Mum, Where Did It Go?

The Lost My Diary

Mum,
where did that diary go,
the one from those days?

The pale lemon-coloured hard cover,
with the little lock,
that diary.

I bought it when I was nineteen,
kept it right at the front of the bookshelf,
and filled it with poems
until I was twenty-one.
Such a pretty diary.

Now,
I find myself longing to read again
those poems about rain I wrote back then,
the ones full of metaphors
about the boy I liked,
poems scented with cherry blossoms.

I wonder about my handwriting too,
the way I dipped the pen into ink
before writing each line.
I think I copied poems I loved as well,
Rilke,
Yun Dong-ju,
almost as if I were tracing them by hand.

Where did it go,
my diary?
A jewel-like secret
I never showed to anyone.

My diary—
I hope it’s still somewhere
in your’s house,Mum
Now, if I had it,
I think I could read it to you,
even let you see it, Mum—
those stories of mine.

That diary.
I would open it
and read it all,
if only I could.
Where did it go?
That lovely diary,
with two tiny keys,
no bigger than fingernails…

*these are my own paintings *