I face my own mortality once every week or so at Namtaeryeong Station

It's not often I take the blue line home (it's only a 20-minute
walk to Sadang, and after all the bus is faster)

but at just after 4:20 pm Namtaeryeong is deserted, the trains
come only every 15 minutes or so,
I like that, and the escalator goes down that
unbearable distance between the tickets and the platform.

Walls painted like the pastel
anus of the 70s, anywhere else
I'd walk. Everywhere else the escalators come
in blocks of 20 or so, but Namtaeryeong is deep. It's

best if there's no one else in sight, it's best if I'm wearing
heels that day. I stand still, the wait is unbearable. It will take
my whole life to get to the bottom, and then where will I be?
It will take my whole life for a train to come. I like that.

It's best if a middle-aged woman
stares at me from the other end of the platform. It's best
if I have a clementine with me that day.