Alaina > Recent Status Updates

“this is not normal
not rational
but it is
and it was
and it won’t stop being
just because you refuse
to acknowledge it”

A powerful AN at the end: “I’d like my poetry to remind readers that even if a part of history may not seem to be relevant to their lives, it is—it is their reality too. An experience that is not mine is still part of the society and world that I occupy. It is crucial to know, listen, tell, and retell various stories, so we may better theorize and understand our existence.”

“Dye your fingers with its petals—see if it lasts till first snow.
Snow, what precious flower in this region.
With my ear resting on his chest, I could imagine it’s blossom.

My cheek dreamt well on his heart.”

“Korea is gravel and graves. Girl is girl and she will never be a grandmother. She will be girl, girl is gravel and history will skip her like stone over water.”

“…I’ve never
loved myself more, yet nostalgia wavers all around me
like a montage of mirages muddling memories,
complicating
hope, making me miss things I’ve already mourned.”

“If my body be a long poem
then I want it to go wherever it needs.
I lick dirty verbs in my teeth and feast.
I go back to the buffet with my dirty plate,
because I want my body to say all it has to say
and not be sorry for the saying. Of. It.”

“…we would discover and enter another world
and come back barreling into this one, astronauts
for the better and for the worse, but still spectacular
as we burned back inside this atmosphere to live
separate lives inside other shadow boxes we cannot see.”

“…made of
the unforgivable future, and the unforgivable past, i bloom,
bloodless, and ready to feed.”

!!!! WELL THIS TOOK A TURN

Enjoying the way Choi plays around with some classic poetry formatting.

Me, five mins in: Baucis & Philemon vibes.

“O year,
O shitstorm, it’s impossible to be alive, impossible
to be dead. So, brainlessly, I tongue the news
again, instead.”

This has been big honk-shoo energy minus a snippet here or there 😔

This has, sadly, been a little bit of a slog for me. I’m reserving judgment, but this definitely did not have the same titillating grip the first book had me in at page 1.

“…and in the trees we can
still hear the
Swaying of the ghosts of your clothes that hung from
branches”

“…let’s imagine that in another reality
That you are living a life, a full life, a blessed life,
But we know that blessing is a lie that swallowed
You up in that empty space of time”

“What do we know if all that we know is that there
Was one a girl, a girl unfound”

“Some friends open the doors to our exit”

“…but if the questions
Are all answered they cannot profit
From your murder”

“And when police
Officers finally approached the man suspected in your
Murder,… -he killed himself, because
That is what cowards do.”

“The memory of a wife who worked when all of us were
Sleeping, and who disintegrated into the glorious golden
Morning rays when all of our eyes opened.”