I think I’m committing a slow death but tomorrow I will re-pot all my succulents and produce a bowl of bile to watch and write a poem again. Tomorrow I won’t meet my friends but help my sister squirm an English-speaking muscle and watch my snails grow out of their shells. Tomorrow awaits as long as I keep sustaining. Tomorrow comes in a form of one foot in, one foot out; Tomorrow does not come with sleep but the day after tomorrow does. Tomorrow I will reshelve all of my spices and hang all my clothes: shirts and pants; I know it’s unorthodox but even the t-shirts. Tomorrow is filled with unnecessary tidiness and promises of yesterday. Tomorrow I will extend the due date for the borrowed scenes of space war from the library and reserve more; I will fill the suggestion box with a poem that kills a snowman and fold the pages of a travel guide. Once, tomorrow was a natural thing that abide by the law of time and ungratefulness. Now tomorrow drags its feet with a dead— line for all but tomorrow I will trim my nails and pick up some pills. In fact, tomorrow I’m going to puncture my scar and draw blood, watch the sure stream of the crimson creep up into the syringe, to be taken away. An eventual tomorrow will come on the day I die; but the day of tomorrow I will still be writing in my notebook with fingers that smell like my inside and burn them with acid. A friend will ask what are you up to? and I will say I’m trying to revive a succulent by giving it time and space to grow and wait for tomorrow, when it might all work out.
Dabin Jeong (she/they) is a poet whose work explores East Asian representation, Asian/American identity, and the immigrant experience through creative and academic praxis. Her translation of a Korean poet Lee Hyemi’s “Solitary of Dance” appeared on Chogwa zine. She is also a poetry editor at The Hanok Review. Twitter: @dabinjeong___.