quaintly flowered pebbles — Haeun Kim

“You don’t have to think he’s right.

But you do have to be there.”

~ Jojo Moyes

when i finally spoke, my voice was a
small, broken thing. every atom straining
to break. i had practiced saying

nothing and now in my room with the silence
and the suffocating darkness
cheek pressed against the cold porcelain,

the words fall from my mouth like pebbles.
eomma, are you there? i’m frightened. i miss you.
swallowed, alive, perpetual.

i wanted to give you every bit of life i felt.
that would have to be enough - 
that being mahogany walls and quaintly 

flowered quilts. a light and airy room like an upmarket 
holiday home. a brief spasm of sympathy.
that

overwhelmed me and tore at my heart and my
stomach and my head and it pulled me under,
and i couldn’t bear it and

it is enough.

---

Haeun (Regina) Kim is a student writer from Seoul, South Korea. An alumna of the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship, the Sewanee Young Writers' Conference, and the Sunhouse Summer Writing Mentorship, she has been recognized by Bennington College, the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, River of Words, and more. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, Stone Soup, and The Galway Review, among others. An editor at Polyphony Lit, she serves as the founder of MISO-JIEUM. When not writing, she can be found painting in an art studio or struggling through amateur ballet.