POETRY
left (right)
Isu Hong
at the crossroad,
she whispers,
turn right.
​
always,
i turn left.
​
she calls out to me,
right.
​
he calls out,
left.
​
he rules the world,
he knows what is right.
right?
no.
left.
​
she is invisible.
she is nothing.
​
left,
right,
left,
right.
​
at the crossroad,
i choose.
left. (right?)
purple?
Isu Hong
i nodded,
and your eyes turned to stars.
it wasn’t purple,
it was gray.
now,
as i watch the sky,
where the gray before dawn softens to purple,
i can finally close my eyes.
it was purple.
i just didn’t know it yet.
"i."
Isu Hong
i daydream of carving into my flesh
and reaching in
to dig out my waterboarded heart--
--futile attempts,
to drown out its steady rhythm.
i daydream of autopsies
that unveil
stories i forbid myself to decrypt,
yesterday
or tomorrow.
i am constantly consumed
by maggots
that burrow into me,
a vast, absolute
emptiness.
i am constantly consumed
by the sight of her grotesque arms,
beckoning me. and i wonder
if her and i
are soulmates.
i continue to run
an endless marathon,
with broken legs.
finding solace within my exhaustion;
an anesthetic;
a stimulant.
i continue to suffocate,
underground,
because i cannot tell
where the darkness ends
and the world begins.
depths
Isu Hong
there is a pond,
behind the church,
where little girls,
wave at their reflection.
there is a pond,
with a rock pathway,
where little girls,
splash their feet, laughing.
there is a pond,
surrounded by trees,
where little girls,
drag their fingers, creating lines.
there is a pond,
fringed with flowers,
where little girls,
wade in, waist deep.
there is a pond,
with murky depths,
where little girls,
slip beneath, unseen
there is a pond,
behind the church,
where little girls,
wave their last goodbyes.
44
Isu Hong
remember how i used to beg?
do you?
do you remember when i cried,
for your embrace?
embrace me,
just like before.
before i understood.
i called out for you,
trembling, at twilight.
at twilight, you were asleep,
and maybe—
—maybe you couldn't hear me.
or maybe you could.
will you ever hear my pleas,
Mom?
Eclipse
Isu Hong
The night you passed,
I stared at the aurora.
But I couldn’t tell--
was it you?
Or the city lights?
Your last goodbye,
a faint gray shimmer,
silver,
like you were.
Now I pray for an eternal eclipse,
an everlasting shadow,
so I can wait,
to search the dark,
for another glimpse of you.
If you were the sky,
the air would be so clear,
that I’d see every star.
But I’ve wept my eyes dry,
and the light of the night,
scorches where sight once lingered.
I think of you always.
And when the world falls silent,
your absence consumes me,
as an eclipse,
devours the sun.
My grief is just love.
Only without you to turn to.
​
I died
when you did.
Remember my vow?
I promised you,
we would leave together.
Before that, it was sixteen.
But you’ve left,
and I’m still standing here.
Next month I turn seventeen,
and I’m too much of a coward,
to keep my word.
I’m terrified.
What if there’s no afterlife?
No reunion?
What if, you become
a fading aurora,
lost in the city’s glare?
You exhaled alone,
patiently awaited,
for our eyes to close.
But you never got that luxury.
So I won’t blame you
If you aren’t there,
when I exhale,
when my eyes freeze,
when I harden,
when the eclipse finally swallows me.
But please,
forgive me.
For not keeping our promise.
For focusing on the arbitrary assignments.
For my inability to hold you.
For learning to live without you.
For the wilting flowers next to your ashes.
Because I’d rather chase the darkness,
forever chasing; searching,
than having never known
the light that is you.
Dissasociation
Isu Hong
Within terrifying screams, and thousands of sufferings, I exist. I sit and
silently watch. Whose performance am I watching? How many people am I?
Who am I? Who is she? I am me. She is I. It is too much responsibility to
be myself. It is easier to be someone else. Selfish. Am I a solar system
pretending to be a person? Or am I a moldy shell, of what appears to be one?
Or maybe, all that I am, is the emptiness inside me. The emptiness that morphs
into the urge. The urge I’ve been wrestling all my life, resisting its desire to
end it. But I won’t. What is living without toying with life? To watch the fear
in those pure eyes–the ones that slit my soul with every glance. To perform autopsies
on her, and cut open her ugly organs in front of her. Once, I opened her real eyes,
and when I dug them out, I realized, that her core was only real lies. Then,
something horrifying occurred. Her lifeless body awoke. As we stared into
each other's eyes, every breath synchronized. I; we reached out, but our
fingertips could never meet–separated by a mirror.
Do you understand the illness that is to be conscious? To be mortified to be
made of flesh. To be humiliated by the coursing of blood. To be nauseated
by existing. To have the disgusting need to be more than human. To experience
the gentle horror of analysis. Truly a deplorable lunacy, to doubt; to over-
scrutinize. And if you do not understand, dulce bellum inexpertis. (War is sweet
to those who have never fought.)
The medication: to go mad. Separate the mind, the conscience, the soul, from
the body. Comprehend that definition does not rely on what I am, but subsists in
what I am not. Start revolutions within the simplicity of existence. End war. (It
never does). Love violently. Speak through poetry. Emulate Dickinson. Choose to
stay in the attic, unveiling the intricately woven brilliance of every breath. Avoid
the gaze, hold no interest in locking eyes with your reflection. Never listen to the
oxygen swirl into the deadly inside the lungs. Do not notice your fingertips, the
ends of hair brushing against the shoulders, the feeling of the fabric on your thighs.
Steady the body, stir the mind.
Ars Poetic
Isu Hong
poetry.
a disgusting sewage of words
leaking onto a page. the intricately
filtered thoughts of one, carving into
the mind. the insane mutterings of
the clinically unwell. the textbook
for the isolated,
inaccessible,
forgotten.
raw survival within despair,
woven into the suffocating silver scarf,
by arachnids (architects among
assassins).
deepest desires, evolving expression,
a celebrated chronic condition.
Blood Orange
Isu Hong
Every version of
our story,
ends with us
being slaughtered.
And every time,
you respond;
Paint me a
cathedral on
The sun with your
mangled flesh.
War-ridden and
soaked in scarlet.
Now you cover
your deepest mahogany
secrets,
with citrus carvings,
staining trims.
The Witch's Rosary
Isu Hong
The witch’s rosary stays hidden,
under her velvet neckline.
What a scare
for a girl to stand
under the sky,
stuttering and shaking.
A scandal, with her
prophecies shushed and
silenced.
Scorns
searing saturations
into her skin.
“Silly girl!” they whisper,
simply seated on stools
with arms wrapped around
silver spooned stillborns.
Perpetually paralleled prophet girl,
gouging guts growing in diameter,
doomed, diseased, deranged.
Blessed by gods, you are, prophet girl.
Predicting parasocial warfare,
with no one to listen, as you yell at the sun.