[I know the distinct ring...] by Steph Yun

I haven’t been writing consistently for months like I always plan to. Throughout the constant bustle of things to be done, things that didn’t get done, the things I want do, I often think about all the writing time I’ve “lost,” all the poems that never happened. This makes me feel bad, like a bad writer or someone who doesn’t care about what they claim to be their truest passion, or hobby. I constantly worry that in the time in-between, my writing flow will be difficult to revisit, that I’ll be “rusty” once I come back to it, or I’ll just have trouble writing anything at all.

However, the last few years have served as great testament to something someone shared with me once before: When you experience your life fully and grow on a personal level, that will translate to the work. This has become truer over time, and I’m so thankful to have had Green Windows as the space to begin some of my most exciting work to-date.

Here is a poem I wrote in the February Uniquely Yours workshop. I hope you enjoy it. 
​
Steph

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Untitled
​by Steph Yun

I know the distinct ring of a wrench falling to concrete,
the exasperated sighs of a man whose calloused
blistered bruised hands
​heal slower with age; they’re clenched in a fist
around a cigarette
15 hours away from here

I don’t know how to speak of the dead who hurt me
and my family.
do they visit me my humble bowl of water each night, too?

My father isn’t a man of faith or prayer but now
I know that all these years
he’s burned tobacco smoke in the urn of his lungs
in reverence of his own father, halabugi
     a joyous man with a penchant for peanuts, soy sauce
     and pepper paste

When my body decomposes
I hope to first become first rain
and the air on the dirt and

When I become flower,
I hope water tastes as good 
as I’ve always remembered
and when I bloom
I hope creatures find my sight nourishing.
if they choose to consume me
may it be just as well

If I become water, may it be well
let the mouths who sip from me taste the brick and stillness
and cast their dreams somewhere uplifting

In no one’s name, I pray.

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