Anything that’s on my mind.
I never stood beside him.
Nor did my eyes ever meet his.
But when I heard he was gone—
forever, yesterday—
a strange sadness fell upon me,
like dusk after the sun has set.
One soul less in the world,
and silence filled the void.
We will never see him again.
His voice and face are lost to us,
like an old photograph of the beloved
set quietly aflame.
What’s a part of my daily life that I often take for granted?
I have begun noticing things I took for granted before, such as the following:1. Waking up every morning: I now realize that night is when our bodies either revolt or rest while we sleep. I may never open my eyes to meet a new day. And especially right now, I am going through the pains of the internal organs that seem to be worsened the following day; I am grateful for finding myself greeting a new morning.
2. Living with Mom, however difficult it is: Although I sometimes want to live alone with my cats in a small but nice apartment, I cannot imagine not having anyone to talk to all day long and for the rest of my life—at least for now. I am just not prepared to live without Mom.
3. Eating – it is proof that my body is still operational despite the problems inside of my body. I am scared to death for a diagnosis that I will get after the physical scheduled for next Friday. Still, I can eat now.
I now know why some people want to trade their souls with vampires to gain external youth – the prime of health and beauty. So, I am considering accepting the law of nature, as Cicero said, because if we reject it, we ask for trouble. That said, appreciating simple, small things that I used to overlook while retaining graceful poise and becoming where I am now is probably the best and wisest thing to do. Or so I should think.
I once dreamed of dreams
Traveling the cities
with stories from the past
to the present in all spades
by the seas thru the waves;
Now all plucker in the mirage
reflected in the mind windows
as the streams of time flow
letting them go now and never.
Maybe I should not have watched it, but alas, I did, and with the afterimages of the faces and scenes still haunting the brain chambers, refusing to leave, I am writing about the Netflix documentary to cast them out to the wilderness of forgetfulness – but with a voice of the heart.
The documentary revolves around the death of Teresa Halbach in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, who the county and the state justice believe was murdered by Steven Avery and Brandan Dassey. Since the stories about the accused are readily available online, I will not delve into whether they are innocent or guilty in this post. But I cannot help thinking this: Prejudice by social class prevails over the carriage of justice and the great cultural divide between rural and urban, working and middle classes, and state and federal governments in the States. America is arguably a country of no aristocrats, yet class distinctions are apparent, and stratification is broad.
In the case of Steven Avery and Brandan Dassey, although they were not poor, their parents were deemed fit to caricature characters of laborers equivalent to medieval serfs or pre-industrial European peasants speaking with the class jargon in heavy dialectical accents. Would the police and courts act differently toward the accused and their families were it not for their family backgrounds and social statuses? Hollywood celebrities and those with money and power can do anything and yet get away with their wrongdoings because they have the status and best lawyers who can make innocence of murderers, and vice versa.
That is why I’m not too fond of police profiling, which always seems to accuse those from unhappy childhoods tainted with physical and verbal abuse, especially and mostly from parents. It’s not only about sexual violence but, most of all, about parental verbal and physical abuses that bludgeon their children’s psychs. You can’t just typecast someone because they fit your profiling for a particular crime type. Where is the goddess of justice? Remember, even the goddess of fortune plays the Wheel of Fortune blindfolded to give everyone a fair chance of a lot because she can’t see who is rich, bright, or beautiful to look at.
What is one thing you would change about yourself?
Beauty may be skin-deep, but it makes people know more about the person, especially a woman. I wish I could find a fairy – specifically a pixie who knows glamor spells – who can make me beautiful so people will stop ignoring and mistreating my existence. 🧚♀️
Jane Eyre knew she wanted beauty like her spiteful cousins because she learned that beauty could purchase an indemnity for a doer’s wrongdoings. Thankfully, Jane was endowed with a fortitude that would withstand any form of injustice, so a lack of external beauty would be compensated with her scintillating intelligence as a saving grace. Honestly, I believe and feel that although the degree of treatment of women according to their physical attractiveness in the eyes of the beholders has been civilly lessened with the advent of Feminism and growing political correctness, appearance does play a significant role in how others shape your personality in society. It’s called the Looking-Glassed Self, a shaping of self-image by how others see you, whether you agree or not.
The standard of beauty is all the more appreciated by the faculty of the mind affected by the works of imagination. It is universal in all humans regarding principles of judgment and sentiment common to all humankind. Beauty transcends race and class for women. Not every woman is endowed with angelical goodness, dazzling intelligence, and admiring wit. Beauty will complement it all, and I want it. ✨
If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?
A deprivation of sleep would be a nightmare to me. Sleep is the most natural and safest palliative to forget worries, however temporarily it is. But if there should be any other props for this natural medication, I could keep my promises.
I want to read and write as much as I should after returning home from work and generally at home. I used to work in an office where I could write during the lull, but for this year, the cognitive processing activities have been reduced to about 10 percent of my daily life because I have been feeling mentally exhausted. It has become psychosomatic by preventing me from sitting at the desk when I am home. My best regular place has become a sofa bed, watching YouTube continuously. I don’t even play with my cats as much as I should because of this sense of powerlessness combined with the weight of existential despair. When writing – which I am doing now during my one-hour lunch at my workplace – I feel so much better with the fogginess of the mind cleared and the heaviness of the spirit relieved.
Therefore, engaging in activities that use the body and the mind would be the best thing I should do during the extra time because, as the ancient Greeks called it, Mans Sana in coporore Sano. (“Sound Mind, Healthy Body”)
Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh 
You must be logged in to post a comment.