The Shape of a House

Birthplace

House of memories

Prison of tradition
The cage of social reputation

Angry voices and insults
Scattered shards of glass
The smell of incomplete combustion soot

Flickering light
A room dark even during the day
Red windows bathed in the setting sun

Orion seen with my brother
The Big Dipper
The Milky Way
Cassiopeia

The room of my late grandmother
with a large bookshelf

Apartment

Life of sisters

Freedom and youth
Autonomy and decadence
Love and loss
Encounters and partings

Drinking tea with visiting family and friends
at the pine dining table
I had always longed for

The sofa where we sat side by side
Movies and dramas we looked forward to watching every week
Nights we cried together

Nights we laughed together

Steam from a hot pot
surrounded by friends

Nights of passing each other by
Mornings where I couldn't say a word

The apartment garden
we gazed at together

My home

Life as a married couple

The return of a dream
A house given shape
by my husband's hands

Intractable disease
An overgrown garden
Decluttering

I am my own
owning nothing

Even so,
the things I couldn't throw away

A few photos and letters,
books and a certificate of merit for an essay

Unfulfilled dreams,
time spent talking,
staying up late and being accomplices,
tea infused with the color of the sunset

Staring at the white walls,
what should I decorate them with?
What kind of pictures should I hang?

Like the ones I saw long ago
in American sitcoms

I imagined a house
with family photos lined up
on the wall by the stairs

A dream I had given up on

Perhaps,
new memories
might be displayed there too

For now,
it's fine to leave the walls white

＊

Welcome to my home,
I'll brew some warm tea
and wait for you

Please don't worry about bringing a gift,
I'll be waiting for you
at the 'What Are We Talking About' house

#WhatAreWeTalkingAboutHouse