그리움 in Salt Water

Some new years are for longing
for connection to grow with. But it is there. Inside.

Like the eel that learned to breathe
both water and waiting—
its body a question mark
pressed against the shore's answer.

In Korean, 그리움 means longing,
but also the space between
what was and what might be.
The same space where this creature
curves its spine into memory,
into the shape of returning.

새해 복 많이 받으세요, Mother said
each January, her words floating
like salt in the kitchen air.
But I was already the eel,
already learning to live
in two worlds at once—

the concrete certainty of land,
the fluid possibility of sea.

Watch how it moves:
not swimming, not crawling,
but something between—
the way I speak English
with my tongue still tasting
한국어 in its corners.

This is what connection looks like:
not the straight line
from heart to heart,
but the serpentine truth
of belonging nowhere
and everywhere,
the body itself
a bridge between
tide and shore,
year and year,
self and self.

The eel knows what I am learning:
some hungers can only be fed
by becoming amphibious,
by letting the salt water
and fresh water
meet in the same mouth,
the same prayer.