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Somehow, I felt I could get better.
There was no reason to.
But that’s what I felt.
And that was enough.
On the things we can’t throw away
Somewhere, there is a stuffed toy from childhood.
Dirty, one eye coming loose, no longer something to fall asleep holding.
But I can’t throw it away.
It wasn’t only good nights we spent together.
The nights I cried, the nights I was scared — it was there.
Maybe there were nights, after something sad, when I held it too tight.
Is that why I can’t throw it away, or is there some other reason? I can’t quite say. I just can’t.
Even as adults, such things keep adding up.
Something you bought after hesitating a little.
Something that was close by on a night you laughed with someone.
Something you set down in anger after an argument, and still picked up again the next morning.
It lives in every day, and knows all of every day.
It says nothing, and yet it is there.
On the time spent choosing a cue
Among people who play pool, there are those who collect cues.
Several. Dozens.
Some choose by function, some by design, some because they want to own the maker’s whole history along with it.
Some are content just to line them up and look at them.
People have things like that.
Buy just one cue of your own, and the same thing happens.
That feel, the moment you pick it up.
The way the grip settles into your hand.
Even before you strike a ball, you somehow start to feel it’ll go in.
Even knowing it doesn’t really work that way.
Still, your heart lifts.
👉 Pool, as a grown-up’s hobby.
Time leaves its mark on the cue
Before I knew it, the small scratches had multiplied.
Chalk dust gathers in the case, and the grip bears the marks of my hand.
A weight I couldn’t feel the day I bought it now sits naturally in my hand.
The balls that went in. The balls that missed.
Nights I beat someone and let out a shout.
Nights I played a shot again and again, alone, and still couldn’t make it work.
Nights side by side with someone I love at the table, laughing.
Nights so bitter I couldn’t say a word on the way home.
The cue says nothing.
It was simply there, staying close through all of it.
The scratches, the chalk dust, the marks of my hand — all of it, time spent with me.
All of it, inside who I am now
Pick up a cue.
The stuffed toy from the nights I cried, the things that were always close by — all of it is inside who I am now.
The day I thought I could get better, the sting of the balls I missed, the nights still to come — all of it lies along the line that runs from this one cue.
Past and future alike, the person I am now holds them both.
I hope that someday you meet a cue like that.
👉 See the Yokohama Billiard Hall Guide
👉 Billiards resources from Japan and around the world, organized by purpose: Billiards in Depth (latest updated hourly)
