Amy (Seohyun) won third place in the 12-15 years category in our 2022 Young People’s Poetry Competition.

 

For her      Home

could only be  glimpsed –

through moments of

     reprieve from the

American dream. It was the

    kimchi, rich and heavy

on her   tongue & touching lightly

      in places our smaller

hands could not reach. Or the soju,

    drinking until her bitter breath was

indistinguishable from the air. Unfiltered.   Raw

     & chafing from the weight of what we

dub a parent’s love, drifting asunder

         in a country where loneliness

is larger than man. Larger than the room she

     sits in. Again: she discovers

what it means to be

                                     a Mother – when

you find ways to cling on to the coming tide,

        as a paper boat, scooping handfuls of

yourself overboard. A Woman – when one

        cannot be a girl anymore. A Lover –

like the desperation that burns with swallows

        that are grounded. Alone, I will

tell you why we do not deserve to be forgiven. For

       her Home is an imaginary place in a

               familiar country, taken by our

                        little American dreams.