Shoe

curling my bangs
was like keeping you around,
every morning i woke up and
plugged in the iron,
heated the coils and burned my
fingertips into the screen
of my phone,
now they're wild and crazy
like my mind
looping it all as if
recovering the document
will bring back the muse,
unfortunately
chasing our love and beating
a spider against the wall
have the same ending,
it's already dead
so why are we still standing
with the shoe
poised above our heads?

비트윈 (between)

"your memories will be deleted
in a few days time,
act now before it's too late."
and I hesitate,
the remnants of my cellphone
app relationship,
all those sweet messages I
never received,
they call out to me
before
I delete
the thoughts, what am
I thinking, that the dream could be
mine?
even now I stand back,
and stare at the ceiling,
filled up with self-doubt
"Re: Between,
Will anyone ever
stop caring what other's think,
stop saying 'you're pretty good
at chopsticks for a white girl',
and stop feeling ashamed
of loving me?"

My Translucency

rejecting others is
gouging your own eye
for you reject yourself
the smallest fleck
of your being, your soul
knows damage inflicted,
"I am cleansing"
but you are killing,
driving
like a cold, freezing rain
the darkest winter night
of my life,
you break away
separate, like two microbes
growing into new demons,
from those who loved
and made you a new home,
imperfect and flawed
their pale skin and
ruddy palms, their blue veins
-all mine-
were there for you,
"money is the root of all evil,"
and materialism
is the god of
hatred,
a man said we should love
but he was never
spoken of,
growing away is not a good thing
but I pray to leave your midst,
though my hand rested
against your chest and
I heard your heartbeat,
you
are the hypocrite to my honesty,
though I loved you
you saw nothing in me
but my reflection,
though warmth filled my body
when you embraced me,
you saw my
Carolina-blue blood
seeping through
my translucency,
and halted.

Mister (아저씨)

that mister won't leave my head,
like the taste
of good coffee brewed
in the afternoon, he is smoking up
my mind like gray, snowy days
in the cold subway,
true gentleman
sending me off properly,
his sleight frame coming
from somewhere I
might not return,
as I slid down the streets
of Incheon, I saw
my own reflection in the ice,
little frozen rivers
spilling from fish tanks,
where the trapped squid
protests, his tentacles
stuck to the glass,
when your eyes grew wide and
you swore you'd
see me more, I wondered
like I have before
if his hands
knew their way to mine,
mystically, like the air
around him seemed to
make me drunk, starry eyed
that day in the sunlight,
pasty smell of
wet paint and cold stone,
in the past I could see
his body next to me
and never did I take myself
this seriously, the
unnattainable
is our greatest temptation
we shut ourselves down
and block it out,
regardless of the reason
winter is a bad season,
love under blankets and
wrapped up in sweaters,
a dangling lure
on a wire
he's never said his desire,
might be the same as mine
but I think I saw it
that day
in his warm brown eyes,
or perhaps his embrace
less careful than before,
smelling of his newest
risky behavior,
he won't get out of my mind.

"oh, casual" (NaPoWriMo Day 4)

show me
how you learned to
take your clothes off
so easily, i don't think
i'll ever learn to
live like that
i'm probably, yes
most likely an idealist,
casual just doesn't
appeal to me,
sex with strangers is
too much and i
accidentally have
conservative morals,
what's a stranger?
i'm so glad you asked, boy,
cause i'm not sure,
i'll probably keep
looking around,
hanging on
to my middle-school
view of love,
dazed and blurry eyed
and young, i can
never be too serious---yet,
i'm still not enough fun,
wondering if
some amazing romance
will hit me, until then
i guess this
is who i am.

Dismal (NaPoWriMo 3)

Deep forest green are the trees,

their backdrop the gray

Jeju skies of winter,

we fly

down a mountain road, it

reminds me of that time

I broke through

the clouds

sleeping over the island,

but I could still see

Mt. Halla,

"jejune" sounds like

Jeju, and it echoes my past 

of naive happiness 

as if I were screaming

into a canyon,

but instead of returning

my voice just keeps travelling

on and on and lost forever,

a song repeats

in my head, it tastes

like cigarette smoke,

car exhaust, and

fried red bean bread,

steaming warm

in my gloved hands,

bought in a grimy subway station

in old Seoul,

the young man

who is singing, he knows

the dreary days I

keep seeing, he feels

this lukewarm winter,

loneliness

painting the landscape

a dull pallet 

of breathtaking wonders 

gone cold, and 

old joys made

lifeless. 

I wrote this about winter in Jeju, and the depressed feelings I experienced during my winter here. One of the things that made me feel better during that time was Kim Namjoon's mixtape, as I felt like he understood what I was going through. I wanted to capture that experience for a long time, but I couldn't really write until I started feeling better. 

Springlight (NaPoWriMo 2)

Sun shines bright
and the waters of Jeju Harbor
match the color of the sky

The sunlight filtered through
her yellow hair, and across
the flowers on her white dress,

Front seat, windows down
she turns to me and says
"but you have a boyfriend, right?"

I feel confusion swell up,
then I remember you,
almost forgotten, almost gone,

"We broke up," I blurt out
louder than I intended
far too insistent, I look away

She apologized, and somehow
it was more meaningful
than anything you ever said.

우리가 앞으면서
미안하고 잘못한다는 말
다 필요없다

인생은 잘 모르겠지만
그대에게서 사랑을 받았으면
같이 행복하게 살고 싶었다.

While we are in pain
words like "I'm sorry", "It's my fault" 
are completely unnecessary

I don't know much about life,
But if I had received your love
I would've lived happily with you. 


I claim no expertise on Korean poetry. This is just some thoughts made to look like poetry, so yeah, I know nothing about stylistics, etc. 

Platonic Awareness (NaPoWriMo 1)

something about you
makes me feel like I'm young
and alive, fourteen years old
and unstoppable,
something about you
reminds me
of the ocean and the waves
and what summer really is,
something about you
reminds me of life before
I became as I am and stopped
knowing what I'm here for,
were you aware?
you're the first person
I warned, and told you
I wasn't someone you could
attach yourself to,
I wouldn't accept
your heart, but don't
get the wrong idea,
truthfully mine wasn't even taken
at that moment
I just said it was,
it's not because
I thought you weren't amazing,
it's not because
you aren't beautiful like that,
even before I met you
you made me laugh,
your electricity on the train
those words you said to make
a first impression, and then
that rainy day
when you told me about
the crazy way you
think,
regardless of our experience,
I thought I couldn't go alone
now I know
a strength of my own,
although you're gone
I miss you.


This poem kind-of collapses halfway through in to sputtering and nervous lines which make no sense and reveal no definitive ending, exactly the same way this friendship has done. 

Life as a One-Way Street vs. A City (A very long contemplation on my life decisions)

I recently applied to the KGSP program, which is an undergraduate/graduate school program in Korea. Foreigners can apply, and if they are accepted, they go to an intensive Korean language school for a year before starting school at a Korean university.
When I was working on the application, I had to write an introduction of myself and a "future plans after study" statement, as we do with many applications. As I wrote, I was reminded of the different self-introductions I have written in the past. Each one has focused on something unique about myself that I thought would impress the judges or the committee which saw my application, or would intrigue and satisfy the readers of whichever blog I was writing for. I've said so many things about myself. "I'm a writer, a poet, a foodie, small town girl, university student, university graduate, top student, average student, curious, simple-minded, I love Korean culture, I love Asian culture, I love music, I love Korean music, I love cooking, I love movies, I love blah blah blah..." none of which were totally true nor totally false at those stages in my life.
For my applications, I thought particularly about what I wrote on my Wordpress blog, "Mijeong in Jeju". This long introduction which was produced from a sort of melancholy nostalgia for my home and childhood was what I decided to present of myself for a blog targeting my hometown friends and their families. I couldn't use that introduction for my application. I thought for a long while about why not.
I filled out all of my paperwork, submitted it, and next thing I knew I was relating the same things I had written on the papers, like a recording, to a friendly Korean-American guy in D.C.. It was one in the morning on a Saturday for him, and he was asking me if "this was a good time?", and the two of us were laughing at the extreme time difference. The two of us were laughing at my experiences with culture shock. The two of us were laughing at my awful, halting Korean, which he claimed was impressive.
Man, sparks were flying with that interview guy.
The self-introduction I have learned to give to Korean people vs. Caucasian people is very different. I have become an expert at avoiding the things which raise suspicion, raise too much curiosity, force me to be completely honest.
Applying for KGSP made me take a look at what I really want in life. I think for a long time, I perceived what I am doing now as the only thing which I was capable of doing-I know this for a fact because I called my brother in tears during the application process to explain that I have no idea what the hell I am doing in Korea.
But I'll save that bit for a little later in this musing.
Anyway, applying for KGSP, looking up jobs for people with a "Korean Language and Literature" degree, having to confront the fact that a job in Korea aside from teaching English probably isn't going to happen, and laughing with that poor guy on the phone, sent me, in some convoluted way, toward the United States again. I started thinking about who I was and what I was before I left, and why I decided that I needed to leave.
It brought me back to my self-introduction. The way I introduced myself on my "Mijeong in Jeju" blog, the way I introduced myself to a drunk Korean-American boy at a party, the way I introduced myself to my grandmother's friends, the way I introduced myself to the English teacher at my school---they're all so, so different.
To Mijeong in Jeju, I talked about my parents, grandparents, background, and my general accomplishments. To that drunk Asian guy, I lowkey bragged about speaking Korean "really well" while slipping my hair behind my ear and laughing off his claims that I'm pretty enough to be a sorority girl. To my grandmother's friends, I carefully avoided the painful process of being picked on and ridiculed for my interest in worlds and cultures so far away from my own. To the English teacher at my school, I played down my talents and hobbies in an attempt to appear non-threatening, and immediately regretted it when I found my experience and qualifications being ignored at every turn.

None of these are completely true. Who I am is not just my parents, my abilities to speak Korean, my awkward interest in Asia, or my ability to compromise myself just to make sure I don't rock the boat.
The last couple of months allowed me to slip into yet another untrue version of myself, move around in it, and eventually come back to the place I was when I shredded that shell of myself and stepped into university life. The shell? My first boyfriend. The new place? Applying for graduate school.
Backstory that I hope isn't tmi and/or boring: I met my first boyfriend, the one I just recently broke up with and ranted about on instagram after drinking too much Malbec, three and a half years ago at a church in Seoul (I have said this sentence or a variation of it one time too many now). Before my first trip to Korea, I was a freshman in college who was obsessed with five things---1. Korean dramas and Kpop 2. Youtubers of a certain demographic (kevjumba, nigahiga, WongFu, Fung Bros., bubzbeauty, etc) 3. learning foreign languages, 4. Asian food, 5. English <---> Korean language exchange. The biggest and most enjoyable two experiences of my life at that point had been in my senior year of high school and occurred within two weeks of each other: going to Koreatown in Fairfax, Virginia (D.C. area) and attending Ohio State University's summer camp for linguistic scholars. At both of these times I had been on top of the world with my new discoveries, and somewhat drunk off the idea of city life and adulthood (I was sixteen at the time).
Korea was another step in this experience of mine, of living away from home and making my own decisions, and after two weeks in the country I met this nice boy who took me to the movies and bought me dinner, and suddenly became the roller-coaster ride of my eighteenth year of life. You see, I had never dated a boy. I had barely liked any boys; I wasn't interested in the guys who lived in my hometown. Nope, I was interested in Korean-American-on-the-phone-in-D.C.-with-the-cute-laugh-boys.
For more backstory: crazy things were going on in my life at that time. My high school best friend was slowly pulling away from her relationship with me as she deepened ties with two guys I disapproved of, which doesn't make any sense because I was basically doing the exact same kind of reckless things with guys, just less physical because I was too shy.
For example: The first guy I ever had a serious crush on was my friend in middle school-a blue eyed, lanky dreamer boy who would gmail chat me late at night and talk about nonsense with me until three in the morning, but whose family was abusive. The second guy I ever had a serious crush on was a mentally unstable half-Chinese boy who strung me along for nearly six months believing his outrageous lies that he was some larger-than-life Green Dragons-esque gangster mixed with Robin Hood's noble intentions and heart-stopping bravado. The third guy I ever had a serious crush on was a half-Mexican employee at my first workplace who smoked weed and cigarettes, drank too much, and, at the height of his mistreatment of me, called me a bitch and told me to fuck off...for simply trying to get him to do his crew work, multiple times.
Yeah, I was stupid.
My first boyfriend wasn't American. My first boyfriend wasn't even my boyfriend until this year, yet I began calling him that because it was easier to explain to people who didn't understand how someone could have such a huge crush on someone long distance. As a home schooler, though, I had never been around any of the guys I liked except the ones mentioned above-and even of those, only one of them did I ever meet frequently in person (the worst one, unfortunately).
It all ended when I returned to Korea and he did, too, and both of us didn't really talk the way we used to, and his maturity level far exceeded mine. While he was slaving away in a startup company, I was out with groups of American boys like the ones I watched on Youtube-high school or college age guys who would happily come along to go out drinking, eat bingsu, wander home through Sinchon, and hold my phone camera above my head for me so I could get a better shot of street performers. I had this feeling of free-flying youth and fun when I was with them.
When I returned to the U.S., the Korean guy and I broke off the great friendship we'd had, my high school best friend ran away from home thanks to her overbearing parents and a friendly guy who said he'd love her, and I had to both take care of my younger siblings while my parents were away from home AND look for her by calling the mentally ill boy who had screwed me over and left me in one of the darkest places I had ever been. The tears I had experienced because of these three people made me want to escape back to that culture I had experienced over the summer, and when I went to UVA, I found it. I learned how to properly flirt with boys just like those ones at the language camp, studied American college slang like a pro, became involved in clubs and organizations I cared about, took sociology classes and tried to be understanding while still not becoming a liberal, and eventually began to navigate the world of my own culture with ease and great satisfaction.
Then I graduated and went to Korea.
I reunited with the guy, had a huge fight with my /new/ best friend, and started an orientation which distinctly reminded me of that language camp years ago. I did the exact same things; I went out a few times with groups to drink, slept very little and went to classes all day every day, traveled to the seaside to drink some more, and developed more than a few miniature crushes on the baby-faced guys who happened to be there. Then it all ended, I decided to date the old guy anyway, and my life in Korea began.
Except, for some reason I felt like I was living in my seventeen-year-old body whenever I was around him. Remember cassette tapes, how you could rewind them (lol)? I felt like every time we met, I rewound myself to seventeen. I'd flash back to so many experiences that I thought I had left to rest; the time my coworker threw serving trays on the floor and called me a fucking bitch, and I went home and drank four shots of vodka and cried. The time my then-not-boyfriend called me in the middle of the night "just to talk for a bit", like we were filming some cute teen romance a few years too late (for him). The day of my graduation, when the rhododendrons were blooming outside my bedroom window and I thought myself to be unstoppable. I walked up and received my diploma from a community college in the middle of nowhere, with a 4.0 GPA and "UVA bound!" on my graduation cap.
However, while I was having my short, month-long trip down memory lane, the other half of this equation had other concerns. And those concerns were valid ones which were more relevant than mine; but those concerns also sent me down memory lane. Memory lane of the three men I had been interested in and mildly involved with at UVA-and unfortunately, those three men do not include "Drunk Guy Who Thought I Was In a Sorority", although all three of them were Korean (surprise! not).

Which brings me to a point in this bizarre narrative that probably has everyone wondering, a point which I have tried to clarify even to myself and never been able to, no matter how many self-introductions I write.
Why the heck do I like Korea so much anyway?
The truth of the matter is, I don't really like Korea that much. I just happened to fall into the niche of people who like Korea at some point in my high school years. I can say that for sure, going to Korea and developing a crush on a Korean guy propelled me in that direction, but I was never solely interested in Korea. I've seen a decent portion of anime and still understand a tiny bit of spoken Japanese, thanks to my middle school interest in Japan. At UVA I took more classes related to Chinese culture than Korean culture (if you ignore language classes). I could have literally gone anywhere with my interest. So the actual question is, why the heck do I like Asia?
The answer is complicated, easily misunderstood, and difficult to explain. For starters, I was interested in Asia as a child. I was curious for reasons I do not know. When my dad would watch Iron Chef, I'd show a very serious interest in the language being spoken on the show. Looking back I realize even my dad, despite his knowledge of foreign languages, was apprehensive about answering my questions, and probably didn't even know all of the answers to them. My mother, on the other hand, was my primary influence. From the books I read as a kid (does anyone remember "Hojo the Laughing Dragon"? Why did they even read me this book?), to the shows I began watching in middle school (I was a diehard FMA fan), to the boybands I became obsessed with in high school (Daesung from Big Bang was like the first man I ever saw, I swear), she encouraged my interest by relating to it. Her own experiences in 1980s America had made her quite open-minded, and her personality makes her insatiably curious about other people. She picked out "A Single Shard" for me in sixth grade, she listened to me rant about Fruit's Basket, she was the first one to say Daesung was a downright handsome fellow, and when I told her I was thinking about asking a nice Korean-American guy at language camp to watch some fireworks in Itaewon with our gang, she was the first to say "Do it, do it, you can date anyone you want. Sometimes, I wish I had." Not to reveal my mother's entire past, and not to say she isn't happy with her current decision, but my grandparents are fickle people who judge other cultures with a critical eye and shut down my mom's attempts to access other cultures "too closely" as much as they could (and they tried to do it to me, too, but I just trolled them too hard for it to ever be successful, hahahaha....).
My mother made me feel limitless, and limitlessness told me I could read anything I wanted, like anything I wanted, and date anyone I wanted.
Not everyone is limitless, and the four Korean men I've been interested in were not limitless (honestly, no one can ever be truly limitless). The most recent one made me look at my life as a one-way street where I had one destiny- "Korea", and the other ones seemed similarly so hung up on my race/cultural background that they couldn't see beyond their own insecurities (yep, I said it). Even as I graduated from undergrad, I was looking at my life as a city of winding streets, many avenues I could travel down, and new worlds and experiences I could explore. I still saw things as a sixteen-year-old before all the other things in my life happened. My dream job, my dream future, was living in a city in the U.S.A., working on research or language or teaching, continuing to see exactly how limitless life in my country could be. It did not include dating and marrying a Korean guy and living in Korea for the rest of my life, even though a lot of my friends seem to think this was my focus the entire time.

We can always, of course, turn our car around on a street and go back, even if it is marked "One-Way", but we run a significant risk. In my vulnerable state, that risk seemed frightening. On the first chilly day in September and the end of the Chuseok holidays, I woke up and went to lunch with my then-boyfriend in Sadang. We ate seafood jeon at a restaurant down a sidestreet, and I nervously couldn't decide if it was more inappropriate to be showing my shoulders in a Land's End tanktop or my jiggly thighs in short-shorts. My sweater kept changing locations as my heart kept changing cultures; shoulders or thighs, it made no difference. I couldn't properly exist in either one, and this dawned on me in the manifestation of words from the most tolerant, worldly person I knew echoing sentiments I expected to hear from my rural white American grandparents about culture and lives, destiny and love, race and mixing, and I must've appeared like I never considered these things in my life, because obviously he still felt the need to say them to my face. My six-month relationship looks more like a two-month exploration looking back, because once you've been boxed and your limitlessness destroyed, you feel more like a slowly rotting corpse than a person with a soul.
Perhaps my disillusionment with Korea began on that day, or maybe I was never truly that crazy about Korea to start with. Like I said, my dream future had very little to do with an extended amount of time in Korea. I wanted to experience Korea because I had learned Korean and the culture intrigued me. But as I continued dragging myself out of bed day-in and day-out in a relationship that felt lukewarm and a city that felt as entrapping as my hometown, I realized something about myself. I only start looking at something as a one-way street when I feel like the place I am currently at isn't filled with avenues and options. My one-way street was a relationship where I gave up 75% of who and what I was for a marriage, a new family, and a country where I would be thousands of miles away from my own family. Though I had repeatedly said I could handle it and I was fine, I realized with defeat that my pride, my love, and my fascination didn't matter; none of them were strong enough to convince me that this person was enough for me and living in this country would ever make me happy.
This made me question everything. Even as I filled out my applications for KGSP, I wondered if I could last three more years here. The thought felt like a disgraceful, sinful thing, considering how much I had talked and talked about moving to Korea. But even this goes back to my various self-introductions. At school, I'd tell people I just wanted to hang out here for a year, so I would seem both the right amount of adult and yet a little flexible. At home, I'd talk like I was making a career choice so my parents wouldn't worry and I could be a good example for my younger siblings. To my grandparents, I made it sound like I was escaping to never return, so they would eventually give up on me and stop telling me things like "he'll never like you because he'll want one of his own to marry" (because I really really hate it when people say disapproving things that turn out to be true, damn it).
After I broke up with him, I began working through this painful path of rediscovery and reminiscence that I'm afraid is a personality trait I won't be able to shake off any time soon. This is what I have come to; I am someone who is deeply, remarkably regretful that she didn't ever learn how to drive or attempt to live an adult life in her own country. Someone who actually misses trying to find a ride to Kroger to buy organic health food with her best friend. I am someone who has binged on those old Youtubers for the past three days because she got into an argument on Facebook about Asian-American actors, an argument she hadn't had in months because it just wasn't relevant to her life anymore. I am someone who once read about an American woman who married a Japanese man and entirely threw away her own culture only to discover what a mistake she had made thirty years too late--- and I am someone who swore that would never be her, yet almost became that woman simply because it was so hard to turn my freaking car around and drive through all the mistakes I had made. Hitting rewind while the tape was still playing created a horrifying cacophony of sounds but it was worth it, because now I know where I was and I know I wasn't happy there. I know I was actually so depressed I wanted to run away from everything, and I couldn't even complete the simplest of tasks like cleaning my apartment or going out to buy groceries, and I would drink an entire bottle of wine because no matter how low I was, I didn't dare breathe a word about my suffering to the man that I thought I loved, because if he found out how much I just wanted to go back to America, it was over for us. And now it finally is, and now I am finally limitless again, and I do not care who you are, how cute you are, your family background, how well we click as friends, or how well we click as lovers, or what the two of us think about religion, I'll never limit myself for anyone again, because I've done it a million times now and it's not fun.

This is what my self introduction would look like if I didn't edit it for the eyes of those who read it. My self-introduction wouldn't mention my degree and it wouldn't focus on my accomplishments (although I AM VERY PROUD OF THEM, thankyouverymuch). It would probably talk a lot about boys, because I've spent a lot of time around boys and I am not ashamed to admit it. I'd mention how I've somehow managed to get into crazy fights with both my best friends, and how only one of those fights ended in a repaired relationship (and I couldn't live without her). I would put in a lot of parenthesis, a lot of quotation marks, and I'd swear a few times and I would explicitly relate the things I wanted to explicitly relate and leave out the things I didn't wish to discuss. I'd be honest about how I feel about Korea, and still feel guilty that I'm not running around sparkly eyed over Korea like all the other "expats" I know.
 In my real self-introduction, I cease trying to pretend like I had a normal reason for becoming interested in Asia and honestly say that it began in earnest because the men are handsome and no, I don't have a fetish, because yes, it's possible to have a preference for a certain physical appearance. In my real self-introduction, I am not being coy or putting on fronts about my life or what has brought me to this point, and I am not caring about how people perceive that, including the people who are being discussed in this self-introduction.
At the same time, I only feel safe enough to post such an introduction to a low-traffic blog I've used for my poetry. Because I hate saying I have no idea what I am doing with my life right now, and I hate saying I regret my decisions, and I hate talking about how other people have affected me. But here we are, it's a new day, and maybe I can survive here three years, maybe I'll actually enjoy it if I look at it as more than a one-way street. Or, maybe I'll have to go through the one-way-street manipulative-jerk relationship all over again to eventually learn my lesson. At the present, however, I hope to rediscover the things I have missed out on, even if I have to wait a while to get there. Some people might dismiss these thoughts and this long essay as growing pains and perhaps they are, but I'm still young, and looking at myself as old made me feel like I would just crawl into a coffin sometime and die and that would be the cold, emotionless end to it all.
In contrast, these days, despite it all, I feel limitless again.
I don't think I can forget that feeling, no matter how far down the One-Way Street I have gone.

New Faith

one day i will
awake from my sleep
and be that person
who you wanted to meet
bless your soul,
bless that sovereign place
frozen north, Midwest
where you once rested your head,
bless me,
who had no idea how to be
more than my broken self,
bless God,
bless His goodness and warm heart,
and powerful omniscience
Who takes me despite it all,
bless our love,
which has passed away
dead at the break of day,
bless the sun,
which has jarred us,
taken me from my long rest
burned my eyes with the image
of your departing shoulders,
and my ceaseless endeavor
to rediscover my soul
i abandoned,
bless my mistaken assumption
that i could survive
without my eyes, bless
my tired heart
which did flamboyant acrobatics
and then died
deep in the dark night,
bless our love
and put an end to it,
our posthumous twilight
needs a new faith,
a different name and
an unknown face.

Self-Defense

I was pushing your words
back down your throat
at every turn,
you tried to be an ointment
to our wounds, you perceived
my efforts to flash
flesh-colored bandages
and call them healed,
yet you could not be silenced,
your bravery greater
than my eloquent show of
maturity,
I avoided your eyes,
their shadows falling on me
like a death bell tolling
our final meeting,
you were probably
the only one who
genuinely cared for me,
of all the events and
the misery I suffered,
your gaze remained
painfully honest, and yet I
still look away,
I can't bear the weight
of my own buzzing thoughts,
my own insanity that
keeps me awake at night,
and drags me up in the morning
like a resurrected warrior,
I hope you found your
peace of mind.

Ode to "Crystalline"

I have an affection
for the university bus,
it's evenly paced screeching
so common and dull
interrupting your performance,
it brings you to earth
though you are weaving new
worlds with your hands,
the mere sight of you is still
beyond my ability to fathom,
those lovely nights
of that interim, when I strayed
from all that I knew
to think about you, quietly
the notes of your soul
are undone at the keys of your piano,
my most intense contemplation
even now, is so simple
"why are some people like this?"
though I know the answer.

Keeping Appearances

He looked good for me

twice in his life,

very unusual, I know, it

seems too few

for the length of our

intersection,

His wavy black hair

brushing against my cheek,

by the stream

together in July,

is as good a memory

as we will ever have,

Though that first night

he gazed deep into my eyes

I think he grew tired,

his pensiveness gave way

to sleep, and 

his steps were heavy again,

So I just wanted to see

if he brushes his hair

and wears proper clothes,

he should look good

for someone,

more than twice.

Me and Ne

wait.
...
i left the stove on
well the house is
gonna burn down
like that time i mistakenly
thought i was in love with my
best friend,
why is it always like this
i'm gonna fail again i can
just feel it, waiting for the elevator
the veranda might be
full of water,
i bet the pipes froze,
because i forgot to
turn on the water heater,
that'll cost me a thousand dollars
oh what will i do, my mother
thought i'd
do better,
and look at me,
first boyfriend
told me he wanted
to be steady,
we'll probably break up
over something like this
i can't stand people
who are too steadfast,
it's terrible
it's wonderful,
i know,
i believe, but
what if i become an artist
and move to the sea,
and sleep with that guy
who is twenty years
older than me, but seems
to know what i need,
but i need a pencil skirt,
maybe a lawyer?
be rich and prosper
in some new york suburb,
single at forty,
what a silly dream.
...
i think i forgot
to email my professor
for the recommendation letter
well that's just great,
i'm such a failure.

Extroverted Intuition (Ne) is the fourth and final function in the ISFJ functional stack. It's inferior, which means when it appears it can be hard for the ISFJ to understand.
I basically experienced Ne for most of my life as an emotion of doubt and worry over unclear future failures and near-paranoia, until around the age of 19 it became something like an insatiable taste for bizarre risks, mostly in the form of unrelated possible career choices and risky romantic exploits. I don't usually follow them through.
When I do, I scare my mom.
But it's usually kinda fun.
I won't sleep with anyone twenty years older than me, I promise.
Or become a lawyer. I think?
I know Ne can also manifest in intuitive conversations. I can cover that later...maybe. Haha.  

IS(F)J

Being a feeler is looking out
at the world but
being unable to reach
because the hurt hurts so much
you can't breathe,
being a feeler is realizing
that no matter how much
you cry for other's pain
or how much it hurts to watch
people dying in vain
you can't fix it,
being a feeler is like
being a thinker but instead
of looking like we care, sometimes
we turn our backs on
starving people and burning cities
aching with guilt and
suffocation, wishing I could
bring to the surface the
stirrings of the deep, but instead
finding nothing but apathy
and exhaustion.


I'm working on a collection of poems about the way I experience my own personality. I've been into MBTI for a long time and made some great friendships thanks to it, but it's never really entered my writing before (except for maybe a few older poems). I also get so geeky that I've almost memorized all the type's cognitive functions, haha.
The second cognitive function of the ISFJ is Fe, "Extroverted Feeling". I can't describe how this is for everyone, but it comes to me most often as a distinct kind of idealistic caring, empathy, and fascination with other people that I can't always contain or control. 
Sometimes, I have to shut it off.
Hope you enjoy. 

Well-Wishes of the Stars

even in my dreams
we always
almost kiss, as if
unconsciously,
celestially,
we were not
meant to be,
even
in the realm of
the Sandman,
you never
reach out for me,
instead
my hands
hold your sturdy
shoulders gently,
you could
have been so
majestic, darling,
chasing great things,
believing
in all and anything,
after this,
do not look for me
in your memories,
or your dreams,
apparently,
divinely,
we were
not meant to be,
though you did
often kiss me,
and your hands
held my small arms
firmly,
we have no astral
blessing,
or perhaps
those well-wishes
of the stars,
are fanfares
of inevitable partings.

Gatsby and the Orient

you'll regret
you'll regret making me
want to pull my skin
off my flesh, but sadly
my flesh would still
produce disgust in you
imagine your children
pale and large-eyed
poor babies
poor, poor you

i'm sorry but
what about me,
where am i supposed
to lay my head down
and sleep-deep
under the cold earth?
don't pretend
i'm not me,
chalky and blue
and pink and pale,
don't touch this body
if you despise it

i'll never give you
the things i thought to,
what a mess,
boy,
what a mess,
you could've been
my green light
on the other side
of the bay,
summertime, the
island, tea in the sunset,
by the ocean side

but i am not gatsby
the pacific will never be
an atlantic bay,
the world will never
grow smaller, we just
have to be stronger
and braver,
i will never be gatsby
shot dead for his cold lover,
and you,
you are too cold.

girl

insatiable sense

of melancholy

she is so suddenly

tall and thin

and bright eyed

in warm summer light

white legs

in tall grass
her hands
oh, girl
i know your face
everywhere i have seen you
beautifully insane
running on fear
suppressed craving
crazy flailing
around your empty
american small town
grasping for
anyone
i was
almost the same.

Glowlight

Don't mind the letter too much,

what I said is more important

than what I wrote,

and I will probably
only say that once
for all my life.

To your soul

I can say everything,

isn't that something

isn't that amazing?

if only I had known it

from the start,

I showed you the depths

of my heart, the dreams

of us and the stars,

below the green glow

of the plastic planetarium,

stuck to my wall with

tape and bubblegum,

My miniature tribute

to your entrance,

our acquaintance and

whirlwind romance,

your special existence

in my world. 

Portrait of a Belated Love

light from the thermostat
blue-green and cold
rests on your cheeks, your nose,
so beautifully,
i want to remember you forever,
your straight black lashes, hidden
amid your shadowy lids,
in the gray dawn i
go deep into your eyes,
dark and watery
like caves by the seaside,
your delicate wrists and
the pigment etched
in your fingertips,
even your hazy memory
will just stay in my heart,
from this cloudy night
until i'm no longer alive.

Blue Camel

everybody smoked "blue" camel
tires spinning out of control
mountain roads,
just because i say i don't mind,
doesn't mean i should do it,
if  i compensated for all that time
would you see me as i am?
maybe i'll never fall in love like this,
chasing boys on a whim
running out of ideas
to seem casually appealing,
i learned a long time ago
that cruel flirting is a turn-on,
and my blue veins and
chalky thighs don't
really matter too much after all,
he had black, curly hair
brown eyes, six feet,
smelled like weed and nicotine,
tell me baby, do you know
what it's like to love crazy?
80 miles at midnight
love burns on his neck, stained teeth,
i know he didn't deserve me
that wasn't the point.

Dime a Dozen

When you were down and out
couldn't stand up
sick of all the hate,
you sold me dreams
dime a dozen,
our voices on the phone
through the night,
you wouldn't sleep before dawn
came, you were
young and scared of everything
but I wanted you,
as the night wants for starlight,
I was trapped and you
gave me wings,
you needed a home
to lay your burdens down,
talking in the dark
across the wires.

Ice King

Sticks and stones
that's what they said it was,
Jenny pierced her ear and
I wore my new boots down to the Corner,
what a season, what a year
for new changes,
we didn't even drink coffee
I just sat in a big leather seat
too large for me,
in front of a roaring fire,
another cold-natured man
hoping for warmth,
attracting me
with his frost covered symphony,
I think if I meet one more
Elsa-wannabe,
I'm going to scream.

Reading Aloud

You came too late
to hear my poem,
I ran from Shannon to Newcomb
just to be cold, and tremble
in a room full of people,
who had no idea what I was talking about,
it rained that night, I held
an umbrella in the air, you
didn't live there anymore
but people said you did,
I knew where you'd gone
probably your old haunts.
I went home quietly,
and drank three glasses of Lambrusco
the purple tint
staining my lips,
you had no idea how much
I wanted to dance in the rain
with you, humiliated
by my feelings, what was
there to feel embarrassed of?
My ceiling sprung a leak and
I could hear the dripping all night long,
and it was like my shame
"I like him, I like him,
what a terrible thing."

"The Advocate"

I remember our last embrace
on the brick sidewalks,
a bus heaving and sighing
hot steam from the engine
meeting our faces,
the gray clouds hanging low
with humidity, the
rain lying in wait for us to go home,
in my terrible state
of affairs, you knew
that I'm such a mess, that I'd
been running around
playing amazing for
heaven knows how many men,
I was even like that to you,
even though you were good to me
even though I didn't need to be,
I acted for them,
I was the perfect trophy,
religious country girl,
listening healer, personality-
psychology obsessed
liberated rebel, the
cultural expert for all, I tried
to be what I wasn't,
I reached for so many things,
and your eyes, which saw everything
met mine, and I knew it,
before you said "I just
didn't want you to feel empty
like there was something
you lacked or needed,
like you aren't perfect
the way God made you,"
I cried the whole night
because I replied
"Don't worry, don't worry
I'm alright."

"x" love

coins go rolling
from my shaking hands
and drop to the floor
of the car, and my eyes
fill up with tears
i leave them,
their small lives in my care
are over,

even if you loved me
even if you tried to,
my feelings have fallen
from my open palms,
they go rolling
about your heart
and they are no longer
mine,

i could say i love you,
even if i do
you wouldn't care,
it's a non-issue,
i am just another check
on the resume, another
life goal
fulfilled,

i'd do it all for you
but i don't expect anything,
that's love, that is
why you're hard to please,
it's not that i couldn't
love you,
it'd just be a non-issue,
another of your boxes
struck down with an "x".