unbooba

                                         
( Korean translation:  "Carry me on your back")

The girl breathes hard--one, two, three.  She hangs her eyes in the dark, where the light burns blue, yellow and red.  She is counting.  One, two, three.  Again.  One, two, three.  

The girl fixes her eyes on the blood spilled over her legs, hardened and thick glazing her bones.  Her knees are bruised from the floorboards.   She lays still and hears nothing but her lungs pounding the dense, heat swelling around her body.  She murmurs a lullaby for a moment and then saves her breath, clamors her lips together to keep from vomiting.  The wood smells of rot and soiled skin, yet she finds comfort in the moist and humid planks with her head tucked aside to hide from the glow of the lantern. She wishes for sleep, heavy and long sleep.  The door is ajar and people can be heard moving through the grass.  She hears the night flies chirping in the fields, the old woman humming in the distance and the children crying down the road.  Soon, someone will bring her water.  She waits.  The blood holds the wounds for her and eases the pain.  If only she could wipe the sweat that drips in her eyes and burns. How does one gently lift those once raging fists, now surrendered at her side?  Oh god, where are they? She wants only to feel the softness of her skin, the curves of her hand near her face.  They are awkward and still with the rest of her body and lost.  The child-woman does not hear the infant screaming nor does she feel it's unnatural motion between her knees---only the yellow light settling on her eyelids, keeping her awake.

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