we got eaten alive in your hometown
there are 2 mosquito bites behind my knee
which is a place i wish you kissed more
scratching feels good like doing something you’re not supposed to
when you know it’ll probably be fine
you don’t read my work much & i wonder what difference that makes
but only the way i wonder how my life would be different
if i still let everyone call me Cindy
what if your dead uncle was trans & no one called you a faggot
what if Decatur, IL weren’t such a hellhole
& that Holiday Inn we fucked at had less flies
buzzing around the breakfast buffet
what i’m trying to say is i’m sorry/you suffered
by that i mean thank you/for learning kindness anyway
sometimes disgust make me cry because it makes me feel
lovely again
the body is strange in that all people have one
when some people can’t afford to keep theirs
i think ribcages are written about way too often
& so are hearts/collarbones/wrists/cunts
we don’t talk about the bumpy parts of nipples or armpits enough
but maybe i’m being a boring contrarian
it’s just i once spread you open & stared at your asshole
while you apologized for how dirty/hairy/smelly you are
you apologized for your blooming hemorrhoids
while everything grew still & made sense in the quiet
& i didn’t think there was anything wrong with you
what i’m trying to say is we all have an asshole
by that i mean it made me feel lovely & even ok
what i’m trying to say is the best peace we can know is boredom
family medical history chart
how come i tell twitter my pronouns before people i grew up with
i mean i guess there’s nothing to lose but how do you lose what you don’t have
well the closet is more of a white people thing
like how do i fit trans between Shaman & Annexation
when my grandmother saw Japanese soldiers take her grandmother away
how come my author bio says they/them/their & queer all over
when my mom still calls me her/daughter
i mean i don’t let her read it & anyway
the most heartbreaking thing is nothing to do with my gender
but everything to do with hers
what do you think motherhood means
to a Korean woman who didn’t want it in 1989
what do you think it means to want as a woman
in 1989 when your mother recalls flashes of war
& her mother’s last words were ones of terrible suffering
but nothing to do with the tumors scabbing her life into tatters
how come i have all this forgiveness to share
but never share it with anyone who asked
i guess it’s easier to love some people from a distance
3 years ago & it will be 4 in a year & 5 after that
i’m passing blood clots the size of golf balls into a toilet
somewhere in all that blood & mucus
full of possibility/names/the gleam of a gender
there’s another universe sparkling with birthday cake & wars
the heartbreak of an alcoholic father who can’t stop screaming
who leaves the room before the Planned Parenthood nurse asks
with a pen in her hand if i’m being pressured into the abortion
but there’s no box on her form for being pressured into pregnancy
so i tongue the dissolving tablets & wait for my body to bleed itself free
for the painkillers to do their magic
but the real magic is starting 2 decades ago as my mother
picks out hoop earrings after meeting my father
& takes the only picture i have of her smiling
i think up a series of irrelevant questions during phone sex
i wish i could tell you what my body means but
i don’t even know what it says.
the more times you tell a lie the more you think it’s true
but not every lie is untrue & not every truth is real either.
i’m telling this white man what a bad little girl i am
& i get off mainly on embarrassment.
when you’re not a girl being a bad one sounds true
so he’s stroking his cock for $1.99/a minute.
i don’t judge him harshly or at all
i wish i could tell you more but what if you never asked.
i want to tell you more but what if tomorrow your aunt dies
or one of us falls down the stairs.
the truth is i’ve been staring my cunt down in the mirror
determined to bend it into warmth & sweetness
the way artists tell it.
the truth is it’s sour. the truth is
it bleeds & one time it smelled like bad yogurt for a week
but i didn’t get it checked out by a doctor
because i was embarrassed. the truth is i keep lists
of ways to tell you my body has no straight answers
to give but you’ve asked it no questions
i think about how i could chew a nail clean off before coming
clean once & how i could snort the white off a toilet without feeling
dirty once & how the truth is sad but that’s ok
how i’m sitting in a bowl of sunlight
with my toes dipping into Lake Michigan when you kiss me
the water is warm but there are dead seagulls out there
& floating debris
i can’t make that beautiful no matter how much
i love you & nothing has to be anyway
Sung Yim is a poet, essayist, and B.A. candidate of Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Contrary, Kweli, The James Franco Review, and Hooligan Magazine. They are a bilingual South Korean immigrant residing in Illinois.
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