“Something’s wrong,” he whispered, laying the bird down on the table. It slid out of his palms, its head bending backwards so the nape of its neck nearly touched the mantle beneath. The wings were fashioned like a cocoon, tucking the body away, the white feathers neither ruffled nor out of place as Wynn let it roll onto the counter. Audrey leaned forward over her homework and touched the bird anxiously, her index finger just barely pressing against its mangled right leg. “Where did you find him?” Audrey asked, looking up at Wynn. He rubbed his nose with his sleeve and shrugged. “I think Kaiser killed him.” Audrey nodded, turning…
Seeking Passion
I’ve been struggling with something lately, and while this may come as no real surprise because A) it’s the end of January 2018, and B) it has been snowing on and off for the last few weeks, I’ve still managed to transition to a lesser version of myself: someone who sleeps half the day, then spends her nights lying awake staring at the ceiling. While the winter blues narrative has become moot at this point, and frankly a bit overdone, still the days pass with slow succession, my mood reflective of the now greying skies. A patterned case of seasonal depression attributed to the lack of sunlight and the it’s too cold…
35.652832 | 139.839478
I spend the night restless, drowning in a canopy of fading light from the a lamp across the room, occassionally reaching over to read another chapter of the book tucked underneath the rough cotton sheet of the pillowcase. It’s stained in leftover foundation and flicks of mascara, reminisce of impromptu naps just before dusk. There’s a smell there if I adjust my head the right way, drop my neck and curl my body into a cocoon; a faint trace of menthol from cigarettes is burned into the strands of my hair and fibers of the fabric wrapped around me. I count the seconds, minutes, and hours under my breath, let…
A Year in Review: The Confidence Project
At the beginning of this year I wrote down a checklist of things that I wanted to accomplish in 2017, something I’m sure no one is stranger too, as the start of the new year normally brings out our most idealistic selves. For the most part, I managed to accomplish the majority of my goals, as they were things I was either working towards, was in the midst of doing, or things I knew I would inevitably get done. Of course, that was no small feat – January 2017 Monica had very high expectations of herself, so as usual when it came to my annual list, unfortunately, not all were…
6,819 Miles
It’s that time of year again, and despite finally being in an area that has actual seasons, which is something I’ve wished for after years of watching the most banal yet heartwarming holiday movies, I’ve found my limited holiday cheer is for the most part, already exhausted. My experience with the holiday season is complicated, and has been a bit less magical since I found out that there isn’t actually a fat man in red suit who tumbles down the chimney in the middle of the night to deliver gifts for my brother and I. The Santa Clause myth is a bit of a stretch once you get to the…
“Where are you going, where have you been?”
Let me preface this post with a warning… I wasn’t going to post this. I didn’t want to. This reluctancy was born out of a need to convince everyone that everything is exactly as I say it is – fine. I’ll repeat that a dozen times until it sticks. I needed to convince myself of this. I wanted to fit into that perfect image I created of what my life in Korea would be like. It would be hard, yes, of course it would be. Moving abroad is inevitably a difficult thing to do, but the difference was I would never let it become too hard. The pressure of living in…
Thoughts on Home
I’ve been a bit hesitant about writing this post, but it appears that I woke up strangely early this morning and now find myself in an empty cafe, hopped up on a bit too much coffee, relying on too little sleep, and, well – here we are. It’s been almost a month since I arrived in South Korea, and while I’ve yet to actually move in to my permanent residence (one more week!), this is essentially my home now, or at least, my home for the next year. Sometimes adding the time stamp makes this move feel less permanent, and as I venture further into adulthood at a catastrophically quickened…
Inside a Body
This flesh, they tell me that it’s mine. They point to me and spell out those words, their mouths forming long O’s and wide A’s. This flesh, if I tug at it, if I carve into it, if I dispose of it, will never escape me. It will grow with me, grow on me and spore. If I choose not to love it, they will not take it away. … I am addicted to this body and it is addicted to me. … “Bulimia doesn’t work,” she says, shrugs, then reaches over to dip a fry in the cup of ketchup between us. She dunks it, pushing it down so…
Vagabond
First (she raises her left eyebrow a fraction upwards, the arch causing wrinkles to appear across her forehead) – suspend belief for a moment – this is what the woman across from her says, her hair draping down like a curtain to cover her face as she jots something down on the pad sitting in her lap. Think of something warm. Breathe in. Deeper. No, deeper than that. O frowns, then sits back farther into the couch cushions. Right now she’s pretending that everything she’s about to hear isn’t complete bullshit. She’s trying. She promises she’s trying. Count backwards from twenty. × “This is the third time this week,” he…
Conversations + Generalizations
Currently, I’m working in an English cafe in Busan, South Korea. If you aren’t sure what a job like that entails, the main idea is pretty simple: people come to the cafe to have conversations in English with foreign volunteers (who are fluent English speakers from a variety of different countries). The ages of those that attend the cafe can range from middle, high school, or university students, graduates, and adults looking to either relocate for work or to simply raise their English language level in order to have access to better opportunities later on ~ either way, everyone is there to better their conversational English. They sign up, from…
