shape watching by Minha Choi

Web Team member Minha Choi shares a poem about a time she spent hours watching everything around her and realized that everything has lines in it.

I am surrounded by sharp lines all the time.

there are so many of them

they drive me crazy enough to miss the times that I never had when I never knew of them.

when the lines stare back at me

when lines slice the open spaces into twos

when lines slice a stranger passing by in halves

when lines trap the ones I love in its belly

when lines trap the world in its belly for display

and when lines strike wind flying unexpectedly

I frantically trace the figure with my eyes, feeling its edges

and can’t help but hope that the beginning will meet the end,

then back,

then from the end to the beginning,

where a line will end and another will start.

but after that is nothing.

nothing and its unforgiving presence

sometimes, a comfort

On unassuming days nothing stills me and I can’t waver where nothing touched me

I hear the lines shriek and yell “betrayal!” and then crumble apart

where everything kept falling and falling

where the alarm clock never rang

where thoughts were in terms of negatives

where death seemed a cruel question mark

where nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing was a steady beating void

where I kept crying like tears evaporating

where the beginning was a beginning and the ending was an ending

where quietly, quietly