The Eyes Are the Best Part

by Monika Kim

There are some things that you can never truly escape. Not really. Maybe that’s why, even now, she’s stuck in the past, long after everyone else has moved on.

More than anything, he hated that everything in his life served as a reminder of his failures. I don’t blame him. Maybe because I know what it’s like, to live a life so defined by want. That’s why I was able to recognize it in him—it was what I had been feeling for so long.

Her tears dripped onto my hands, onto the carpet; I watched them fall and had the sudden realization that our roles had reversed. Somehow, I had become the mother and she the daughter.

Fate can bring you together, but it can just as easily tear you apart.

In the end, everyone leaves.

What is it like to live freely, to live a life untethered, without having to be responsible for everyone around you?

How do I explain to her that the home I miss isn’t a place? It’s a time when my life made sense. When things made sense.

“I know that the plant is pretty, but poison is everywhere, even in the places where you least expect it.”