poetry

Korea. {poetry}

{Photo via Tumblr}

{Photo via Tumblr}

 

Finite.

You asked me again what it meant.

You and your hard pinprick beetle eyes.

Here we were the cliche again.

Child and teacher.

Minded and minder.

Minding each other.

You minded me frequently.

My cheerful disposition

My steady reactions

The fact that your shrieks

Never broke my glasses full of water.

We got into it right away, you know.

The years didn’t matter.

Twenty years difference in all.

You were four years old

Crouched under the table.

Irreverent.

You weren’t supposed to be

On the floor.

But you were hidden under there

When your parents

(Like schoolchildren themselves

Anxious over our reactions

to one another

She pulling at her skirt hem

He twitching his mouth

In to smile —

Them both

Pretending they weren’t starving

for their date —

First in years they said)

Introduced us.

I’m not sure why

But in full voice

Sweat-soaked from summer

Exhausted from day

From week

From year

Of being

No, it’s not a joke

A starving artist

I told you.

First thing.

It was the first thing I said to you.

I told you,

“You know,

I’m really more like a boy.”

And that’s how you and I began

Minded and minder

Child and teacher.

Friends.

You spent the rest of the year

Twirling skirts

Reminding me

How short my hair was.

Reminding me when I told you

I was more like a boy.

You slammed your head that year too.

Against the table.

Against a brownstone window

Facing East.

You’d tell me in between chopstick bites

That you were from Korea.

Originally.

It was why you liked

this sushi we were always eating.

It’s why it was almost all

We could get you to eat that year.

Even so,

You snubbed your nose in the air

Like a stink ant

That you’d later learn about

On some improved TV show.

Something like Discovery Channel.

You’d learn

Everything there was to know

About a stink ant.

Its eating

Preying

And mating habits.

Yeah.

You’d stick your nose up in the air.

You were adopted.

You wore it

Like a gift.

Because it was.

But sometimes

You wore it like a mosquito bite.

Because maybe it also was.

Sometimes

It made you bang your head

Against the table.

Sometimes it made your cheeks

Turn pink

Your eyes flash hate

Your eyes flash back,

“So, who am I?”

I hated it too.

Hate it still.

To see you like that.

I gently coax you

Towards wearing it like a gift.

Because it is.

Finite.

You’re eight now.

And you ask me things like that.

You want so badly

To stuff your body

Into the entire definition of something.

A word.

A color.

The artist they’re teaching you about

at school.

A starfish.

So you can map it.

And understand it.

And sometimes

I even see you

Wrap your mind

Around the incomprehensible.

And you’re comfortable then.

With the not knowing.

And so I tell you.

Without missing a beat:

You are finite.

And it’s the last we speak of it.

With our words.

***

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Brittany Connors

Brittany Connors

Brittany Connors is an actress, writer, and general life enthusiast based out of NYC. She is a lover of story, text, and all of the various expressions we find to make sense of ourselves and the world around us. She believes all expression is a celebration of this breathtaking existence.
Brittany Connors