In my home country, I teach my students how to ask and receive. Please and thank you.
Excuse me and night. The words are a tremble of wings in their mouths, vibrant and unused
to flight.
In my dream I am walking through a house of mirrors. It is bright and glittering and alive, a
chain-mail of scaled definitions of myself. Every time I reach out to close a door, it fails to fit
into its doorframe.
In my dreams, every door swings loosely, an unlockable imprecision. [ Open ] and thus
unprotected.
In Korea, a surveillance camera films a woman entering her apartment. As she closes the
door, a man jumps out of the elevator, grabs for the doorknob and fails. The video is shared
over 58,000 times on Twitter, but women still fear walking home alone at night.
In my dream I smash my fist through a windchime of mirrors. A swarm of bright bees tiles
tightly the floor, clothes everything in vibrating gold. Everything is bronze, black-veined,
shivering.
It has taken me many years to stop being unkind to my face.
My friend has given birth to a girl for the first time in her life, and her love takes the sharp
edge of fear. She spreads lotion on her baby’s body every night, praying softly, words
clutching her chest. Lord, may her feet take her to beautiful places, and her hands work
tirelessly for good. When she reaches the inside of her thighs, she stops. Lord, protect her
from...please. She cannot go on.
I love my friends deeply, my male friends too. But sometimes I am astonished at the way
their eyes flicker when they talk about women, their women, and the music inside me goes
silent.
In both English and Korean, I still have trouble saying no.
Perhaps you liked it when he touched you?
[ I love him / I fear him / I love him because I do not fear him / I fear him because I love him
/ I love to fear him / I fear to love him / I love him fearfully ]
It stings.
A riddle: which should you flee, the mirror or the bee?
A clue: follow the scent of the honey.
