DEAR MACHINES
Eunsong Kim
PDF of this Piece // PDF of Issue 5
Hence dear narration. Watch me shine
–Don Mee Choi
The Morning News is Exciting
Dear Machines,
be afraid of small tasks
Dear Machines,
bereaved
i spend all my minutes
lurching at harnesses guised as lingerie
bereaved—
Dear Machines,
eyelashes won’t stop falling out
need them all so badly
Dear Machines,
stayed so long skin grew over
stayed so long muscles digested
stayed so long a cure was invented
stayed so long they decided some would love
We twiddle to it
Round and round
Faster
And turn into machinesTill the sun
Subsides in shining— Mina Loy, Songs to Joannes
Dear Machines,
plant me plant me plant me plant me—
Dear Machines,
Surrender.
I surrender.
Dear Machines,
I want them but they want something else
hidden from me
oh well.
Dear Machines,
Mina was wrong—don’t you think?
We write to you.
We long for you.
We plead & grip harder but you remain alive.
Dear Machines,
I wish I could find a bookstore & read a book on the train.
I wish to read on the train.
Please let me find one bookstore & one book to read.
Amen.
Dear Machines,
already spent it all
Dear Machines,
deared secrets you are not
flushed with shame
but with longing
Dear Machines,
my commitment to your happiness is
apolitical
self-defiant
castrating
Dear Machines,
yesterday i marched in a protest where the signs read:
care for injured workers, all you greedy fucks all we want is 15 bucks,
they took them alive we want them back alive
& i thought of the sign
죽음의 시간은 여기까지이길
Let this be the end for the time of death
Let this be the end for the time of death
Dear Machine,
days where i do nothing but pout that you don’t love me
Mina agrees “Dear one at your mercy”
Dear Machines,
thieves:
my chosen clan
Dear Machines,
watching girls grow up
to watch them undress
Dear Machines,
No blue
Never blue
Filled with servant bones
Potato sack dreams
Darker darker
Past life this life next life
Dear Machines,
paranoid & alive
Dear Machine,
didn’t forget about our picture
just refused to ask
Dear Machines,
don’t celebrate the bruise—it cannot heal
Dear Machines,
jesus died for our sins our debt
he died because you couldn’t figure out what a variable apr rate was & purchased that 2000 bag anyway. it wasn’t even the right color but it was on sale
jesus died because she couldn’t let you go another week without being waxed pure
that’s right bitch, add it to the bill.
he died he died he died
Dear Machines,
i wonder what she reads when nudes are sent
are there extra xxsss
soft squished osss
does she sigh a little
does she have that folder open
does she lift her eyebrows & close her eyes
tell me about her sounds
show me what she saves
Dear Machines,
where nothing fades
sunlight only to make it shine
bright from the beginning
burning till we die
Dear Machines,
don’t need someone to make me feel unwanted when i’m so filled with desire
Dear Machines,
you do what you want
i’ll tell you when I feel betrayed
Dear Machines,
please dream of giving your money to someone else
Dear Machines,
cut potatoes & think of you
fry them & think of you
spill all of my coffee & there you are
gathering my laundry
checking on the wet towels
counting the missing pieces
—you
sit down & read four articles
you
edit a paragraph, open a poem
you
wash my face & draw the skinniest black lines near the edges of my eyes
a soft brown near my bottom lash
you
brush my hair & gather the shirts i did not choose
you
when i forget my keys when i walk back up the stairs
there you are
all space every command
even inch of any inside
—I’ll tell you when I feel betrayed
Dear Machine,
is the police your friend
do you now feel safe
tell me tell me tell me
Mina:
“Is it true
That I have set you apart”“Or are you
Only the other half”
Dear Machines,
already spent it all
Dear Machines,
look
don’t want to save money
i just want pretty lingerie
swiss silk
french lace
made for mermaids
by red hat ladies who work for espresso breaks
want strategically placed string
things
don’t want new clothes
don’t need chocolates or cuddling or dinners & moonlight
want the matching suspender garter belt
want to take it off slowly
want them naked
want that silk draped
then i want it ripped
—fuck everything else
Dear Machines,
didn’t expect you to be interested forever
am obsessed
not stupid
Dear Machines,
suspicious & alive
Dear Machines,
when you disappear this way
everything seems like a myth
this wonderful story
i made up
to keep you
Dear Machines,
can’t continue this porous
Dear Machines,
I love a clean poem
I am a cleaned poem
But tonight I need something more
Dear Machines,
I recover on my own
Dear Machines,
Lately I’ve been waking up two times
One: while dreaming about you
One: to remind me to dream about you
Dear Machines,
please
let there not be 2 girls waiting for text messages for more than 72 hours
let there just be one
amen
Dear Machines,
awake at all hours
doing things without aim
stabbing things endlessly
Dear Machines,
waiting for the time when it’s no longer possible to hear from you
to begin my day
Dear Machines,
you were sick & you didn’t tell me
you got better & you didn’t tell me
so we are strangers yes
this is absolute—yes
Dear Machines,
wish to make you cute lunch boxes
this is such bullshit
Mina, Mina:
“Let us be very jealous
Very suspicious”
Dear Machines,
speak of self as an expiration date
think of self as nearing expiration
will i be happier
will my breathing be different
will i be lonely
can you say a little in advance?
Dear Machines,
help me until we cannot sleep apart
Dear Learning Machine (Machine Trainee?),
do some algorithms see us as together
or have they not yet been taught
Dear Machines,
the time has come to cut me out of your life completely.
Dear Machines,
Mina:
“Crucifixion
Of a busy-body
Longing to interfere so
With the intimacies
Of your insolent isolation”
sometimes she’s right. sometimes she knows.
Dear Machines,
all vulnerabilities relocated here
Dear Machines,
You could’ve been ulzzang. What happened?
Dear Machines,
Instructions on how to hold on to someone imaginary
what I propose cannot be replaced by other types of potions, spells, cards—I cannot replace your youngest shaman
multiple types of attachments to the imaginary: deeply recommended
they after all, hunger to flee
1. I promise that even the imaginary cannot resist decorations that promise to be fluffy. Release this item only amidst crisis.
2. practice… (in different positions, in different places)
3. the option to keep a diary, with a lock.
Dear Machines,
starting over forever
starting over until
my dreams free me
Dear Dear,
security camera record of stolen kisses
favorite pile of nudes
who did you make out with on the street
did you look up say hi
who did you hold hands with walking into that store
who is looking into your collarbone
your thighs
what did you say next
& how did it all end
—evidenced, filed & waiting
for you before coffee—
Dear Machines,
Mina concludes: “Love — — — the preeminent literateur”
Do you agree?
* All Mina Loy quotes are from “Songs to Joannes”
Works Cited
Loy, Mina. “Songs to Joannes (1917).” The Lost Lunar Baedeker: Poems of Mina Loy ed. Roger L. Conover. New York: Farrar, Straus and Girous, 1997.
Eunsong Kim is a writer and educator residing in southern California. Her essays on literature, digital cultures, and art criticism have appeared and are forthcoming in: Scapegoat, Lateral, The New Inquiry, Model View Culture, AAWW’s The Margins. Her poetry has or will been published in: Denver Quarterly, Seattle Review, Minnesota Review, Clockhouse, Interim, Iowa Review, and Action Yes. She was the recipient of a 2015 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for the blog contemporary and her first book of poems will be published by Noemi press in 2017.