Under Obligation

In the blood red glow of brake lights
I study your ashen skin
And damp dark eyes
Night settles with the cold fog
Mind your white shirt
Straighten your tie
In a black car you slip away
From the mindless babble
Voices in the dirty air
I dissolve and re-imagine you
Dressed in silk, or
Dressed in BDUs
How could your form fill
Such a large cavity
At only twenty years?
How could your body absorb
Alcohol and gunshots,
When you are still a child?

-A.K.-

Inland (Winter)

I want to meet you before dawn
When it is cold and quiet,
And the sun sleeps below the ocean
Shining on another land,
Waves crashing in the silence
Salt in your hair, hair in your eyes
Dark as the sky
Before it bleeds blue, color
Seeping up from the sea,
And the city lights, in the distance, blink out
While your heartbeat is calm,
Each slow, quiet breath
Brings your chest close, warmth against me
In the frozen air, in the bitter wind
Your chapped lips and dry skin
Taste like the ocean,
Last night's soju, haemulpajeon,
Sea brine.

-A.K.-

1995-present

Well, goodbye, teenage years.
It was terrifying, but it was beautiful.
I hope I continue learning through other "baby adults" as time passes. Don't ever let me forget this trying and yet rewarding time in life. We grow, we change, we become truer to ourselves, and that's worth dwelling on.
Yes, I believe a "teenaged" time does exist naturally. We only use such a "category" to hold a person back when we view it as a "negative" experience...the emotions and changes of adolescence are not so.
For myself, it was a time when I learned my own sadness, my joys, my values, my religion, my interests. I drew, I wrote, I cried, I dressed funny, I learned new languages. We shouldn't look at this time so negatively, despite its trials. Without it, there would be no time to develop ourselves as adults.
That time is far from over, of course. I am not grown up yet, and I say this every year. But I can tell that time is coming to a close. For once, I feel like I'm older.
When I was born at 1:59am on Friday, November 17th, 1995, only God knew what kind of person I would be now. I have grown and changed so very much since that cold morning! If I were home right now, at this moment, my mom would be relating the story of my birth in a mesmerizing tone of nostalgia which I cannot comprehend, for I don't remember the first few years of my life. Instead, I log her memories as a way to prepare for my possible future children; learning through another's experience. It is only on the night before my birthday that I hear the story to be about ME and MY existence.
How truly crazy it is that I am both alive and have been for a decade.
40 seems so far away, yet when I consider the picture of a baby's face I do not know, dressed in hospital clothes, sitting on my grandmother's mantle, I see that I have actually come quite far since that moment.
It's a time to be celebrated, despite the changes and the unfamiliarity.
I have come so far!
Thanks be to God!

Coincedence

I sit under an apple tree all day
Just waiting for you to fall
So I can reassess the gravity effect
Your existence has on me

When I sleep I remind myself
You will never know me, and I dream of
Rejection, so I can refrain
From wanting your embraces, your kisses

It's so cold by the florescent lights
Night comes bitterly alone
Do you love the sound of the wind?
November, beloved, returns

Starlight and empty black sky,
My patient soul is futile
Constellations do not collide,
They were determined before time itself

But were you part of mine?
When you entered this hazy atmosphere
Your playful eyes sparkling
Can we call it true destiny?

As you live out your dreams
Downing liquor on warm summer nights
Will you ever want me with that gaze?
Or am I just coincidence?