we were just fools sitting under the setting sun

pushing and pulling, ever ready to jump the gun.

in my next life, i hope i can be the wind

free, flowing and at times a force to be reckoned with

lightly caressing all those living, kissing their skin with a cool breeze

and carrying the familiar scent of a lover long forgotten as i dance through sun-streaked hair

existence

because we're all stardust,

amazing beings of light that

carry with us the imprint of

our emotions and the love

we fill our hearts with.

because we're a connected

network of subconsciousness

who can move through mountains

with just the sheer power of our minds.

and because we are energy,

unable to be created, destroyed--

only displaced--and if the spark

of our soul goes out then soon

you will find another one

shining brighter than the last.

metamorphosis

maybe one day,
when dust begins to settle
on those memories, finally
stored in the back of my
restless and masochistic mind,
maybe then i'll feel more
beautiful and more worthy
of being here than i really do
in this moment.

maybe one day,
and i hope it's soon,
i'll break free from
this suffocating chrysalis
i've no real idea of how
to rip apart, to shed away.

no, not maybe.
i refuse to rot inside here,
i'm much more determined
now to tear away at this
heavy skin and finally
unfold my wings.

only a fool

those days were
blackened out
and your presence
was only felt through
good morning texts and
phone calls bidding
good nights.

where you were
was just a blur,
it didn't matter,
i didn't want to
wonder, to care.

i was left alone,
with newfound truths
and well-discovered
instances, left alone
with torturous thoughts
of your hands,
her hips,
her breasts,
your lips,
her bed and
the cold you left
in my own.

in those moments,
i swore you were
dead to me,
nothing but a
passing memory,
a lesson, proof of
how weak i can be.

in those moments,
your lies became
transparent,
and i a fool,
gullible and so
willing to forsake
my own reason for
a veneer of security
those three words
provided.

but those moments
of fleeting wisdom
were abolished
from my mind
as soon as
your name appeared
on the screen of my phone.

samson and delilah

i loved running my fingers
through your raven hair,
my hands swimming
in the waves it curled itself into,
far more beautiful than
my own head of
tangled, straight mess.
it's a little unfair that you were
blessed with better hair than me--
what did a man need with a
pretty mane, anyway?
i loved the way those
shiny curlicues cascaded
down your shoulders,
but much like them you seemed
to swim in a current only
you knew the flow of.
you were like my own samson,
but instead of strength it was
heartbreak you gave me,
and to make you mine
i had to become delilah.

space

I saw your face in the crowd last night, I saw your face for the slightest glimpse of a second too short. I hoped it was my mind playing a terrible trick on me, malicious with its intent to agonize my heart, but it was really you. Who can ever forget those brown eyes, that crooked smile of yours that added to your own personal charm...I know I couldn't. I can't, and it torments me.

Though I wanted to see you again, more than anything, I wish I hadn't. Now, my thoughts are filled with you, of us, of what we had and what we used to know, and without realizing I'm scanning my surroundings for you. Wherever I go. Because, foolishly, I'm hoping to see you again, by luck, chance, fate, whatever force, cosmic or not, I have on my side. I didn't realize until last night, when my eyes fell on a glimpse of you and my heart jumped up to my throat, just how much I miss you still, how much I haven't let go, forgotten, how much I yearned for you. Your voice, your gaze, your crooked, charming smile, and your touch. Of all things about you, I wanted to hear your laugh again while you held me close as I snuggled up to abolish what little space there was between us.

Space. Almost instantaneously there were miles between us as soon as the word escaped your lips while we sat just a coffee table's length away. Soon enough, there was no more shared closet, your toothbrush was gone and the nights we spent cozily spooning while drifting off into sleep was no more. Your side of the bed turned cold, empty. Then, there were episodes of pride between us that turned those miles into lightyears, my ego in the way of the matters of my heart, and I continued to busy myself in appearing okay, alive without you. I was too busy pretending that I became numb, and seeing you again, quick as it was, brought a wave of feeling over me that I don't know how to handle. I feel young, foolish, full of regret and vulnerable all over.

I saw your face in the crowd last night, and I saw the girl that made you smile your crooked smile, the smile that I still love and cherish, and I realized that the lightyears of space between us didn't exist anymore, because the world we had, the world I couldn't let go of, ceased to exist for you.

stranger in the mirror

do you know
what it feels like
to find your reflection
completely foreign?

the other woman

sometimes, i wonder if you

thought of me when your

face was in between her thighs,
or if you imagined my name

when your ears were filled

with sounds of her love for you and

i wonder if i've crossed your mind

when she held your face in her

dainty hands, so unlike mine,

or if you heard my voice when

your searching lips met hers and

i wonder if you saw my eyes

when she filled the room with

her moans, reaching her climax and

i wonder what it was like

for you, if it was easy to

forget me, easy to pretend

like we didn't exist as you

held her close in your arms.

only human

i'm nothing but
a void filled with loneliness,
surrounded by familiar faces
and busybodies that come and go.

i'm nothing but
a selfish girl filled with guilt,
afraid of the things she can do,
and fearful of failure she's made to believe in.

i'm nothing but
a scribbled mess of insecurities,
disbelieving of everything good in me,
horribly focused on my shortcomings,
constantly, constantly comparing.

i'm nothing but
human.
i'm only human but i seem to forget
to remember that i won't be perfect.

houdini

to her, he was a great artist--a great escape artist, the best she's ever known. each and every time he'd outmaneuver her loving embrace, her searching kisses, right before they came too close to his soul. and every time he'd pull away, disappear, he came back in just enough time for her to draw herself to him again. he kept her in delicious suspense, making it impossible for her to move on, with his well-versed tongue and the venomous words dipped in sweet honey. to him, it was just a game of gain, and she had given him her heart too soon.

abandonment

i saw him there
standing so still
watching me
with his clear eyes
holding my gaze
in such sad anger
as i continued to
set myself apart
from what we knew
and the things we said.

in the mind's eye

the hurried heap of strewn clothes
hushed sounds of excitement
her legs wrapped around you
your face between her thighs

then bodies close
naked, bare, intimate
through the mirror i see
the lust in your eyes
and the room is filled
with her heavy breathing
and the two of you
twist, turn, in, out
encased in arms and legs
i don't know where
you begin
and where
she ends

my heart pounds in my ears
i'm flushed and pale
all at once
and i want it to stop but
i can't turn away
from her coy smile
and i can't bear the look
on your face that tells me
that in the rhythm of it all
you've forgotten i exist.

stop

here we are, encased
in the fog of our heat
in your silver truck.

it's raining outside,
the water beating
against the windows
pit-pit-pat.

there are lights all around us,
distorted into geometric shapes
and i pretend that they are stars,
shining vibrant and steady.

you reach across for me,
laying your head on my lap,
your arms hugging me tight
as if i were a lifeline.

i trace the outlines of your face,
eyebrows first, then down the
smooth curve of your nose.

your eyes are closed but
the smile that plays at
your lips lets me know that
right here, right now,
you are content.

and with that, my heart
beats a little faster,
my cheeks get a little warmer,
and the atoms of every
molecule that fill my body
vibrate, tingling at the
heat of your body on mine.

time seems to move slow
when we are apart but it has
a habit of stopping for us
whenever we're together.

feeling

as of late, all i've been feeling
is guilt, immense guilt,
when i think of my family.

guilty for not coming around.
guilty for not calling.
guilty for not being there.
and ultimately, guilty for
leaving home.

it seems that lately i've turned
into a ghost of a daughter,
a ghost of a sister,
a ghost of a grandchild,
a ghost of a niece.

as of late, all i've been feeling
is torn, completely torn,
when it comes to who i am.

torn between being me
and who they want me to be.
torn between being who i've become
and who they think i am.
and i'm absolutely torn
between my korean culture,
and my american birth.

and then there's this
"nonchalance"
to the things that affect me,
my habit of putting my problems
in the backburner--
I don't think of it,
therefore it does not bother me.
what a lie i keep telling myself.

it seems that, well,
it's most obvious,
that i've forgotten what family is,
that even the most
dysfunctional,
small,
and broken family
is still family
and i must never, ever
forget
what i owe to my roots.

oh, what it is to be korean,
what it means to be filial pious,
what it feels like to have
my culture's values
coursing through my veins
and wage war with my
birthplace's everyday living...
what constant state of inner crisis.

nights.

night falls over the world like a hushed silence, the air around us still, serene. you pull me in, offering your arm as a pillow and the other wraps around my waist. your rough hand rests on my stomach and with the other you hold my own, our fingers intertwining, finding its way to the spaces in between. your lips lightly brush the curve of my neck and your breath tickles my skin. i feel your strong, steady heartbeat and it's the rhythm that soothes me. the soft sounds of your breathing chases away the day's anxiety and it's become my lullaby.

our bodies are close, we leave no space between us, and we both fit the mold we make on this twin size bed. like a puzzle we fit, but you don't call me your "missing piece". no, we are not incomplete without the other, but rather, we are two halves who make a whole. two different entities, different souls, coming together to build a world that is ours.

this, right here, is my favorite moment before i close my eyes to sleep.

this, right here, is what we both call home.

purgatory, part one.

I strung together the things I left unsaid and let them trail along behind me as I walked down this path, holding his hand and falling in step with him. Maybe I should have went my own way, for a little bit, giving myself time to heal and emerge from the situation with a clearer sense of things. Maybe that way, the emotionally charged run-ins could have been avoided and I could have skipped the part where I proceeded to tear at myself violently. But there is no room for hypothetical what ifs, what's done is done. The only thing left is to extract the lessons it were to teach me, something I haven't bothered to do, for I was too caught up with my own masochism.

I'd be lying if I denied the fact that this opened my eyes to things I never really knew about myself. It also served as a catalyst to the growth I've experienced this year and I can't really decide if it's necessarily good or bad. Things happen for a reason and in the end I'm very happy in our present, filled with hope for our future, but if given the chance to re-do the past two years...would I go through it again?

It's no secret that letting go of the past isn't exactly my forte. I've always held on tightly to the things that broke me, made me cry, conditioning me to be the person I am today. For a long time, I wasn't myself if I didn't have my anger and my sorrows to get me through the day. It drove me, served as my fuel for living, and the success I were to gain from that was going to serve as the best vengeance. So, how would this be any different? If I couldn't even let go of the things that happened to me when I was younger, what made anyone think I'd let go of this?

untitled poem 2

i love hard when i'm treated bad

but when the going's good i deem it too good to last

the deeper it gets

the more i start to fret

raise up my walls

and let the aloofness commence

i'm fucked in the head and swallowed up by the things i think i lack

but how do you tell someone all of that?

heartbreak.

it's the one familiar feeling you've experienced but it hurts each and every time. you'd think you'd get used to it by now, grow numb to it, but no. it's as if it's cutting deeper and deeper with each effort you make to love someone. sometimes it would be your fault, sometimes you would be the victim, but it didn't matter, it hurt all the same. the excruciating pain that came with each blow, the guilt of knowing that you put someone else through what feels like death each and every time...either way it hurt--there was never a winning situation. the choice of winning just didn't co-exist with heartbreak.

so, here you are, sitting on your bed feeling like you can't move on just yet, and you've lost count of how many nights you spent like that, feeling like there's still a little hope you can hold on to. everything in your room just reminds you of the person you once shared yourself with, and your mind goes through every memory of when you both were one person. striving for the same goals, dreaming the same dream, supporting each other, working out your differences and growing together.

you want to figure out just where the two of you went wrong, so you sit and go through every possible scenario, suddenly remembering all the fights you've had in great detail, suddenly remembering all the mean things you've said or the mean things they've said. and you're angry, all over again. you're angry at the fact that you let those small things disturb the steady flow of your relationship, angry the the two of you even blew certain things up out of proportion...just angry. angry and regretful and full of sorrow and pining all at the same time.

you stare at the phone, expecting a call or even just a short text from them, debating whether or not you want to call or text. the time reads 10:00, and usually around this time the two of you would be talking on the phone about your days, what they were doing right now, the things you were thinking about, the plans for tomorrow. but instead, it's quiet in your room. too quiet. and the silence drives you crazy.

so you call them, out of habit and a little desperate to shed this feeling of loneliness, each ring just makes your heart pound in anticipation. you expect their voice any second, that familiar "hello" that just seems to make you feel at ease every time you hear it.

instead, there's no answer. and you just listen to the call switching over to their voicemail, your heart breaking again when you hear their voice telling you that they're not able to answer the phone right now but to leave a message so that they can get back to you.

so you turn to music. almost subconsciously and automatically, you turn to the songs that put your currently emotional state into lyrics of another, someone who can sing the hurt in your heart a bit better than you can. you can't stand the thought of being so melancholy, but you can't help but to linger on these sad melodies.

days pass, your nights spent the same way. it hurts even more because you see them, you share the same friends, the same spots to hang out in. yet you go anyway, a bit masochistic, because you're determined to keep things smooth. determined to keep them in your life, even if it's not the way you want it to be. it's better to be friends than to be strangers, right?

you die a little inside, each and every time. you feel like you'll never be the same again, never partake in love again. but then you realize, slowly, surely, that it gets easier. it gets easier to say hello. easier to look at them. easier to smile, easier to converse, easier to be around, easier to laugh with.

a little more time passes by and you realize that you're okay, you can breathe. one day, it just dawns on you that the person you once thought was your all, your everything--you don't think of them like that anymore. the feeling, it's not there anymore, it's gone, and all it left behind were good memories, you can't even think of the bad. not that you want to. or that you had to. it just...didn't matter.

you sift through those memories every now and then and when you remember, it's just pleasant nostalgia. and you think that though it may have not worked out the way the both of you wanted, you're now glad to have remained friends. you're glad, because through it all, you both grew together, while apart, and it just works out better this way.

mending your heart, you move on, you take the love you once had and lost, you take that love and you move on.


and then you find love again. and it's even more beautiful.

Writing exercise #2, Mike Pen. This one proved to be a little difficult.

your long

work days make me feel distant from you.
like the lack of waking hours we spend together aren't nearly enough.

so much i want to do, so much i want to share,
but how can i when you're asleep, catching up on time you lose due to work?

of course, it's not something i can really hold against you.
however, if i told you this, would you dismiss it as something trivial?

Written on September 19, 2011