☀ Today's Poem: "The Ritual to Come of Age" Lee Young-Ju

Behind the door. Hanging upside down, like a bat. I wanted to bury my face where urine came out in a fine stream between the pastor's legs. Is every history made false the moment it's told? Even the peak of the pyramid from which children were thrown, having had their hearts carved out, can't reach my origin, where my prayers go. My mother said, about my heart: If I could've plucked it from the fossil, I wouldn't have left you in the desert. Isn't it strange that my breasts were cold until I became an adult? The black nails on my chest grew a little each time I turned onto the street where I lived. I grew a bat's pointy, bulky body. Grown men, too, because I have a history of dying, wrapped their hands around my heart and breathed into it. I became a bat woman with many hands. The hymn echoing through the basement was tender. When the time came to pray, I held, with my burning, blackening hands, the many hands that sprouted from my breasts. When I passed by men who longed to be children again, I called for my mother. Mother was behind the last door, upside down. Like a bat, she taught her pups how to hang.