My Honest Thoughts on Yukio Mishima
McDonald’s is a porn theatre.
Sweet, glossy yellow bread. Bright, glossy yellow moth lights.
August walks in, orders a burger. Number sixty-seven. Thinking, this is what Mishima would do.
I’m speaking down to the Japanese officers in Ichigaya and I’m about to kill myself. Thinking, this is
what I would do.
Salsa falls on my menu. My eyes dart around, before I gently lower the previous page onto it. I pass
it to the waitress. I’m sorry. I’m a fuckup.
You always need to know your name. At Starbucks I say, I don’t know. Jean. Jeauww-n. Like French.
Not here. I’m 67.
You’re 67, and it tastes the exact same.
McDonald’s encompasses the sun.
You’re 14, and you’re jerking off to Saint Sebastian, and smelling the sweet umami of a staling burger
and
pressed against your lips, Big Mac sauce running down your thigh, it tastes the exact same.
Little yellow crown of love.
I’m sitting with Mishima and he says, I loathe the American occupation, but secretly, and I would
never tell a soul, I love this.
Ada Benedicto is a sophomore at SUNY Oswego, where she is studying writing and computer science.