Youngseo Lee
someday i'll love youngseo lee
after frank o’hara / after roger reeves / after ocean vuong
(i)
i want a helicopter to release my ashes over gyeongbokgung, each flake hurtling like it couldn’t believe it should belong in a palace. of course i am only joking. sort of. i am many things, among which i am nothing. i am two rocks posing as human. i am a motherfucking genius. i am updrift, cascade, fingers wrigging between sweaty bones. i will vomit myself into a contradiction. so read me. i have determined that nobody shall find peels loitering at my feet. afford me the decency of a trash can, a clothed one. lift my intestines out and give them a good shake, feed them back to me with a needle. i wish to be a soda can. there are things other than a heart that pulse. i imagine i’d never be found much of a lover. it depends, really – after all, i am ash, and toast at the same time, i am pulverized bone, glazed beach, quite honestly one tit. heat after a slap. saliva on a man’s middle finger. not the redness in either. erotica draft. closed eyelids, holy. a theoretical whore told me we drank ethanol last night. i asked her if we tried to kill and she said no baby that’s not a thing you do –
(ii)
you can’t say you love me till you’ve been to landfill park do you
see the bus depot have you wanted to jump yes climb the jungle gym
rope structure however naming makes your sense your hands
unroped unbloomed unscraped cannot touch me go climb as high
as you can that park atop a hill was planted over a landfill meaning
you can build yourself over me and nobody will know i was here i was
joint strain where all ten fingers are stretched i was tongue caught
under permanent retainer i tried ventriloquism with my heart tried
throwing it to the bus depot but then came my entire body unraveled
to a single helix with ankle hooked on rope i wonder now if i can hang upside
down from those ropes my mother thought i grappled for god so
hard neck stone upward because i was desperate for belief bloody nose
swallowed down pharynx and she thinks i seek you god’s son’s son’s son’s
son’s son’s son’s son’s nephew’s son’s son’s son’s son’s son’s son’s son’s
son’s son’s neighbor’s classmate’s cousin thrice removed for the same
reason why should i believe in you what do i have to trust this park
is all i have faith in my fingers unbloodied undone my only witness to
crime if to let reconstruction bury is to kill i will have killed but not
until you’ve looked down at the bus depot try to find beauty where
there is a parking lot and a mountain where there is night and a blinking
light to sin is to be handcuffed to air what should i believe in it is dark
my mouth is warm and we are mortal do you see it do you see it do you
want to throw yourself just to see how far you land do you shake are
you sputtering out the woodchips in your gums no i find it hard to believe
anybody could love me without being me and i don’t think anybody
loves themselves
(iii)
nevermind the boy. he drinks vanilla extract like alcohol. the water runs hot, the kitchen a farce, and i imagine myself the lucid green of a sign off a highway in the silence churning against other gear wheels. the boy broke the kitchen clock, and the oven clock, and the microwave clock while i was gone to miami. he is a dog rampaging through the absent’s. he is every reason i lock my yearbooks. he is a lip on the back of my imaginary thigh. the boy is not here, and neither is miami. he is only a child. so am i. so am i.
the day i turned eighteen i studied poisson pmfs and my mom made me eat my carrots. boy, all your cups are stained. and i do not understand why i must crack or splinter when somewhere in the world a cotton shirt is flapping on a clothesline after its first wash. seventy days of eighteen have been so loud with the vacuum that kept crashing despite all the buttresses and never minded boys. everybody was so noisy and i was not here. too busy filling with sound then brimmed into a boy i could theoretically love. if i didn’t know any better i’d think myself dead, tomorrow if not now. but i am not. we all live alone, i think.
(i)
i want a helicopter to release my ashes over gyeongbokgung, each flake hurtling like it couldn’t believe it should belong in a palace. of course i am only joking. sort of. i am many things, among which i am nothing. i am two rocks posing as human. i am a motherfucking genius. i am updrift, cascade, fingers wrigging between sweaty bones. i will vomit myself into a contradiction. so read me. i have determined that nobody shall find peels loitering at my feet. afford me the decency of a trash can, a clothed one. lift my intestines out and give them a good shake, feed them back to me with a needle. i wish to be a soda can. there are things other than a heart that pulse. i imagine i’d never be found much of a lover. it depends, really – after all, i am ash, and toast at the same time, i am pulverized bone, glazed beach, quite honestly one tit. heat after a slap. saliva on a man’s middle finger. not the redness in either. erotica draft. closed eyelids, holy. a theoretical whore told me we drank ethanol last night. i asked her if we tried to kill and she said no baby that’s not a thing you do –
(ii)
you can’t say you love me till you’ve been to landfill park do you
see the bus depot have you wanted to jump yes climb the jungle gym
rope structure however naming makes your sense your hands
unroped unbloomed unscraped cannot touch me go climb as high
as you can that park atop a hill was planted over a landfill meaning
you can build yourself over me and nobody will know i was here i was
joint strain where all ten fingers are stretched i was tongue caught
under permanent retainer i tried ventriloquism with my heart tried
throwing it to the bus depot but then came my entire body unraveled
to a single helix with ankle hooked on rope i wonder now if i can hang upside
down from those ropes my mother thought i grappled for god so
hard neck stone upward because i was desperate for belief bloody nose
swallowed down pharynx and she thinks i seek you god’s son’s son’s son’s
son’s son’s son’s son’s nephew’s son’s son’s son’s son’s son’s son’s son’s
son’s son’s neighbor’s classmate’s cousin thrice removed for the same
reason why should i believe in you what do i have to trust this park
is all i have faith in my fingers unbloodied undone my only witness to
crime if to let reconstruction bury is to kill i will have killed but not
until you’ve looked down at the bus depot try to find beauty where
there is a parking lot and a mountain where there is night and a blinking
light to sin is to be handcuffed to air what should i believe in it is dark
my mouth is warm and we are mortal do you see it do you see it do you
want to throw yourself just to see how far you land do you shake are
you sputtering out the woodchips in your gums no i find it hard to believe
anybody could love me without being me and i don’t think anybody
loves themselves
(iii)
nevermind the boy. he drinks vanilla extract like alcohol. the water runs hot, the kitchen a farce, and i imagine myself the lucid green of a sign off a highway in the silence churning against other gear wheels. the boy broke the kitchen clock, and the oven clock, and the microwave clock while i was gone to miami. he is a dog rampaging through the absent’s. he is every reason i lock my yearbooks. he is a lip on the back of my imaginary thigh. the boy is not here, and neither is miami. he is only a child. so am i. so am i.
the day i turned eighteen i studied poisson pmfs and my mom made me eat my carrots. boy, all your cups are stained. and i do not understand why i must crack or splinter when somewhere in the world a cotton shirt is flapping on a clothesline after its first wash. seventy days of eighteen have been so loud with the vacuum that kept crashing despite all the buttresses and never minded boys. everybody was so noisy and i was not here. too busy filling with sound then brimmed into a boy i could theoretically love. if i didn’t know any better i’d think myself dead, tomorrow if not now. but i am not. we all live alone, i think.
Biography
Youngseo Lee (she/her) is eighteen, taking a gap year, and just vibing. She is newly based in Virginia, though she is from Seoul and Arizona. A 2020 National YoungArts Finalist in Creative Nonfiction and cat lady with no cats of her own, she is the founding editor-in-chief of Pollux Journal, a literary magazine dedicated to multilinguality. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in perhappened mag, Gone Lawn, Peach Mag, and more that you can find on youngseolee.carrd.co.
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