i run my fingers along the edge of my kimono 着物,
and find a thread coming undone, a quiet fray in my connection to home.
this fabric once bound me to all that was sacred —
the spirits hiding among the river’s spume, the silent breath of mt. fuji,
kami 神 waiting in the roots of cedar trees, finding home in shinkai 神界 —
the weight of lineage sewn into each careful stitch.
i learned to bow before i learned to pray,
baptizing myself in the dim temple light as incense curled into clouds above my head,
kami 神 staring from every carved corner,
joyful expressions, bronzed faces, a thousand outstretched hands —
whether in mercy or judgement, i could never tell.
i was taught faith is woven into every strand,
a kimono 着物 passed down, wrapped in prayers
whispered over rice bowls and rising sun.
but in america, faith wears a different face —
a man on a cross, his kingdom of heaven,
love that does not ask for saikeirei 最敬礼.
he who does not understand the weight of filial piety.
they say he died for us and waits with open arms,
while my kami 神 sit rooted to the temple floor, wearing centuries like a crown.
which god is mine when both call me by name?
i feel the looseness in the seams,
a rift that grows with every attempt to hold it all together.
red blood coursing through the blue veins in my white body.
i think of the women before me,
the ones with their heads bowed and lives draped in quiet dignity,
temples filled with incense and chants i barely understand,
each word tugging at me, a reminder of what i’ve lost.
i used to think kami 神 lived within the fiber of my being,
that to stray from the fabric would be sacrilege,
leaving me in a world of loose threads,
each one unraveling my connection to the past,
each one a whisper from my ancestors, asking,
can you still carry us in your heart if you can’t wear us on your sleeve?
to follow them is a promise bound in bloodlines and bone.
i search for them in the hum of city lights,
in cramped corners of karaoke rooms and steamed-up kitchens,
where my elders hunch over their prayers.
i search for them in my father’s silence and my grandmother’s calloused hands —
shaped with the quiet strength of generations before her.
in a culture that taught her to bow her head,
to serve before she speaks,
she never asked if she could believe in something more.
her life, like her faith, containing only the sound
of her kimono 着物 sweeping across the floor.
sometimes i wonder, was faith for her a kind of submission,
a silence we were taught, to follow unspoken paths,
to trust in gods who watch and wait,
who never speak of doubt?
maybe faith is a ghost we chase down dusty hallways,
fogged glass, dirty stoves, and children crying,
an ancestor in our veins, calling us home to temples long forgotten,
telling us to fold our hands in the dark, where no one else can see —
where doubt is an offering laid at an altar of invisible gods.
but what do you do when the gods grow quiet,
when the only answer is the echo of your own voice?
i think of my grandmother, who stitched her life into this fabric,
each prayer a needle through her own dreams,
her faith a burden and a solace, tightly spun into silk.
and here i stand, threads coming undone,
wondering if there’s room for the kami 神 in my fraying kimono 着物,
or if i must be whole to honor them.
what becomes of a woman
who cannot wear her heritage without it unraveling,
who carries traditions in fragments and threads,
a life half-stitched, a faith half-spoken,
who holds the loose ends of a culture she both loves and fears,
and wonders if she can make something new
from the pieces left in her hands?
