To accommodate the size of our heads,

we all are born prematurely: the price

of our intelligence with a long childhood

and an even longer old age. Can’t wait

to grow up but also can’t stop to get old.

Only in the middle, for long as in years

or short as in a blink of an eye, when

infancy has condensed into memory, and

the decay lies still in the future, will we

rest from this sprint forward, will we float

above the water looking up to the stars in

heavens, then we will sink to the bottom,

get blinded and hardened by the depth.  

One flesh we once were in the wombs

of our mothers. Inch by inch we grew

apart until that distance eventually got

beyond measure. Separation in our blood.   

We want so many things in the world. We want

to keep on living, want to go out and walk on 

the face of this earth, and let our voices echo 

down in the valleys. Yet, we want to shrink, to

go home and get back to the beginning, all the

way returning to the first cell that split into us.

John Cai