To Bear the Ruse
Because I once chose death, I expend my days in
horror at the possibility of it
choosing me. There are comforts the living heave
onto the dying
to evince a defiant distance
from inevitability—that they were ready,
or there was reason—but don’t dare
say I went peacefully, willingly. Tell them
exhaustion took
over my will but that in my eyes
you saw no relief. That I pleaded to continue
and panicked in every trying terminal
breath. I have known intolerable pain but
at its end, I was alive, begging to begin again.
Make sure to explain that what I understood of
love was childishly intense and usually
disprovable. That I cried over a comma, confused
every skyline for another, did not believe any verse
could be blank. Don’t leave
out the walnut cracking on the gravel
that I mistook, one last time, for an acorn.
Copyright © 2024 by Cindy Juyoung Ok. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 24, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I wrote [this poem] last autumn while awaiting news about my brain condition, before the neuro ICU nights and hematoma seasons to come. Beyond wanting not to die, I did not want to die and narratively merit what I once chose, or to die and be claimed accepting of death (instead of faintly panicked around it as [my love for] life requires of me). Painful as it is, none of my loved ones died wanting death, [neither] agreeing peacefully it was time [n]or feeling they were prepared. Any platitude convenient for the living deserves questioning on behalf of the dying and dead.”
—Cindy Juyoung Ok
Cindy Juyoung Ok
