The Magical Language of Others

by E.J. Koh

The present is the revenge of the past. There is a Korean belief that you are born the parent of the one you hurt most.

“Some believe that if we’re not smart like your mother and brother, we can’t accomplish things. But we can if we are: one, funny, and two, humble.”

Children have no concept that every moment comes to end, but rather feel as though their suffering, at present, will last for an eternity.

If anyone saw me, they might have wondered when everything had gone so wrong.

My mother said, “I’ll just die.” “No, I will,” my father said. “Why do you get to die?” “Because I did all the work!”

“You did all the work?” she asked calmly. “Then what am I?” Death must have seemed more approachable than her husband.

“You tell the kind and patient person,” she said, “to be more kind and patient. That’s why my Eun Ji will live the hardest life.”

The only thing they liked about her was her prosperous husband.

“I won’t listen to a man who only saved himself.”

Now, whether she faced north or south, east or west, there was only fire.

I must choose love over any other thing.

“How can I be a good poet? I don’t even know how to be a good person.”

“Do you think my daughters would miss me? Do you think they’d wait for me—like you waited for them?”