Creative Writing - A Harsh Memory

1

In my dream you smiled at me, who was late for the meeting. What an abnormal smile. In dusk of hot October’s day, we didn’t feel the wind. Your friend used to sneer at us – “Don’t you think it’s a harsh love?”

2

On the road we walk along, the streets were dirty with aimless souls and drunken dumbasses. Taking each step, my shoulder cracked by the alcoholic air. But your lips were harder than usual, and your breast was colder than what I thought. Aren’t you tired? I was unable to hear your words. A cold robot talking, without a piece of true heart.

3

You used to smoke, sitting next to me. Silently, watching a point in empty sky or the shoes of walking people, you swallowed the toxic world and split it out. Give me one. I said quietly. In a surprised face, you fumbled the rattling handbag and took out the cigarette pack. Then you hesitated. Were you scared of me, or couldn’t you just endure the familiar situation.

4

I was already exhausted when I walked in the dusky road. I went over and over, splitting the darkness and trembling my tired legs, leaving the unreasonable footsteps. It was a summer night neither hot, nor cold. The dark solitude was broken by insects’ crying, and the light from unknown people’s house spread out into the foggy air. I closed my eyes for a while, opened again, and stared at the empty sky. A girl I used to know disliked the cigarette smoke. I filled my lung with the shining starlight and blowing wind climbing up trees. The sky of city was always obscure. I patiently walked over, following the footsteps of you. Waving my tired arms, I escaped the fog area that became more and more sticky.

5

When I wandered around, I smelled the sweat of running boys. I greedily bite off the memory you left. The endless summer of city was gradually forgotten under the shadow of anonymous evergreens. I spent more time with the girl. The grass seemed burning, under the stinging sunrays. The memory of sad cigarette smoke. Now a wet air comes through my throat. A fish who wanted to live in your air forever. The streetlamps sick of insomnia shed light on me and the girl.

6

If I could go back to the painful past, would I flutter again on the unknown street with my hidden gills opened? I still find you sometimes, with no trace in my places. The young people wandering streets. And the story flowed between them. I was too young. Today, I take a walk again to the park where the girl would be. She stares at me with her round eyes. I see you inside her iris, burning the rotten world. Inside my harsh memory, there is you, who sigh a gray smoke. 

Chang Woo Jung

09/03/11