they move like tides.
they hurt me, only when they come inside.
as I have let them, time and time again
forgive me now– for I was younger then.
.
These things, they are not your fault.
Not the way blood runs, not the way water runs, not the village and the mountain, not so many evil dreams.
Throw a stone and strike down someone whose soul is already dead. Listen for the words of blessing, of reprimand, from holy fathers. Wonder why a wound, in some languages, is a word quite close to blessing, to opening—to permission.
Look into the eyes of a woman who is not a woman, and see the answer before the question.
.
Someday, your grandfather will be gone. You will lose his old gray head and his rusty anger. You will lose him whether he dies at the hand of darkness or at the soft passage of time.
(You try to tell yourself that it does not make a difference. And maybe it doesn't. The difference would be losing him at all.)
.
There are two worlds, and you always lived between them. You, Hwa Pyung, the shaman child.
So it was even when you were young; less, now, that you have run far inland. There are two worlds, and they twist together like two halves of an apple, split along its core.
Gil-young is too stubborn to be afraid of anything.
Mateo—Yoon—prays too much to curse his own lot in life.
Still, you know, they ache.
.
Yoon sits beside you and tells you that you should not blame yourself. Not your fault. He says it like a blessing. You were a child. You did not choose the demon.
(The demon chose you.)
Gil-young, blood on her face, fighting and fighting and fighting. Yoon springing forward like a bullet, saving a child's innocence, even if it only lasts a moment.
(Mothers, after all, stay dead.)
And what is there to say, to the ones who dream of drowning? Who know what it is to be blind in one eye, to hear that shuddering whisper, to answer to the call with puppeteered limbs, whether their hearts are willing or not?
And who called Park Il Do from the depths if not someone who would be useful for a purpose? Who, if not you?
These things, they are not your fault.
(Or so they tell you.)
