neatly packaged
with language fluency
my family intact
Korean status
lifetime airfare
between my forced home
and the peninsula?
Dual citizenship
not reparations
can you ever repair
emotional damage
trauma
repay lifetime family loss?
V.
A Holocaust of Children
Death Should Not Inspire Me
time to leave for writing class
social media post paralyzes
Daniel Larson-Fine
DOB: 1992/1993
DOD: March 24, 2017
Age: 25
Korean
Died by suicide
Place of death: Bloomington, Minnesota
suicide hotline gone cold
we missed your five-finger warning
a thousand friends could not save you
from recording your funeral dirge
our regret surrounds your lonely soul
Jane Trybulski
DOB: May 16, 2002
DOD: April 30, 2017
Age: 14
Korean
Died by suicide
Place of death: Penfield, New York
age does not protect us
death does not discriminate
countless lives abbreviated
mountains of names
enough to fill the King James Bible
Gabe Proctor
DOB: April 29, 1990
DOD: May 20, 2017
Age: 27
Adoption date: 2000
All American track athlete
Ethiopian
Died by suicide
Place of death: Lyndonville, Vermont
So Sorry floods obituary comments
digital condolences can’t resuscitate
we pray peace and comfort
welcome you
our brothers and sisters
who left before you
will catch you on the other side
Phillip Clay
DOB: December 30, 1974
DOD: May 21, 2017
Age: 42
Adoption date: 1983
Adoption agency: Holt
Korean
Did not receive US citizenship
Died by suicide
Date of deportation to Korea: 2012
Place of death: Seoul, South Korea
Place of burial: Pennsylvania
strangers mourn your tragic death
Korean Consulate surrounded by grief
candle lit dusk hides tears
we expect death
for every life taken by suicide
how many more considered
this journey
from this life we cannot escape?
faces never match names
tongues won’t count to five
in mother tongues
Did you choose death?
or did it choose you?
if we’re four times more likely
to die by suicide
then is suicide
a natural cause of death?
when we’re four times more likely
to die by suicide?
Open Letter to the Korean Red Cross
Dear Korean Red Cross,
Our commendations
four thousand family reunions
between North, South
vigilance, innovation
connects families face to face
letters, videos
seventy-five thousand families
wait since 1953
sober reunions
fleeting moments
sorrowful hellogoodbyes
No trace, effort
to reunify two hundred thousand families
Korean War divided
South Koreans
between East, West
two hundred thousand families ignored
waiting since 1953
Korean language lost
sabotaged reunions
negligence
switched children
tampered DNA tests
You shall be charged
with war crimes
civilian property destroyed
birth records lost
foreigners took us hostage
When do two hundred thousand ignored
East/West reunions begin?
we die every day
convoys of planes
travel West to East
without hope
we wait
please respond
before we’re extinct
KADalicious
after Bao Phi, “FOBulous”
Kimchi As Delicacy
K9s Are Delicious
Korea After Dark
Korean Ajummas Dancing
Karaoke Ain’t Difficult when you practice everyday
Korean Amazing Dramas
Kpop And DDR
Korean wave Always Drowning
Korean American Dream
Koreatown Always Developing
Koreans Are Dope
Korean Alcohol Drinkers
Korean Air Deals
Koreans Always Demonstrating
Korean Augmentation Army Division
Korean Allies Destroy
Korean Army Destroyed
Korea Already Divided
Kicking At the DMZ
Korean Agencies Dumping children in the west
Daily Adopting Koreans
Korean Agencies Deceiving
Korea Always Disrespecting adoptees
Killing Adoptees Daily
Korean Adoptees Dying by suicide
Korean Adoptees Dead
Korean And Dead
The Plane to France
Traffics unwilling Korean babies
descends on new white families
infant screams approved
for colonization
smiles beg university students
philosophy professors
research history
uncover ugly lies
better life minus kimchi
The Plane to Korea
gathers continents at baggage claim
hotel lobbies host unknown reunions
language borders trade stories
inter-continental couples
drink Hongdae basement clubs
consummate Sinchon hourly hotels
morning after pills
can’t erase last night’s fantasy
DNA tests find siblings
one night stand child
nephewniece
Pyeongchang 2018 Charter
The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Olympic Charter shall be secured without discrimination of any kind, such as race, color, sex, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
—Olympic Charter, Fundamental Principles
of Olympism, #6
Seoul 1988
Olympic stage set
Korea stands on world podium
humiliated
stripped of its gold medal
truth exposed
Korea welcomes Olympic world citizens
quietly ushers out 6,463 of its own
Babies for sale
South Koreans make them
Americans buy them
Let us not forget this human tragedy.
Let us not repeat this history.
Instead, let us uphold all humanity.
Let us honor all families
Single parents
Same gender parents
So that all children
will have equal opportunity
To learn
To grow up healthy, happy
To thrive in society
To serve their country through civic duty.
Let the thirtieth anniversary of the 1988 Seoul Olympics
mark the end of inter-country adoption
from South Korea
Let us usher in a new era
One that supports all unwed mothers
to raise their children
as they choose.
Let us not repeat our infamous history.
Korean ICA—Internment Camps
of Abduction
Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.
—Holocaust Museum, Washington, DC
For over half a century we have called ICA
Inter-Country Adoption
international adoption
transnational adoption
a humanitarian gesture
love in action
building happy families
saving children
giving them a better life
Now we must call it what it is
this is a holocaust of children
this is a colonization of a people by their own
this is legalized child trafficking
this is cultural genocide
this is a violation of human rights
this is a war on bodies
this is a war crime
this is ICA
Internment Camps of Abduction
Korea, once occupied
now conducting your own occupation
you are occupying the lives
of two hundred thousand of your own
#10 OECD ranking
equals economic development and prosperity
postwar recovery
on the backs of your children
politicians sit
on their National Ass
profiting from yellow babies
bought and sold
on the open market
to the tune of
fifty million
US dollars in annual sales and profits
and when we return
you offer us
$200 in reparations
Mercedes, Lexus, BMWs
line Apgujeong Road
while boys and girls of all ages
line the walls of agencies
their destinations unknown
they wait for their numbers to be called
their prices to be named
their shipping dates to be set
your luxury cars cost more
than our $30,000 price tag
more precious to you
than these lives soon to be lost
you seethe with anger
at the sight
of a hairline scratch
on your 650i coupe
quietly breathe
a sigh of relief
as each shameful child leaves
this land
you dare to call a nation
This nation
this peninsula
is divided between north and south
No, this peninsula
is divided between east and west
every day
six
more
Korean families are divided
their babies abducted from them
sent to the internment camps
never to be seen again
Northwest Airlines? NWA?
NWA means Not Without Asians
Northwest refuses to leave Korea
without six Korean infant cargo
stashed away as commodity every day
their bankrupt business won’t survive
without this international trade
University students sit stunned
as they learn the truth
of their national shame and guilt
yet remain divided
when asked to take a stand
it is no wonder
as we
have been deleted from history books
as you hope to erase generation
after generation
after generation of your unwanted people
You hoped
we would never return
you thought
you could hide the truth
but you can’t hide us any longer
We are the history makers!
you are ashamed
that we have returned
and have marked our territory
yet you claim it as your rightful legacy
to celebrate an Olympic skier
you have taken one of our children
used him as your poster child
you’ve brainwashed and drafted us
to participate in your human trafficking
because it is legal you can do this with a sinful smirk
ROK—Republic of Korea? The ROK?
No! ROK means Rid of Koreans
rid of the unwanted people
who you refuse to claim as your own
children born to mothers
but not to fathers
Sent to the internment camps
you made us leave everything behind
our names
our language
our families
our heritage
Reclaiming our lives
you do everything possible
to make it impossible
for us to ever take back
what you
have stolen
from us
Japan stole your Korean names
have done the same
and worse
to us
history does repeat itself
If these words are too angry
too militant for you
if they cause you discomfort
and you squirm in your seat
then I say
they are not angry enough
they are not militant enough
until you cannot sleep at night
and will take a stand
against
this
injustice!
North of the 38th or Mr. Obama
Please Apologize!
North Korea
the DPRK
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
Buk Chosun
a nation misunderstood
misrepresented
by mainstream media, politicians
A United Nations member for over two decades
this wounded animal
publicly skewered
on the axis of evil
an outpost of tyranny
quietly removed
from the US of A’s terrorism list
North Koreans
long for reunification
peace on the peninsula
a strong, prosperous nation
One Korea: no North, no South, no East, no West!
North Korean Soldiers
protect us at the DMZ
the more peaceful side of the 38th parallel
North Koreans
&nb
sp; the first Koreans to accept me
despite my background
refusing to sell their children
to white westerners
caring for their own
from cradle to grave
1866: the General Sherman attacked Korea but was destroyed
1968: USS Pueblo spy ship, captured
the first time the US government apologized
to another nation
Between these histories
lies the worst incursion of them all
the worst
because of its horrific intensity
the worst
because of its secrecy
never rectified
no resolution between the DPRK and the US
1950: the Korean War begins
the US invades Korea
Sinchon, North Korea
over thirty-eight thousand Korean civilians
women, children
massacred by US military in fifty-two days
mass murdered in churches
buried while breathing
butchered beyond recognition
two thousand people
pushed off the Soktang Bridge
mothers and children separated
burned after a petroleum bath
thirty-eight thousand killed
fifty days
Equals 25 percent of the population
Equals 738 per day
Equals thirty-seven per hour
Equals one Korean
every
two
minutes
Images from Auschwitz, Birkenau, Dachau,
Choeung Ek, Tuol Sleng surface as I check myself.
No, I am not in Poland
I am not in Germany
I am not in Cambodia
I am in Korea
Is this your Killing Fields, your Holocaust? I ask a survivor
It is worse he replies
as the painting of his tortured father
hangs in the Massacre Museum
Unexcavated mass graves
the Commission of the Women’s
International Democratic Federation
finds these atrocities
surpass those committed
by the Hitlerite villains
Ugandan, Japanese brothers and sisters
fight for justice
Get out US army, Korea is for Koreans!
Lay flowers at graves of mothers, children
meet two survivors who escaped as boys
Jong Kun Song, age six
Ju Sang Won, age five
now grandfathers, museum guides
stand in the very place they were to die
recount the horrific event
some of the last survivors to testify this atrocity
Students wait to pay respect
our time too short
shouldn’t we take more time to pay our respects?