AN ELEGY

TO MY LATE

ADOLESCENCE

MiJin Cho

For years now I have avoided

confronting the ways

you’ve changed.

And the reasons you’ve changed.

Like a new spring, You were so

promising at first.

Then the water got thicker,

And You got submerged, throttled, and

suffocated.

We didn’t take it well -

our family that felt

no longer like ours.

The size 6 font

on organic chemistry

study guides.

Formulas now tattooed

on our mind,

scarred and everlasting.

The 30-minute interviews,

2-hour transcriptions,

30-hour articles.

Our head banging on

the kitchen table.

The relentless migraines.

I grieve for you.

I wish I had stood up for you.

But my body had seized.

On Saturday, I cried

for you. After a day

of running through the city

So foreign was the texture

of adrenaline in

my blood.

I can only pray,

apologetically, for the cortisol

I plunged into your veins.

I wish you could come out

and fill your lungs

with the Sun.