Tilt By Ergene Kim

Ffion Atkinson Flickr CC


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Tilt 

You are never completely set: never completely standing in the solid pale pink salmon soles of both your feet. The earth shifts through you in cracks and sensations, bent on moving you as much as you are bent on moving the world. [The universe, in return for bringing you here, chips away away away at you like a daughter or son, and says you can go find your missing parts at the bottom of the sea.] Shadows you have met thus far (do not protest; you know they’ve passed you by), sliding off your uncertain shoulders like honey; they’ve taken bits of you as they walked away towards the sun; to disappear. The girl you saw once when you used up all your pocket money to go to London and “get lost,” the girl who stands behind the coffee bar and the one you wonder about: does she have a little brother who waits for her call, a call that will never be made if she keeps working like that? does she like to read in snatches, hidden behind the folds of her dirty used apron? 

Endless seams of these moving salmon, swimming upstream past the jaws of death(no, never past) to give birth to the very things that cling to you and drag threads of you away, sending you into a slight spin that never stops. Your mother reached into your heart and switched it on. Your little sister took away your selfishness; your baby brother stole your sense of self-preservation. Everything you have ever been given will always be taken away—leaving you out of breath, on the ground, dust in your eyes—or perhaps, we’ll find you balancing precariously, gently, on the side of a ravine. 



Ergene Kim is a 17-year-old writer, who aspires to become a published author one day. She fell in love with classics at a young age and has been writing since then. She is based in California, and wishes to move to London as soon as she can. She also plays the piano and violin, which are named Sebastian and Sherlock, respectively.