山田 陶子

Toko Yamada

I once heard that people are born into forms suited to the land of their birth—
so that they can breathe there, and survive.

At fifteen, all I wished for was to get far away from this place.
Unable to put my reasons into words, I couldn’t breathe properly here.
Memories from that time are blacked out, leaving only the smell of pain behind.
The landscape of my hometown long remained within me as a place I had rejected.

Now, ten years after leaving this land,
I have decided to place myself once again within its air.
Beyond the scenes that once isolated and repelled me,
a faint sensation remains—of a thread still tied deep inside.
With each step, memories rise from beyond forgetting, becoming pale particles of light.

Standing before the landscapes I once kept at a distance,
I reenact my past self, tracing the knot where former memories
and present bodily sensations intersect.
It was a time in which small acts of “forgiveness” seemed to travel back and forth.