Sijin’s Home
— A house of dead stones*
We built a house
We built a house with blocks until our fingertips reddened
We built each other’s rooms even as we fought off sleep
fearing the blocks would disappear
Leaving my room for last Unni said
You’ll leave me
No sis
I even nailed the center stone in the living room for you
Now you just have to nail a no-good pimp with his erect column here
Don’t forget I love you Unni
As I
coaxed and soothed and touched my brother-in-law like Unni
she forgot about the center stone and suffered from herself and withered away in a corner of the room
Dirty desk chair hair bed and
30 years of weekends of Unni sleeping all day
So as I
coaxed and soothed and touched my brother-in-law like my Unni
in her place
he and I played a kind of hopscotch in the living room then
threw a punch at her
Dumbass don’t you know there’s barely a difference between the striker and the struck?
So we’re not the perps
Stop crying and get up Unni
Unni’s still inside the house
We shoved a steel wool pad down her windpipe and listened to her breathe as she chewchewed through the steel With the same red hands that built our house we devoured Unni whose blood was still flowing We left the bones and only ate the flesh We even ate our red fingers used to suck on
Unni
Our house made of squares Our square table where we’re squared into us
Like an old lost person with dementia Unni said she didn’t have a house
Stupid bitch
Can you really not remember anything
when we love you this much?
Nobody
Nobody remembered us as the us we used to be
Unni’s still inside the house
This us set up two households in the living room and grabbed a white stone Unni cried as she stacked the leftover black stone
We knew even then
The black stone is always at a disadvantage
We knew for a fact that all the black stones go
nowhere**
* In the game of Go, players take turns placing stones on a wooden board, and the player who builds the most “houses” wins. By the end, there are often stones that cannot avoid capture but have not yet been completely surrounded. Usually the two players agree to remove these “dead stones” as captures.
** A player moves their stone to gongbae, the empty space where neither side benefits or loses, only when there are no other options.
Fearing the Gaze of Strangers We […] Each Other*
Hey big sis let’s live together just the two of us Don’t even bother calling Mom and Dad I think it’s really cool to play dead sometimes Cause you only look at me when I resort to this The doctor says violence is a good thing Violence is proof I’m not sick Look! Look at my body I’ve got athlete’s foot The doctor says I’m this red cause I’m letting out my anger I want you to be religious I want you to save all your moaning and groaning for that god you like So let’s never get married and live together just the two of us Let’s lean on each other until we die It’d be super great if we’re sisters again in our next life huh? Don’t forget I’m the only one who could ever love something like you We’re family When I hit your head with the frying pan the other day I did it cause I love you Now you know how much I love you Unni I think I have to hit you for you to understand what I’m saying If we can’t live together I think we should disappear together Let’s die on the same day at the same time Promise your god right now that you’ll live and die with me forever Is this something you have to think about? Really you’re so weird You have a knack for pissing me off It’s like you don’t even know how to have a conversation Don’t try and patch everything up with a sorry I don’t know how you went to college You’re so stupid I mean I have to hit you for you to understand what I’m saying Like a little bitch
* November 21, 2014: the day Sijin beat me with a frying pan. As a result of those strikes I had the strange experience of briefly seeing double.
Southbound from Seoul for Eight Hours and Five Minutes
Hey Sijin
When did we start playing with scars?
It’s only fair that we get em from fighting
Life is hell
Peace is surreal
Southern and northern hemispheres
We become each other’s patient
“A game of chicken enjoyed on the equator”
Unni you better watch your mouth.
Heard you’ve been talking shit about me
I heard that rumor too
Little sister grabbed an axe and chopped off my scarlet military boots and dyed herself red and I
cried in an awkward squat
Now that you’ve lost a leg you
won’t be able to walk or crawl
You’re basically left to be attacked
With an amputated leg I hopped around My fights became legendary and were passed around from mouth to mouth and grew dirty and jumped over the corpse of a fellow soldier Sijin buried a massive bomb in the ground and caused trouble and closed her eyes Three two one bang!
“Cocaine from Cairns $300 a gram”
Unni listen close We’ve grown addicted
I’m gonna blow off
our heads so we can never go back home
Shootshoot
Bangbang
“There’s no revolution or comrade for a traitor”
Above the firing squad
I’m dancing a hanghanging
dance and the dance is
dancing me
Tie me tighter I don’t want to wander anymore
I know
Mom and Dad must’ve abandoned us No surprise there
What’s the point in telling you Unni that you abandoned me too
Because we happen to be alive
Because we can’t stop taking aim
We were sad
We
made up justifications to aim and shoot
at each other’s ear holes ‘cause we were busy
“Eat breakfast eat lunch finally eat dinner then BANG!”
Now who wants to count and see who has more lines on her wrist?
I see you’re a sergeant about to retire I’m only a private
How many nights must we exchange
blows to see stars?
“Dear Heavenly Father
Just as we’ve forgiven those who’ve wronged us
please forgive our sins”
We prayed for each other’s victories
Smiling hashishfully and
dancing twirlswirl
again
Unni do you finally understand
how many kinds of love there are in the world?
Saint Peter loved Jesus too
I’ll confess
I love you
So let’s never come alive again Let’s never wake again Let’s never open our eyes again Let’s never even wave our panties Let’s never surrender or give up ever again Let’s not be mousy Let’s not cry Let’s neither catch nor get caught Let’s never ever see each other alive Whoever falls over and dies
wins
