Coming to terms with my breaking apart from Jae seemed to truly break me.

Sungjin and I were out on his porch. A week had gone by since I had last seen Jae, since I had broken up with him, since he had left for LA. I was picking at a splinter on the cherry-wood porch railing. Sungjin was lighting his first cigarette of the evening.

"There's this one poem I've always liked," I said to him out of nowhere. Indeed, I'd always had a soft spot for poems. I'd read them to Jae every time I had the chance, but he never really paid them any attention. When Sungjin hummed, I continued. "I never got to read it to him."

"What is it, then?" Sungjin spoke, taking a puff from his cherry-flavored cigarette. The smoke curled around his head like a halo.

I dug the torn paper out of my pocket. "I got it out of a library book, back when I used to go to the library with Jae." Saying that name still brought a familiar pain to my chest. It hurt even more than just thinking about him.

I passed the sheet to Sungjin. His fingers carefully gripped onto the scrap of paper so as not to wrinkle it. He seemed to stare at it for ages. I'd memorized it long ago, so his skimming eyes seemed to read out the words to me, over and over and over.

*

Lake by Jung Ji-Yong
(translated from the Korean by Chae-Pyong Song)

A face
I can surely block
with my two palms,

but my heart of longing,
big like a lake, and
I cannot help but close my eyes.

*

Finally, Sungjin's hand twitched where it was gripping the piece of torn paper. He pulled his well-known satchel of dried rooibos out of his left pocket. "Gimme your hand." The cigarette hung from his lips, still smoking slightly, abandoned.

I complied. My palm now extended out towards his chest. He set the paper in my palm, opened the satchel. Dropped a good pinch of rooibos onto the paper. Rolled it up. The cigarette in his mouth dropped to the ground, its tip of ember caught by his heel. "Hyung..."

He gently took my other hand and brought its fingers to caress the rolled-up paper from the sides. He lit one end of the paper. His lips met the other. He took a drag, held it. Let it go. "Ah..." He rifled around in his right pocket. Brought out a different piece of torn paper. "That poem won't do you any good, now. Read this one instead."

And so I did.

*

Flowers by Chung Ho-Seung
(translated from the Korean by Chae-Pyong Song)

I pull out the nails driven into the heart
and plant flowers in that place;
I pull up the stake driven into the heart
and plant flowers in that place.
If flowers were people's tears
how beautiful would humans be?
If flowers were people's dreams
how beautiful would humans be?

*

A tear rolled down my face onto Sungjin's hand. He cupped my cheek with a bitter smile, took the burning paper away from me with his other to suck out the smoke trailing from it.

I cried some more.

Sungjin's thumb smelled comfortingly of rooibos flowers and smoke.