September
i still
don’t have
any answers
to the questions
i have
and you’d think
by now
i’d be ok
with that
but it’s like there’s
no closure
to the questions
that never get answered
the journalist in me
wants to know the why
the person in me
just needs peace
and i can’t get that
down the street
or over the tracks
or at the edge of the ocean
or at the foot of the mountain
or standing at your door
and maybe it’s September
and for some reason
this month is hard
been hard since that letter
showed up (years ago) in September
and how i didn’t wanna open it
even touch it
how even when i did
finally
it didn’t tell me nothing
i needed to know
some of it was in typed English
the rest i couldn’t read
but i saw the blanks
all the blanks
all the empty space
where nothing was said
at all
__________________________
but what i could read
told me
what i had believed
all along
wasn’t even true
a birthday that wasn’t even mine
a name that wasn’t even me
all i know
all i’ll ever know
is somebody from somewhere
left me
there
at that police station
long ago
just me
with nothing else
no identity
no note
no trace
so, the letter told me
i’d never know
when i was born
how old i really was
or my name at birth
they issued those things
at the orphanage
they just picked a month, a day, a year
out of thin air
poof
and then a name
was assigned
a stamp put on paper
a sticker on the page
a number of identification
stuck on file
like a sticker on a Tshirt
that i exist
somewhere in the world
i knew only two words in Korean
that i would say
over and over again
one meant dad
the other meant grandma
why i’m thinking about this
now
at 5 in the morning
is beyond me
i mean it’s not like i think about these things
all the time or anything
or maybe i do
or maybe it’s September
that’s a hard month
it just is
i don’t know
i really don’t
i just don’t
know
TL