Selected Poems by Ha Jaeyoun (2)

Hello, Draculas

If you let me inside you

I will stay by your side forever

And with the face of a child or an old man

I will give you all of my love.

From beginning to end,

Even though all the rooms of the world are filled with sunshine,

The fact that you’re alive, how beautiful to know

That I’m the only one who knows it.

It’s okay if you don’t abandon the boy in you and

It’s okay if I don’t desert the girl in me.

Even though all the rooms in the world are full of wide open doors,

The fact you’re in agony, how beautiful to know

That I am the only one who knows it.

If you give me your permission

To become a white bride or virgin lunatic,

I will be the evidence

That you are you.

In the gushing darkness,

Rather than birthing a baby,

We will give birth to ourselves.

The we that we will make

Will really live.

But only if you say hey

In a voice that’s never been used in the world,

Only if my ears don’t go deaf

In the sunlight that brightens this world.

Translated by Jake Levine, Hyemi Seok, Soohyun Yang