there’s a piece of me that got lost in translation, in the space between two hands jointly clasped. in the space between synapses, lost in thought, lost in memory. sometimes i wonder if it’s just one piece, or if countless fragments of me have gone astray and been swept under the rug by whoever has been chip-chip-chipping away with a chisel at my heart. i don’t know when i lost it, or how it slipped out of my grasp — perhaps with the grimy grip of a hand upon my upper thigh, or perhaps with the thunderclap of an open palm upon my back, or perhaps it wasn’t taken from me by someone else at all. perhaps i lost it all on my own. perhaps i’m a topiary of my own making, and i’ve been carefully snipping at the branches that dare to press outside of the lines i’ve so carefully drawn for myself. i wish to stay the same from all angles, to all viewers, but i bear the unfortunate condition of growth, and so i must keep cutting. or perhaps it’s not that i want to be one shape, but that i know if i don’t twist and distort and bend over backwards, i’ll be forced to confront another shape altogether. if i don’t slice and shave and starve til i rot, i’ll realise that i’m ugly. but that would mean i did this to myself, that i amputated my soul at the seams, and that just might be a thought too terrible to bear. so i turn to cards and dice, to mystics and prayers and destiny, and i whisper my secrets to smiling women with notepads or frowning doctors with hairy ears. and they tell me that i’m doing so much better than i was two months ago, and they tell me that i just need to keep doing what i’m doing right now, and they tell me that if the shape changes, i need to take more pills, and they tell me that i’m barely recognisable anymore, and that’s a good thing. so the day repeats once more, and i continue the cycle, leaving a trail of jigsaw pieces behind me. i don’t look back except for in the fragile, still moments of loneliness, when i allow myself to consider for just a second — what if? the clippers feel lead-heavy in my hands. i do what i must.
Sol Kim Cowell is a transmasc Korean writer and local café regular. His work seeks to embolden the whispers of the subconscious and to confront the ghosts of the past, with a view to tell stories that resonate across borders. At his doljanchi, he picked up the pencil, and he hasn't put it down since. He can be found online at skcpoet @ Twitter, Tumblr, and Ko-fi
