1
I wondered what kind of shapeshifter
I must be without folklore
or a tongue
with creeping neoliberal desires,
affinities and comforts
at the mouth of
what is carefully historicised
in the past tense
stolen, in the past tense,
renamed, in the past tense
continually deferred along the river
maybe we are less like folklore and more like Starbucks (Rose says)
2
Unlike the myth of Selkie, I didn’t long for the sea
or somewhere that seemed more like my real skin.
In high school my crush wrote in my yearbook:
damn your European complexion, as a compliment
I didn’t correct him.
Glissant writes:
Transparency no longer seems like the bottom of the mirror
in which Western humanity reflected the world in its own image.
There is opacity now at the bottom of the mirror,
a whole alluvium deposited by populations
silt that is fertile
but, in actual fact, indistinct and unexplored (111)
at the mouth of two rivers,
at opposite ends
there is no rush for gold
3
there was a very quiet, unspoken
almost hermeneutical seal around us
epistemologically rinsed of longing
or being able to long for what is known
at lunch for five years my friends and I
rarely spoke about where we came from
I knew his family was from Hong Kong,
and she was half-Korean, half-White
we wrote a Shakespearean sonnet together one year
and she wrote it out in Gothic calligraphy.
4
RE: DITTO (NewJeans)
[Intro]
Stay in the middle
Like me a little
I can’t be this riddle
Who am I? Can't say it back
Oh say it ditto
[Verse 1]
Hurry up, don't leave me waiting
Tell me, who are we waiting for?
거울 속에 내 이름은 (My name in the mirror)
빌린 거예요 (Is borrowed)
돌려줄 곳이 없어요 (Nowhere to return it)
[Pre-Chorus]
It's me, it's me, it's me
기다린 만큼 더 (As much as I waited)
기다린 만큼 더 (As much as I waited)
[Chorus]
Stay in the middle
Like me a little
Don't want no riddle
Who am I? Can't say it back
Oh say it ditto
[Verse 2]
I got no time to lose
내 길은 나인 걸 (My path is me)
I got nothing to lose
나는 괴물이야 (I am the monster)
피부는 벗겨낼 수 있어 (I can shed this skin)
너는 네 것을 벗을 수 있어? (Can you shed yours?)
[Bridge]
I'm here, I'm here, I'm here
피부는 내 것인데 (This skin is mine, but)
너는 내가 아니래 (You say I'm not me)
나는 누구의 신화? (Whose myth am I?)
[Outro]
Stay in the middle
Like me a little
Don't want no riddle
Who am I? There's no way back
Oh say it ditto