Chiwan Choi at Free Association

These poems were shared as a part of a Free Association Reading at City of Asylum. These readings gather Pittsburgh-area writers of all associations—established and emerging; university-affiliated and independent; novelists, poets, and essayists—to share their works in progress and newly published work. The next Free Association Reading will take place Sunday, March 29 at 3pm at City of Asylum.

I selected three poems from the section entitled “Exile” from my fifth book, the pop song–inspired Sky Songs. The reason I chose that section to read from is because once again, my life is in flux, physically and emotionally reshaping itself again, and I am wondering where I end up next. As a multiple time immigrant, I’ve gotten used to having to constantly move and restart my life, but being used to it hasn’t changed the fact that finding a home is the one thing that I still yearn for.

[“exile song” — a poem about meeting someone that you think/hope will be your home, your cure, your salvation, their body as your map to finding yourself. but you realize you are destroying them like you destroyed yourself and the only chance you have is to exile yourself from the person and get better, heal, and hope that you can return in time.]

exile song

i traced the map of home
on your back with my finger
as you slept turned away
from me. but when i returned
from my exile of fear
you’d shed your skin
to be born into the life
that was meant
for you and it was
too late too long
past too full of regret
to find the road curling into
the sky

alone
captive
learning

that living had always been
lonelier than god standing
in a land on fire feet bare
too busy with judgment
to hear my question about
the missing of my life

i traced my way
i raced my way
i chased your

forgiveness around
the sharp turn of your
hip away from me when i
reached for the barcelona sun
on the creases of
your skin in
slumber

the exile having been too long
to recreate the shape of hope
we made with our touch

in a burning room on a coast
far away from the first place i’d ever
wanted to call home

i’ve come back

but the road took almost
everything from me

the road

it took
almost
all of me

[“medicine” — this poem is about the burden that every immigrant kid has to carry for their family. the impossible expectations. the child’s belief that if they mess up, their entire family will be in danger. and how all of that conspires to make you feel like you failed before you even gave yourself a chance to do something with your life.]

medicine

they mistook me
for a seed
and took me
across the ocean

i created a story
to tell myself
to sleep

in the story
there is a future
where i become
a tree

it’s hard to unravel
the plot lines that
i drew on the board
just so i could rest

they mistook me
for a river in the night
with fish in it
waiting to die

drunken men
and their quiet wives
lost in their own
possibilities

i tell myself
that i will never forget
the night at their
dinner table

when they told me
everything was a lie
and my mind broke
like the rest of me

they mistook me
for medicine
for leaves that grow
and fall

and placed me
in the sun
proud of what
they had done

they didn’t see
i was burning
until i had to leave
my body behind

locked and empty
the seasons
tearing its walls apart
my heart exposed

they mistook me
for their own destiny
for the reply to
their prayers

and stayed too busy
speaking to god
to ask me if i miss
my own child

the one that left us
in confusion
on a downtown morning
that promised sun

at nights after
i sit in the dark
silent to listen for
her voice

calling to me
from the home
that she has found
calling to me

they mistook me
for their survival
and didn’t notice
i was terrified

of all the things
that i have seen
that i have failed
in becoming

i have now moved
over thirty times
the thing is i lost
me long time ago

all the things
i was supposed to be
tree medicine
son father

we mistook ourselves
for a family
each other
for answers from god

[“i have to believe that it is” — faith is the last step before giving up, pretend god is in the details because we can’t bear to accept it’s just a mountain of details that still only amounted to everything falling apart and ending.]

i have to believe that it is

when the hurricane called for me
my hand closed until there was
a shape i could feel in my palm
like love or the way my knees bled
while praying on a dirt field in asunción.

i have to believe that this is how
it was meant to end, this book of
my family—far from home, quiet
as the world burns around us. i have
to believe that this is what my father

wanted, needed, no different than
what i’ve sought all my life:
to run to disappear to change
a predetermined outcome so the
nightmares couldn’t find us anymore.

back to my closed fist—

i will call this shape i hold
a bird and i am dying because
i’m too scared of suffocating it
and too terrified of letting it fly away.