by request: han

my mother released me from her womb with a heavy sigh
surgical lights illuminated small knots of blood and placenta
the doctors sawed me in two upon sight
shipped one half of me overseas
and flung the last slab of body at my mother

twenty years later i still delicately finger the stitches
grow disgusted, tear open sutures,
paralyzed at the possibility of releasing these scars

koreans call this han
lament
grief
isolation
vengeance
the grandest combination of words is futile
every time i stretch my hand out to the core
it shifts shape evades my grasp turns to smoke

han resonates upon the explosion of mental landmines
historical debris ricochets inside the walls of my skin
scores of independence movements scribbled in our blood
but we've never been free
traded from one sphere of imperialism to another and
another and
another
we are now split, shared
our bodies, disassembled constellations along the 38th parallel
dmz / demilitarized zone
red tendons peeking from vacant limbs like crab meat
our bare ribs smiling, to a glowing hole in the sky called hope

while the resentment hardens inside my chest
slick obsidian replaces blood
i shatter
into a thousand pieces
and come together only to feel out familial scabs
searching for words to record this insufferable ringing locked inside me
our cries are the echolocation of festering wounds that will never heal
writhing, struggling for air that i was never meant to breathe

i am the daughter of grocery store revolutionaries
with the romanticized destiny to be tied in my place
to suffer in silence
but agony bursts through my eyes and drowns every shred of light
even if you ripped out my tongue like a weed
snapped arteries dangling like fresh roots
dripping juice
used them as ribbon to lace my lips shut
i will never be silent

my body lies over the ocean
my body lies over the sea
my body lies over the dmz

bring my body back to me
bring our bodies back to us
strip the mud of our skulls and the crucifixes from our walls
hang up the bones of those who died
in the name of someone else's country so we can pray to something real

we speak of revolutions we know we won't live to see
but we will never stop fighting