Love letters

한강's novel White, in English and in 한국어

The bracelets that I bought for us, mine black volcanic stone

Yours

Missing

The delicate and tacky pair of earrings I bought when we were in 제주도, orange resin, gold chain

And you refused a souvenir, a message

From the future

A magnet and a knitted turtle I bought for my kids

My tarot card reading, the day I knew I loved you, written down so carefully

Your poems

And the photographs I took of us, me smiling like a fool

Who does not yet know she is a fool

And you

Already haunted

I am so tired of loving you this much.

If I burn everything, everything in a clearing in the jungle, so far away from you

Will smoke will take your shape and hover over me

Grey, white, black

As you are in real life

If I put my breath into the fire will it speak to me

I love you

As you did in real life

For a little while, I know you did, I have to believe you did, because if I can hold onto that

I think, I hope

Eventually

I can let you go, can let the embers die

And your ghost fade, smoke into clouds, I can do that much

If I could look at a single one of these objects, all with their stories, still whispering

And say

He loved me. He loved me, he did

I just know I could let you go.