please take your time

Ryuta Iwashita

 

・・・・・・

please take your time to read this

please stop reading when you need to

please play the back ground music

please look around without turning your head

please look around as you turn your head

please soften your belly

please breath in and out as deeply as you would like

please remember that you are not a furniture

please remember that your heart is beating

please know that nothing is translated perfectly

わーい!多重人格おめでとう!

 

Why! When I celebrate my multiplicity and bathe in it,

 

祭りの後、家路へ急ぐ、電車の中なのにお風呂に浸かっている感覚。

 

When my personality ferments into even more personalities,

 

しげるくん、しげらないくん。

 

When I intensely grow more faces,

 

ひかるちゃん、ひからないちゃん。

 

When I seasonally flirt with myself making no sense to my own brain,

 

ああ、お盆だから、より一層気をつけたい。

 

When I lowkey change what’s decided and married,

 

つけたい。柴漬けも。品も。あの子の後も。どうだろう。

 

Wheん I highkey chaんge what’s already chaんged,

 

あの旅が終わり、結婚生活も終わり、度重なる終わりも終わり、昨日も終わり、今日も終わりそうであるが、あなたたちへのさようならがしっくりこない。じゃけん、おやすみと言う。どうだろう。星が明日も煌めいてくれる、あなたたちが明日も煌めいてくれると暗示しながらおやすみと言う。どうだろう。

 

Wheん I live my life that is not miんe,

 

帰国したら基本はらーめん、すし、ラーメン、スシ、拉麺、寿司。

 

Wheん I become someoんe I am not iん love with,

 

Z世代が浴衣でスマホをいじると、桜島が噴火して、ナタデココが余裕で蘇り、タイの王様の妹がBL映画を観に行く。ついでに中国のロケットが不時着の準備をして、夕陽がだらしなく落ちると、池袋、終点です。さて、感情がこもったのはいつでしょう?

 

Wheん I am a gender-ful embryo-baby-child-adult-elder persoん,

 

あんぽんたんのおたんこなす!

 

The noodles get soggy in the soup, aんd I caん seんse that I am doiんg enough in the soup.

 

 

please take your time to disengage

please remember that you are not a furniture

please remember that your heart is beating

please know that nothing is translated perfectly

 

ありがとう。thank you.

 

・・・・・・


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ryuta Iwashita (they/them) currently lives and improvises in Bulbancha (also colonially known as New Orleans) in the USA as a movement/performance/visual artist and educator after living in Japan for 25 years. Their artistic lexicons are rooted in social justice, somatics, martial arts, child education, and ancestral work including 祖体 (SOTAI) of which Ryuta is its conceiver. Learn more at their website or find them on Instagram @ryuutaiwashita or Facebook.

COVER ART

Artwork courtesy of author. Image description: author wearing black, sleeveless top and gold, hamza earrings with long, black hair pulled back, standing against a black background.

Grantmakers in the Arts GIA

Grantmakers in the Arts is the only national association of both public and private arts and culture funders in the US, including independent and family foundations, public agencies, community foundations, corporate philanthropies, nonprofit regrantors, and national service organizations – funders of all shapes and sizes across the US and into Canada.

https://www.giarts.org
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New Moon Reflections of Liberation