Bacteria

I’m watching you scratch your head with your nails,
Frantically writing down notes in your neatly organized notebook.

And at that moment
I realize
That we are characters in a movie.

A big bang,
A new history,
I emerge as a baby, fresh out of my mother’s womb.

I suddenly hear the jazz music in the background,
muffled by the sound of chatter;
I hear the syncopated rhythm,
             Improvised and irregular.

Then, tiny beads of water slip from your cup
And drop onto the table;
They spread,
like bacteria,

Just like how
Everything within the suffocating walls of this room –
You,
Me,
The notebook,
The music
The cup –
Multiplies &
Wakes me from my sleep.

Walking on White Snow

I’m scared to walk on white snow.
I’m afraid that I’ll make footsteps with my dirty shoes.
Touch what I should not touch –
take what has been taken from me for a long while.

I stand by my front door and wonder
how the snow maintained its beautiful, curvy figure
over the long, scary night,
how it never encountered the touch of a stranger who could
do things that he knew were just not right.

I don’t want to leave any marks on this trail
of white snow; I want to protect it
and ensure that it keeps its whiteness that
I so greatly miss, on some quiet night.

So, I’m scared to walk on white snow.
As much as I love a winter day, I shall stay in my house,
let the snow stay this way
& hope that it will stay this way for a long while.

A Bite

A natural extension of the hand,
sharp,
chopping, slicing, and dicing
slicing meat off the bone

The handle is hollow and filled with sand
You grab it, tight,
containing the silent ghost.

Then comes a plate.

A mosaic
chewy, bouncy and firm in the hot broth.
warm, earthy, and slightly citrusy

I meet
a magical bite,
a pop of unexpectedness –
clambake memories in one course

There is
a voice in the meal

A whisper that leaves
without saying goodbye.

Seungwoo Lee is a student in South Korea. He is an avid writer/reader who has a great interest in languages. His interest in poetry recently rekindled after attending a summer creative writing program in New York. In his freetime, he enjoys writing poems, listening to music, and daydreaming (…about literally anything) on his bed.