the buzz of cicadas rings in my ear ___ the night is so warm ___ i bathe in the quiet ___ feel the air's soft flesh ___ i look up towards the dark ocean above ___ the stars start to whisper to me __________________________ everything will be okay
2002 moon judy wig2002 ___ year of the horse
i always wished i was born on a summer night ___ my first contact with the world to feel as warm and safe as it did ___ in the womb
they say we're born with all our eggs already ___ i was my mother's friend before she knew what to call me ___ i was there even ___ in my 할머니's 🀦 belly
언니 할머니
there are many 할머니s in this story
the one on my mom's side ___ who raised me for a few years right after i was born ___ we call her 할머니 🀦
the one on my dad's side ___ we call philly 할머니 🀨
growing up ___ we lived down the street from another older korean family
unrelated to us, we would still call her 언니 할머니
she had dark ___ cropped hair that formed the tightest curls ___ as the years went on i remember ___ how it felt seeing those curls gradually turn ___ from black to gray ___ eventually to white __________ i haven't seen her in years
but i could never ___ forget
this memory with 언니 할머니
sometime when there was a 1 ___ in front of my age
i was in the garage ___ door open ___ i could see her walking over from her end of the street ___ even now ___ i can picture her ___ her hands clasped behind her back ___ her pace meditative
she came in and asked _____ 엄마 집에 있니?
this was when i couldn't speak korean very well ___ i blurted
아니
the initial shock on her face ___ i'll never forget ___ my heart sank
the '요' i had forgotten to put on the end ___ the formalities of my own language ___ without them ___ i disrespected her without meaning to
i was grateful for how she still took it nicely ___ and teased me saying 아니 again in a lighthearted tone
but this moment i replayed in my mind over ___ and over ___ ever since
is embarrassment the greatest teacher?
the feeling of shame i felt that day ___ never really left me
i swore to myself then ___ that i'd learn ______________ my mother tongue
blank
the rock towers my cousins and i built with our 할머니 🀦
it was the last family reunion we ever did in the states
our grandparents are now too old for the 12 hour flight
i remember how warm these rocks in hawaii felt
i remember wondering what 할머니 🀦 was feeling
there is so much that is said ___ in nothingness
but when i feel the pressure in my chest _ the tears starting to swell _ i know
my heart can hear the unspoken words
my 할머니 🀦 says
i hear the cicadas hum and nothing else
i remember this day spent in paju very vividly
it was my first time ever visiting this quiet northern city everywhere i could see soft green
we ___ my mom, 이모s, 할머니 🀦, and i ___ got out of the car and started walking it was a vast plain
i remember wondering to myself why were we here
i asked my mom
she said
this is where they chose their burial site to be
what do you mean?
할아버지, 이모, and 할머니 🀦 will be buried here
together
i looked down at the dirt below my feet and began to cry
somewhere in downtown philadelphia
philly 할머니 🀨 owned a store for many many years
named judy wig since she mostly sold wigs amongst other random items like toiletries and digimon cards and since the english name she chose for herself was judy
we have no photos of this place
perhaps because nobody thought to take them
it wasn't somewhere she nor my grandpa nor my dad really wanted to remember i think
이곳은 이런 의미였어
___ shame
the shell i wear on my back
without it i ___ am a slug with it ________ a snail
in either case i feel
___ slimy
my skin what is meant to protect me from the outer world is raw and sensitive
엄마 ___ she never meant it ___ meanly ____ maliciously
a mother's love ____ can be hard to understand ____ from the receiving end
there's an element of ___ religious guilt too __________ that shame
your body is a temple ___ she would say
___ i know
hot girl summer
my body ____ where
i am ___ the subject ___ and the witness
the police and ___ the prisoner
performing on a tightrope ____ for nobody but myself ____ in a short skirt ____ thick makeup my mom hates
a clown ____ failing at this performance ____ nobody asked of me
my body feels ____ as if it is not _______ mine
a shell ____ of a body
elementary school ____ sixth grade ____ it's recess
we're the big dogs of the playground ____ thinking we had the world figured out ____ just because we were the oldest grade there
i overhear a conversation
have u guys heard about ____ the word _________ banana
someone replies ____ um yeah ____ the fruit?
__________ yes duh but i mean like ____ how asian kids are _____ bananas ________ you know like...... yellow on the outside but ______________ white on the inside?
mutant ____ a state of being
somewhere between ____ what i 'should be' _____ and _____ what i am
divorced from myself ___ within myself
i can feel the gap ___ growing ____ between my skin and my soul ___ my peel and my flesh ___ my tongue and my likeness
if i am of ___ the mutated generation
they would have you believe ___ my parents are ___ the invasive species
at least that's how it felt ___ looking into their gaze that whispered ___ you shouldn't be here __________
fight
avoid
close eyes
i think of the glass counter that offered no barricade to the robber's advances
nowhere to hide ___ to run
the gun pointed straight at her frail body
her delicate hands trembling in the air
as she held them there
ding
it was my philly 할머니 🀨 who taught me how to paint my nails 'prettily'
예쁘게 as she said
it was one of those days ___ in my hazy childhood memory
sitting at the back of her store ___ painting my nails with expired nailpolish that never sold ___ it had a thin layer of dust over its glass bottle ___ perhaps sitting on the counter for years ___ untouched
the cash register's mouth opens
agape ___ the cash extracted ___ the coins untouched
between her life and the dimes left behind
i wonder what you were more thankful for philly 할머니 🀨
