ii.
POEMS AND WRITINGS FOR PEOPLE THAT ARE NEVER COMING BACK.
Eunseo looks nothing like her mother, in fact when the social worker gave her a picture of the woman she was surprised. There had to be a mix up, the wrong woman who was staring back at her in this Polaroid was not her mother.
But, Eunseo knew that. She kept quiet and thanked the social worker anyway.
Eight days later the Polaroid of the stranger and a heap of wrinkled clothes found their way into a duffle bag as Eunseo planned her great escape.
She found a home with a friend of a friend where their mother kept her makeup in the bathroom. It was the first time Eunseo ever locked a bathroom door to put on purple rouge. The satin stain glided on her lips as she looked into the mirror. It had her smiling, tongue trapped between teeth as she made faces.A movie star, a vixin, an unknown beauty, innocence and rage- a girl who wasn't a girl. She imagined as she drew back from kissing herself in the mirror that when she got older that she would look like the woman in the Polaroid.
When years passed and all she had was a trailer to share with three other people, the Polaroid was stuck between the crevice of the wall, she would look on to the mother that was never hers as she put on wigs,clasped and stuffed her bra. Desire became a dead woman in a Polaroid.
When Eunseo sought out validation in a form of a man, it was that of one that had her tucking her dick and powdering her face, and squeezing her feet into flashy heels. She smiled with lipstick coating her mouth when he asked her if she was seeing someone else. The smile pulled back like a trigger and shot like a gun. The spark without gun powder was sick malice that painted her chest and left a hole that would never really close. And if Eunseo had a mother instead of a Polaroid maybe she would know that.
She would know, smiling does not get people like her anywhere.
He punches her in the face so hard she heard the clink of the fractured window underneath her head. The next ten minutes are as blurry and as desperately forgettable as they come. He says, "You're bleeding. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." "You're bleeding. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." "You're bleeding. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
She comes home blood on her blouse, two fingers slung around the straps of her platforms, she's barefoot and cold and she wants to forget.
"Eunseo, look at me... did he do this to you?" She just wants to forget.
She can't look at Bash who's sacrificed so much to take care of her- of them. Her made up family. Broken and lost but still blood.Somehow.
She just wants to forget. Her sister holds her as she sobs an explanation that's drowned in tears. A moan that's asking Bash not to leave crawls out of her lips. "I just want to forget." Why won't you let me? Please just forget ...
He moves out of her way she clings to his arm to stop him.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE- those words don't come out fast enough, they don't matter enough to stop him from leaving. Her legs give out, palms hitting the wooden floor her sobs are useless she wants to cry out for her mother but she remembers she does not have one. Tears strain up and over her bruised lips and she can't forget. He won't let her, not this time.
Eunseo does not have a mother, she has a Polaroid stuck between the crevices of a wall of her bed frame.
At night when everyone is asleep the cold silver plated scissors in her fingers snip the picture in two.