Is crying on Christmas day normal?
Is wondering if I'm crazy normal?
Is harboring a 15-year resentment normal?
Is wanting to die normal?
Is hating your parents normal?
Is taking melatonin as a sleeping pill normal?
Is writing poems normal?
Is living life normal?
Is smiling normal?

I am
So confused

You tell me "At least you are lucky that your dad wasn't as harsh as mine"

You tell me a newly told, ancient tale
About how your dad violently hit you on your birthday
About how it was during your birthday party
About how your dad did terrible, terrible things

I didn't say anything
I never said how much that hurt
Felt like salt in a dearly loved wound

Later, I recall a newly unearthed, ancient tale
About how you screamed at me on my birthday
About how I remember many December 16s tinged in blue
About how my dad did terrible things too

We talked to reconcile both our bitter pasts
When does verbal abuse become abuse too?

Ladies! We were made to be eaten
Chewed up by men
Spit out
Objectified
Beaten the crap out
Put down

Who are we to judge?
We were made in God's image
We were made in man's image
We were never made in our own image

Lay down your sticks
Open your thighs
And scream at the injustice in the world
Silently

I stumble through every second,
Every frame of physical progression,
Sleepwalking with my eyes wide open.

Distinction between
Conscious and unconscious,
Real and unreal,
Alive and dead
Mix, swirl, and then blend together
On Infinity's timeless masterpiece, Continuum.

I walk like the dead among the living.
I walk like the living among the dead,
Staggering in a haze,
Following Fate's gentle nudge,
Until a wind sweeps away my life in a single breath.

The name Audrey is
A girl's name of British origin.
"Noble strength."
Its roots entrenched
In the dirt of Western history.

A name is supposed to define you, shape you,
Be the linguistic representation of you.
So shaped have I become in a white girl's name;
I have never tried even to know my own.
Never even given a chance.

How can I be Korean American,
Looking in the mirror,
All I can see is an American girl?
The wrong face and distinctly Asian.
Searching for traces of where "Korean" could be,
I find none.

One soul in the wrong body, in the wrong place, in the wrong name.