we sit on your couch for hours, curled into each other’s comforts, binge watching Singles Inferno. Here, we clean the floor together after our clumsiness, spilling water into our socks. Here, we light a candle when your neighbor’s cigarette smoke filters into our privacy. Here, we cry. Here, we christen your couch to Kehlani. Here, we break bread together, splitting our favorite flatbread. Here, we kill the roach with Lysol and a shoe. Here, we slow dance to Spotify, then to silence. Here, we complain about your apartment management: the broken dishwasher when you moved in, the ants crawling into the kitchen, the heat you can’t control, the ceiling leaking brown roof water, the bathroom door that won’t close, the amount of rent it costs to house one person. Here, we talk about a future where I don’t have to leave this apartment every night. Here, we are transplants. Here, we stay up until 4am after a night out dancing our fears away. Here, we wake up at 5am to watch our favorite K-pop groups livestream their concerts. Here, we accidentally make eye contact with your neighbor out the window while shirtless. Here, we invite each other into our secrets, our spirals, our silliness. Here, we ask each other: if our bones could speak, what would they say? Here, we are home.
Monica Kim (she/her) is a queer Korean diasporic writer and advocate living in Brooklyn, New York. She is a prose editor at Mag 20/20 for Issue 06, a 2022 Watering Hole fellow, and a 2023 Periplus fellow. Her writing has appeared in Honey Literary, SUSPECT, A Velvet Giant, and other publications.