Category: Literary

    A Love Poem for Someone I Left, or

    Photo by Zoya Hsiao 10 places I want to be with you— sitting on the same massage chair, legs compressed by legs no money to afford our own, but in the 러브호텔  we can pretend on the second floor of a ramen shop or Indian restaurant shrouded in incense or smoke from your cigarettes on a stroll, seaside or on a bike, tandem on a mountain in a car—hands overlapping, fingers entwined when not, 잠깐만 in a kitchen, curry on the stovetop fried chicken delivery (just in case) 대마도 one more journey together, before I left the ferry, you promised battling aliens in outer space dancing on the moon like in your dreams beneath a pine tree 다음 생에 where I’ll fall asleep again in the shade of you in a plane, not an airport not even the shuttle bus to the airport not even in love four years ago four years from now forever Maggie Deagon was a 2016 – 2017 ETA at Jeju Jungang Girls High School in Jeju City. When she is not writing poems about lost love, she is chronicling her wandering food adventures at femalegraze.food.blog.

    be(longing)

    Photo by Zoya Hsiao I wrote this poem while I was an ETA on Jeju in the winter of 2016. I was in the bout of severe homesickness, experiencing snow for the first time and missing my sunny Southern California life. This reflects the period I went through before adjustment—realizing that I didn’t fit in or feel comfortable and not yet seeing a way beyond those feelings. Spoiler alert: things did get better (after a while). be(longing) in this bedroom that is not my own, my clothes are bundled in cubby holes resembling the goodwill pile i left in LA. wet clothes hung inside, a clinging funk bearing no resemblance to the florals of home. the windows open to more windows, not blue sky over mountains and palm trees. i can take a bus to see camellias bloom, but in LA, the flowers blossom beneath my window, reminding me of my coming birthday. a shelf and a half feels crowded and burdensome in this bathroom i still don’t recognize. i keep forgetting where the clippers are, my nails dig painfully into the toes of my shoes. even my body begins to feel foreign, expanding and reshaping itself, what i consume beyond my control. no solace in skin or mind. at least the fact of a choice in this— to board the plane, the bus, the elevator to the apartment door— is mine. Maggie Deagon was a 2016 – 2017 ETA at Jeju Jungang Girls High School in Jeju City. When she is not writing poems about lost love, she is chronicling her wandering food adventures at femalegraze.food.blog.