Math Class
My head feels like a lead ball
or a brick
or like a liter of water is swimming
behind my eyes
with three goldfish to go with it
I can't focus; a boy with overgrown bangs
is sitting in front of me and
keeps smiling
Mister bends down and I see
the top of his balding scalp
Until Now
I had not known what it means
to throw things away
I think
this realization or rather this sinking feeling
comes only when you can
somewhat
walk on your own two feet
It is funny
that something that at one point meant so much
could now be in consideration
for throwing away
It is funny that
leather softens and fades and pills
paper goes from white to cream and rips
clothing smells like mothballs
At what point
do these changes remind you that
oh
it's time to throw this away?
It's been five years since 엄마
gave me this notebook
it is fraying and pages have been torn out
But I do not what to throw it away
Cat Town
Last night, I dreamt of you again.
I saw you on a plane to the Cat Town but didn’t say hi.
We met again at the same hotel.
This time, you saw me.
I was in a pink bathrobe, and you were in your green cargo pants and boots.
You hugged me, held my hands, asked me where I’d been.
I blinked.
Found myself at a subway station, fully dressed.
I wanted to miss the train
I might run into you again.
So I walked slowly.
I walked up to the doors right as the train left,
But a little girl saw me and shoved her foot in between the closing doors.
I’d never hated anything as much as I hated that little girl at that moment.
Writer's Prayer
I have a confession.
please listen
when I’m
crying
bitter
red-faced
I find myself liking my crying bitter red-faced face. Because I write, enlightened with my verses and rhyme, my
alliteration
allusion
allegory
analogy
anastrophe
aphorism
archaism
asyndeton
and who knows what else.
My disaster porn I call writing and my fetishizing of sadness I call reflecting.
My sonnets of the old man and the sea, my dad, my mom, fire, oysters, bubblegum pink, mortals, immortals, gods, demigods, vampires, lovers, beasts, princesses, Ringo Starr, I’ve done it all.
I make suffering sensual and find charm in sadness and self-pity.
I pick at infected scabs that infect no longer
make a competition of who has the most scars, who’s cried the most tears, pasting bandages
over cuts that were never there.
I lie.
Lie that the sky is falling when it really isn’t
head directly to the flame when I’m crying bitter red-faced
like some deranged moth
in hopes of finding catharsis in hopes that the flame will reflect back to me exactly who I am or whom I have become.
So I promised myself
no more evasive bullshit knowing it will make me pretty
won’t sit on the edge of my balcony like some femme fatale
holding my dad’s juul in between my index and middle finger
pretending to smoke a cigarette.
But don’t believe in me
because I’m scared what happens after I let go,
I don’t know what will be left,
if anything will be left at all.
17
She is a lion with cold feet.
it was late at night and I held on too tight. My fingers were nearly purple.
from an empty sea, a flash of red and green light. I asked if it was light from Wiltern Theater
She didn’t answer and I asked her ?why?
She said her feet were cold and that we should go back in.
She is a lion with cold feet.
we were w i d e - e y e d girls and always right
No, she was a w i d e - e y e d girl and always right
the city our playground and its people just holographs.
She went with a roar and I
fell
back
into
place.
TV, pig, frog
I eat
and eat
and eat to fill this black void inside of me
but it seems
that my void is not getting any smaller, as I had hoped
only I am growing bigger and bigger, physically I mean
I’m scared I’m just gonna be a frog with nothing but pickle friends
I worry so much, sometimes I feel like I'm going to turn black and blue