A leaf turns to ice — Words I love what words can build, how they cause the mind drift and stoke our heart’s flame. Words create meaning out of nothing but a will to put them down. All words require is passing time, life lived. I love how words can come from anyone and anywhere, how they…

The road ahead is seldom clear; yet how I feel tells me I’m on my way. — The candle flame flickers and the window’s cracked and outside my small apartment in Osaka, Japan, rain falls upon the roofs which fade into the distance. I’ve never lived in a proper city. I wonder if that’s why they allure me so deeply. For years, I’ve craved the ability to…

A poem on time’s moving forward — It’s in your eyes as we pass the question that I want to ask, the words fear leaping safe inside — love remains unseen, unheard, unfelt; afraid of what the world will think. I once feared trying too; still, I’m scared. Why? Not the ecstasy of life’s escape, but leaving, having never…

Meeting the man who inspired me to move across the world — I’m back in Osaka after an incredible month of traveling throughout Japan. My friends and I snowboarded in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, surfed in Kanazawa on the northern Sea of Japan, and made unforgettable memories in Tokyo. Along the way, I had experiences which can only be described…

A poem on what we remember — The places I go remain with me. Recollecting’s re-collecting moments captured within concrete walls which have no color of their own, no light which the skies emit. Flowers give the room its light, the day its color, arranged with thoughtful hands. The love of a family fills a home with…

A poem on finding our place in this world. — A wavering light, swaying between lost and found. At times I feel I have it all, and irrespective of what happens, I know I do. I have the gift of life. In Tokyo, my questions remain unanswered. Yet there are sparks of light amongst it all, embers of overwhelming love…

There’s a give and a take, a sacrifice, which comes from chasing our dreams. — Yesterday when I got home from traveling up north in Japan, there was a package waiting at my door. It felt so strange and so surreal, returning home to my life in Osaka. Coming into my apartment and feeling that sense of comfort of having my things — returning. I…

For the love of travel. — Today my best bud Mo and I are traveling from the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido to Osaka, a city on the central Japanese island of Honshu. We took a bus, a train, a plane where I write this now, and will take another train to make it home. This…