Slowly changing,

like a mountain side crossed by the Taedong river.

I’m slowly evolving from an animal.

I’m slowly becoming human.

But the nightmares still persist.

Umma– her body hanging limp and lifeless.

Hyung– his body pierced with bullets.

Looking back, they did not deserve it.

I was selfish.

Their images haunt my everyday life.

Images of their deaths, images of the death I imagine my father to have had.

They eat away at me.

They ask, “Are you even human?”

They ask, “Are you soulless? How could you do this?”

I’m slowly changing.

My stomach no longer aches with want for food.

I don’t have to live off of corn meal rations;

I can eat meat every day.

But the nightmares still persist.

Park– his body pierced by the fence,

skin smoldering and singed to black, bleeding.

I can still smell the burning of his flesh and mine.

They tell me, “Shin, take responsibility for yourself.”

But how can I, one who has never experienced the outside world,

be, by its standards, responsible?

I cannot learn English.

No, I won’t learn English.

I will not tell my tale of woe and pain

in a tongue of those who cannot fully fathom it.

Paranoia follows me.

Will they catch up to me?

Will my death be quick and painless?

No, that is not the way of North Korea.

If I sent back, my torture will be the longest of all.

I’m slowly changing.

I can rest 8 hours now, or more if I please.

I am not punished by armed guards.

I am not worked beyond exhaustion.

I am well-rested and well-fed.

But I am burdened by the memories of my past.

I am burdened by those who have helped me succeed,

those that have enabled me to sleep and eat well.

My mother, brother, father and Park who gave their lives.

The Chinese man who gave me my first real job.

The journalist in Shanghai who brought me to the consulate.

LiNK and the asylum in South Korea who helped to fix me.

Of these people, I am indebted.

Of these people, I am burdened.

But I’m slowly changing.

A/N: I entered this poem in a contest so fingers crossed. ♥