White Picket Fences

Family and the price of weak foundations

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House

A broken house

Still has strong walls;

The windows still open.

Front doors welcome in,

The kitchen still cooks,

The toilets still flush.

It is clean.

It looks as though

It had never been lived in.

---

Understanding

There must’ve been a misunderstanding,

This isn’t what I had signed up for;

Translating government documents

Before I ever read chapter books,

Raising my little siblings and

Signing them up for school

While I was still learning

The art of long division,

Being strong, my little hands held

The carefully placed bricks

That built this house,

Hoping that it wouldn’t crumble around me

There must’ve been a misunderstanding.

I place the flowers on a grave,

Marking the end of a childhood

That never existed in the first place.

---

Texas

I can see your back.

I find your figure within the outlines of different

Professors, Doctors, Lawyers.

You were only ever facing forward,

Leaving me to know you

Only by the shape of your back.

You made your home in your offices,

Sleeping by the horses on the ranch

That was two hours away from us.

Why didn’t you come home for dinner?

Why didn’t you come to say goodnight?

Why did you never stop to look back?

---

Seoul

You were happiest when you were away from

our little white house

In our little

White suburban neighborhood

Where you could speak how you wanted

With friends whom you knew,

Surrounded by family

That could fully understand.

You were only ever looking back

Regretting the decisions that brought you

To Stanford Avenue.

Happiness was where the white house wasn’t.

---

Golden Child

Second oldest; second place

Losing to you in both age and beauty

In weight and in grades—

Less boys and less friends.

Competition breeds innovation.

Teachers recognized my name

Only as an extension of yours

“Be more like your sister”;

To be more like you

Is what everyone wanted

For me to be—

What you wanted me to be

The limelight in which you thrived,

Shadows in which I dwelled Like a warmth that liked to brag

To the corpses that lay six feet under.

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White Picket Fences

White paint, polished and bright

Redone before any chipping is visible.

No imperfections

Allowed to be seen.

No knowledge of such

Abominations would be confessed,

Only the inside will know

That it is about to be caved in.

There could be mold inside

The old, wet wood.

Worms and pests eating

From the inside out

The white picket fences

Surrounding the nice pretty house

That cater to that

Nice, pretty family.

---

Landline

I grew up being a translator,

learning only the different ways to say

“Anger”

“화”

“Sadness”

“슬픔”

A sadistic game of Telephone,

where everyone who played was losing.

---

Devenir

What will become of me

Once I grow up to be the age

You were when you left,

Crossing over the Pacific?

Will I be in my prime?

My womb bearing the fruit

Of some significant other,

Will I even ever reach that?

I don’t want kids.

It’s what I have always said.

Maybe I was too afraid to admit

That I’m unfit.

What if I only face forwards,

Forgetting them in the shadows

Of my career or wealth,

Leaving them to only know my back and

What if I only look back,

Regretting the things that came to pass,

The things that brought them

Into my arms or

Will I grow to be bitter,

Resenting them for being able

To grow day by day

Rather than abandoning their childhood and

Will the independence

And the responsibility

Heaved onto my shoulders

Finally be put to rest

Or will it follow,

Taunting me for the inability

To allow anyone to do anything

For me?

There are eulogies to be said

Lessons to be learned

From the houses that were never mended

Even after they caved into the foundation.