I had such a good laugh out of a trending Weibo topic (#他不喜欢的是你) and thinking of all the stupid things that people do in the name of "love" that I had to finish writing something. By the time I was done, it was about 4.30am. When all's said and done, I treat this as a little ode to productivity, a wake up call and a footnote to other poems.
I knew I wanted to keep the Weibo topic as a title, and a simple way to start would be to write it as one of those poems in which you have to read the first character/word to make up a sentence ("藏头诗") but it felt cheesy. So the concept somehow evolved into a form in which, instead of that usual device, I wanted to write something in which it's both there but also not there, that you can read it with or without that starting word; I wanted it to be very Schrodinger's cat, very plausible deniability, which reflects a certain attitude towards intimacy and relationships. It's that whole "It likes me, it likes me not..." sort of drill; 它 ("it") because it's gender-neutral, because "it's" an animal. Anyway, I first drafted it on paper:
This is a bit of a MVP still cause there is still the body itself, rhythm and digitalising this that I think will be interesting to work on, but for now it was super fun to write and I felt glad that I still remembered how to write a fair amount of Chinese characters though I also did have to Google quite a lot; but recently having caught a glimpse of The Age of Awakening I also find myself wondering: how is it that people seemed to write better and read more when those things were all so much more inaccessible? I mean, writing in calligraphy versus typing on this mechanical keyboard with 1-click access to all the world's knowledge on Google. Or maybe it's just the law of conservation of energy, there might be more writers and readers in the world but such mass additions make no statistically significant difference to the quality of literature in general?
According to Google Translate,
它 路过街边 笑颜被阳光恰到好处的倾斜 雕刻成了明信片
It is passing by the street, its smiling face is just rightly tilted by the sun, carved into a postcard
不 只是心跳撩乱了光线的曲折瞬间 才会众里将它寻遍
Not only the heartbeat messes up the twists and turns of the light, it will be searched for in the crowd
喜 不自禁 选择一个恰好的时间 才买了你最爱的花与诗篇
I can’t help but choose the right time to buy your favorite flowers and poems
欢 闻歌 趁年华
Happy to hear the song, take advantage of the old age
的 确没听清 残霞与朝露的时差
The time difference between Can Xia and Chao Lu
是 不是不堪 试探缘分的深浅 （迂回是我）
Is it unbearable to test the depth of fate (It's me who is the detour)
你 付之阙如的敷衍
You are so perfunctory
Maybe I should GIF this then NFT it. As an immutable testimony to human stupidity and idiocy. Think of it as the essentialism of the ephemeral, ethereal theatrics. As a permanent record of fleeting feelings and/or curious departures, as proof of it having existed. 作为一种记忆的奠基。Oooh it's fun to rhyme in English and Chinese.
