- What I Left Behind
The summer I found myself in a girl's arms, our limbs sticky with sweat and sugar, there was a knock on the door. Memory had flown to greet me, although I didn't ask her to, just caught me whimpering with the taste of my own spit. There was no one to hide from— it was the year I passed my last exams, and drove to the marigold fields of Pennsylvania. Before I left, my mother had wished mea safe journey, pressed money and medicine to my palms. I think of her now,and how robins forget to return to where they were once born, and how we walk into the future barefoot, and forget to turn on the lights. Before I left, my mother and I shouted terrible things to one another, honest things. She had said, you can't be one of them, you aren't, who do you think you're fooling? And what a wonder it is to be accountable for desire, my girl's thighs clumping under summer rain.Outside, sunflowers turn away from their own shadow. The truth is I wanted to run away from everything, but then I ran into myself—sobbing, headfirst, the world blinking dawn's heavy eye and I, gone. [End Page 7]
Audrey Kim attends Conestoga High School in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. Her work has been recognized by the National YoungArts Foundation and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.