First published in Korean in Changbi



I am getting further from myself.

At a steady rate

as much as the candles increase on the birthday cake.
Furthering things, fading things.

You can’t hold onto distant stuff and faded things you can’t touch.
Like a cork plugged in a drain.
Candle light blackened pupils.

Close your eyes and the night arrives.
Blow out the candles and everyone claps.
Rolling waves like speed bumps.

The horizon is still but the waves rage and rage.



Things to come, things stepping back.

Likable things coming into favour.

The coffin where I will go when I die will be a bit bigger than me.
If you pass too fast, nothing can enter your eyes.

Some love pours out from above the head like a waterfall

and so the body bends.

The solitude of the broken blade.
Release your face and open your heart.
When you lock your heart and your face hardens.
Let’s not worry about the problems that haven’t come.

Worries we had are fattening like thunder clouds.
You sleep putting your cheek on my palm.

Your cheek stuck on my palm.
My palm pressed across your cheek.
Your love is lukewarm. No. More like lacking.
Like lying on a flower bud about to blossom.

Like lying next to an egg about to hatch.
A voice spinning inside the well.

Today, I’ll tell you the same fable.
Because the tears that you shed have an equal amount of happiness and

sadness when you rub your eyes with two hands, they say when you are born

you’ve got joy in one hand and sadness in the other. The baby clasps its two

hands to share the weight equally.
Blood doesn’t travel to my palms.

So your cheek won’t touch the cold floor

I won’t remove my hand.
My face floats white in the mirror.

If I cover half my face with my palm, sadness distorts the rest of my face.