Womb of Han

They called it han like a rusted nail driven straight through the century— it stays there, quiet, working its poison under the skin, hoping to fester into a scar that strengthens. an old man lets out a puff, speaking silently the words he never spoke, memories knotted in the humming wires that keep the lights on, grandmother bent like a paper match, the weight of a fragile generations balanced on her spine. Korea learned to keep its fists in its pockets— blood‑warm promises of revenge and redemption, waiting, polite as tea left to cool. we were told: survive first, scream later. so the scream fermented, turned into steel, into freeways lit like broken necklaces, into kids who game at 3 a.m. and drink soju like gasoline. I’m a Korean dripping in red, blue, and white, talking English but dreaming in Korean, clearly seeing what the natives ignore, the old pain hums in my marrow, a low bar‑room jukebox nobody unplugs. I want to split it open— pour the black ink onto film, onto paper, onto any damn surface that can hold how a nation keeps breathing with a knife between its ribs and still does what we must. How much longer? wobbly, stubborn, bright as a chipped tooth, Seoul stands proud in all its superficial glory, an illusion so brightly unattainable, that’s han too— ugly, shining, and refusing to fall.