Dots and Zots, and My Final Youth

by Min Kim





I walked in, and I encountered a pile of dots and

dots everywhere, and I thought them linked and

knotted up together, upon my touches and

quilting, thought to be an original, particular

sophistication. I expected them to stay longer, firmer, and

prettier toward me, toward us, and every single

decision that I made in beliefs of stepping forward.



A few days later, I found a few years had passed.

Dots and dots, they were still joining tightly but

they were ugly in flat composition. I believed in

for-ever oftener than I was believed to be

innocent in a simple calendar. Dots were getting blacker but

vaguer, and I could not even reach them. Shattered all around,

they were under the history, under the unnamed days ago.



Believing I would become a neat composer somehow,

I go inside again, searching for dots left.

For any kind of possibility, and any piece of undestroyed

Youth. I promise to make them collated again, against

my will, my agility, and my upcoming failures.





back to University & College Poetry Prizes