I wanted mercy
Garrett Hongo

I wanted mercy. I wanted the universe to bend down and kiss its own creation, like a parent does to a child just after it’s born, as if a pure tenderness were the expression of the world for itself. I wanted to believe that what was not given, could be given, that were a man or woman to cry out for solace, that the world, for all its steel plants and tire factories, for all its liquor stores and razor wire, for all its buses that belched carcinogenic poisons and people who passed you by on the freeway who cursed you with their eyes; for all of that, I wanted to believe the heavens would still lay its soft wings of blessing upon you if you cried out in need. It was aloha – the breath of love upon your face.