By: Sam Kang
Art by: Lilla Bozek
The House
I am Korean American,
But not Korean.
Pungent kimchi, passing judgment on its crunchiness
Carefully sliced pears, lifting towards my mouth
White fans blow
Even though the screen door is open.
It is still here,
And peaceful.
The unnatural kind of contentment
That wanders the back of your mind.
In this house I am a vacationer.
Basking in transient (fake?) belonging
Coughed up into supermarkets
Where my grandmother –Halmeoni (I still can’t pronounce it right)–
Is stared at, pushed, prodded
As she pushes, prods
Her cart forward
Oh how she braves this treacherous landscape
Returning home with stolen (bought) treasures
And outlandish (Korean) delicacies
With the scars (alienation) of a hero
I survey the world
Through the window of my grandparent’s house
Watching the forecast:
Today it’s the “Chinese Virus,”
Tomorrow “The Atlanta Shooting,”
The next day, a chance of “hate crime in Koreatown”
I’m no meteorologist,
But how many words are there for hate?
I don’t need a forecast to know
That it’s not safe out there.
Halmeoni, I’m sorry
But today looks like a good day to bundle up
And stay inside.
I’ll wait for you
to come back (please come back)
Don’t forget
The kimchi
And the pears
And to keep your head down
That unassuming persona (armor)
That keeps you alive.
Outside, the storm rages on.
When I shut the blinds
It is almost enough
To ignore it.
The Storm
I am outside and it is raining.
The water is filling up my lungs.
I cannot recall why I walked out into this storm.
Was it to save you, Halmeoni?
Did you finally get lost wandering those (stupid) ethnic aisles?
The storm does not wait for me to catch my breath.
It paints pictures on the sidewalk,
And tells me the names of the women
Who were killed
By a man who saw them
As temptations.
With daggers of water
Falling from the sky
Are you next, Halmeoni?
Please, do not let your face join
The rest
Of them.
The rain, it tells me
of centuries of violence
of pain
And anger
And I am surprised to find
That that pain and anger
Are also my own.
Is the water coming from the sky
Or my eyes?
I can’t quite tell.
Still, there is something freeing
About standing in this storm
Almost as if I am part of it
I cannot speak your language, Halmeoni,
But I can stand out in this violent storm,
And thank you for doing it for me
For so long
And I'm sorry that I didn’t
Find the courage sooner.
I am drenched
Hair falling in strings around my face
But not the pretty face you thought I was
I will run around wildly
I will cry recklessly
I will stomp puddles until they join
with the rain.
I put my face up to the sky,
And it is blindingly, beautifully
gray.
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