of touch,
we crossed a country without names,
where every breath was a question
and every answer
was given by staying.

Outside, the rain wrote
its small, persistent script
against the glass.

Inside, two bodies learned
that tenderness has thresholds—
and that sometimes
the most intimate distance
is the one we dare
to let another cross.

香蘭

夜深,窗外雨細,
一縷香蘭忽然來。
不是花開,
是妳行過我身旁——
衣袖輕輕,
仍帶住那年嘅暖。

我冇喊妳。
有啲思念,
唔肯驚動夜色;
只係坐低,
由得香氣慢慢行入心。

母親,
原來人走得好遠,
一種香,仲可以留低。
佢唔問我快唔快樂,
唔問我有冇長大——
只係靜靜提醒:
愛過,就唔會真正走失。

今晚,
我聞到妳。
冇一句再見,
冇一滴眼淚必要。
只得雨,
只得花,
同我仍然記得妳。

Tonight the rain is fine against the glass,
and ylang‑ylang comes quietly through the room.
Not the flower—
but the trace of you passing near me,
your sleeve brushing the air,
carrying warmth from some unhurried year.

I do not call for you.

Some kinds of missing
have learned not to disturb the night.
They simply sit beside me
and breathe.

Mother,
you have gone farther than any road could measure,
yet one fragrance can cross the distance
without asking permission.

It does not ask whether I am happy,
or whether I finally learned
how to be grown.

It only says, very softly:

what was loved
is not lost merely because
the hand can no longer reach it.

Tonight,
I smell you.

No farewell needs improving.
No tears need proving.

Only rain.
Only flowers.

And this strange, stubborn grace—
that after all these years,
I still know you
by the way the air remembers.

解扣

你唔使郁手,
我已經鬆咗一扣;
夜色咁識人心,
輕輕一望,
連矜持都自動解鈕。

你話:「慢啲。」
我笑——慢,先至耐看;
一句說話落低,
兩個人之間,
忽然多咗一寸空間。

絲滑過肩,
似一句未講完嘅話;
我本來好端正,
偏偏你眼神
最懂得點樣叫人失禮。

到最後,
唔知係衫鬆,定係心鬆;
唔知係誰先投降,
只知道夜色太暖,
而我——
已經解得太從容。

You never had to touch the knot—
it loosened under looking.
The night had nimble fingers,
and modesty, apparently,
was only loosely fastened.

“Slowly,” you said.
I smiled: slow is such a dangerous word.
Some things take longer
precisely because
they know where they are going.

Silk slipped its argument
from shoulder to shadow;
I kept my composure beautifully—
which is to say,
I was losing it with excellent manners.

By midnight,
I could no longer tell
what had come undone:
the dress, the distance,
or that rather serious woman
I had intended to remain.

Nothing was confessed.
Nothing was required.
Yet somehow the room
had acquired fewer boundaries—

and I,
quite scandalously,
had acquired none.

紅線未斷

紅線牽住兩顆心,
隔幾遠,都未曾斷。
人走入無聲處,
緣仍然輕輕牽住——
唔見,唔等於無。

有啲緣唔怕歲月,
亦唔怕天涯相隔;
身影可以歸於寂靜,
一縷牽掛仍在心底,
靜靜發熱。

The red thread binds two hearts,
and distance cannot make it less.
One may pass beyond our seeing,
yet the thread remains—
unseen is not undone.

Some bonds have no fear of time,
nor of the farthest shore.
A presence may fall into silence,
while love keeps its small warmth,
quietly, beneath the years.

Death may alter the distance,
but not the thread.

What was truly held
is not so easily released.

微熱

月沉薄霧裏,
風過小荷香更冷。
水映半窗紅,
忽覺肌膚微微熱,
你近一寸我便亂。

Moon sinks through thin mist,
Wind stirs the cool lotus scent,
Water reflects red,
Then my skin grows warm beneath—
One inch closer, I lose sense.