Zigzagged through traffic

Middle fingered a half dozen cars

Honked at one

High beamed the rest

Swerved into a parking spot

Picked up a six-pack
Plopped on the couch

I close my eyes to forget their faces

Too late

They're branded, seared, burned into the inside of my forehead

I want to forget it after 2PM
I can't

I walk through the halls to pray

Is it useless?

I'm new

It will get better

I'll get used to it

I don't want to get used to it

Shock is a reaction of the innocent

If I lose the former, I lose the latter
A cheap price?

I train harder now

with more purpose

I eat more

a lot more

I'm not trying to get pretty
I'm trying to get ugly

I end each hour with a pile of regrets

I keep them at my breast pocket

They weigh like lead

I want my fists to be like lead

I hate it

but I can't get enough

It riles up a destructive force

I want to break the bad bones
I want to grind the evil into powder

I want to sew up the malicious lips

I can't do it with lead hands
I'll need something better

Give me wisdom

Give me ability
Give me backbone

I don't have love for these unlovable bastards

Please, give me that too

I'll never do nothing again.

A North Korean Poet Wrote It

Exhausted, in the midst of the market she stood

"For 100 won, my daughter I sell"

Heavy medallion of sorrow

A cardboard around her neck she had hung

Next to her young daughter

Exhausted, in the midst of the market she stood

A deaf-mute the mother

She gazed down at the ground, just ignoring

The curses the people all threw

As they glared

At the mother who sold

Her motherhood, her own flesh and blood

Her tears dried up

Though her daughter, upon learning

Her mother would perish of a deadly disease

Had buried her face in the mother’s long skirt

And bellowed, and cried

But the mother stood still

And her lips only quivered

Unable she was to give thanks to the soldier

Who slipped a hundred won into her hand

As he uttered

"It is your motherhood,

And not the daughter I'm buying

She took the money, and ran

A mother she was,

And the 100 won she had taken

She spent on a loaf of wheat bread

Toward her daughter she ran

As fast as she could

And pressed the bread on the child's lips

"Forgive me, my child"

In the midst of the market she stood

And she wailed.