Poetry by Young Se Choi

“Evening in New York” by Young Se Choi ’18 was published by the New Jersey Lives Poets Society for their “Inside of Me” theme, summer 2016. You can read more of Young Se’s published work on WAM: Selected Works.

Evening in New York

1999. New York. I do not exist yet.
It seemed as if the city was finally sleeping tonight
Two adults planted on a paved sidewalk
Male and female, my parents
Holding hands, the vanilla starry sky gleams over their shiny hairs,
My mother’s strawberry lipstick,
My father’s glasses,
Staring into their eyes I try to search for my own self in them
Only to find two black pupils stare into the vast array of nothingness
They knew little of me and of my being,
Me, the child
The failure
The disappointment
The monster
But they were still innocent
They didn’t know
I wanted to stop them
Separate them into their own paths of life
Start over again
But I wanted to live