“‘I love you’ ate up all 30 of our years,” Dad’s voice rang coldly
Following along the darkness
I didn’t want to be caught by it, so I slipped out the back of the house
Grabbing John the dog from the snow-white garden, I set off on a journey
It went like this:
Find “I love you”! Find it and seize it!
And um, afterwards… Do what? John just wags his tail
Right! For now, I’ll just make it like how it was before, like before
And then for sure, we’ll have stew on Christmas, all three of us
A young couple was kissing in the streets of an unfamiliar town
“I love you” appeared, and John and I are laughing!
Inside my pack, I only had three measly dollars, and a blown-glass jar
You could see the couple’s breath, and I caught their white puffs in my jar, but—
“I love you” wasn’t there! It wasn’t! Why?!
Hey, I’m hungry, let’s go home! John just licks my hand
Right! For now, let’s try going far away, far away
And then we’ll surely end up at the sea, at a shore where there’ll be a railroad
At the shore, there was a small cabin
On the veranda, an old man was gazing at the sea
“Have you always been all alone?” I asked him
He pet John, and laughed
“I’ve tasted ‘I love you’, but it took 70 years,” he said
Reaching into my pack and taking the white fragments from my jar
He dropped them into the palm of my surprised hand—How did he do that?!
“You’ve caught it already… Kind boy, go on home”
I found “I love you”! I found it!
It was the white, tiny fragments all along! I ran home with John
And when I got there, the two of them were waiting for me, eyes red from weeping
And so, I gave them “I love you”
In a nasal voice, Mom went
“Oh my, aren’t these whale bones? That takes me back to when I was young… to a shore and a railroad”