I Want to Become a Trucker in Sapporo
First you fall in love with soy sauce in plastic carp, because you think that the red cap – the snout – is the most beautiful thing in the world; but you don’t understand why – and you know that you don’t want to, you don’t need to, as the only thing you understand is the world is spacious and spinning and spacious and there are things in it that should be left inexplicable.
Then you fall in love with the vending machines that you always find no matter where you go, and, ah, you think it’s a miracle, because they never run out of your favorite can of warm green tea and sweet corn soup; and when it’s nighttime and you feel like taking a short stop, you would turn off the engine but not the radio and buy your usual delicacies, then you would sit with your back against the machine, gazing at the blurred sky as slow bossa nova plays quietly from inside the truck, and you fall in love with all of them.
You fall in love with milk puddings that taste so strongly of caramel, and beef croquettes that you couldn’t quite finish alone, snow on perennial leaves and snow on barren branches, udon restaurants with flappy red cloths, black-and-white insurance advertisements and colorful idol posters on power boxes – you fall in love with 5-7-5 poems and 4-0-4 you.
Liu Yuniang is a Chinese-Indonesian student, poet, and writer currently based in Tokyo. They like to read queer literature and take walks in small alleys. They have been published in numerous literary journals and magazines, including Fourteen Hills, Lavender Review, Sinister Wisdom, as well as multiple indie and fanzines.