MILKYFRESHPublished and Created by: Yujin Cho

For the Misfits,The misunderstood,

And, everyone else who’s having an exhausting day.

A Brief IntroductionDear Reader,

Welcome to Milkyfresh, a refreshing way of starting your day. In this edition, you will find collections of poems that I’ve enjoyed as well as poems that I’ve written myself. I believe that the aspects of poetry are endless, ranging from topics as light and carefree as flowers in the breeze and dark and lonely as heartbreak. You will come to see a play of light and dark in these coming pages. So, whether you’re reading this because you have or because you want to, we’re all reading it in the end, right? So get comfy, grab a mug of tea and maybe a cozy blanket as well and let the words take you to emotions as well as places you’ve never been to before or reconnect once more.

Yours,Yujin

Table of ContentsI. Title PageII. DedicationsIII. IntroductionIV. Table of ContentsV. Who Am I?VI. The Misfits

a. Commentary on “The Misfits”VII. Lies

a. Commentary on “Lies”VIII. Happy Birthday to Me?IX. A Question (By: Lang Leav, Love and Misadventure)

a. Commentary on “A Question”X. My Grandpa

Who Am I?

When I was born,My mother gave me 3 names.Yujin, Eden, and Gongju

Yujin is my everyday name,The name teachers take a second glance at before calling,

The one my relatives call meThe on that made me Korean

Eden is my “English” name,The one my mother gave me as an English name.

Eden, the meaning of joy,Eden, the garden full of wondrous fruits and wild life

The name that no one calls me,The one whose garden is now bare.

Gongju is my home name,The nickname my parents call me,Meaning “Princess” in Korean,

The name they use to tease me,The name that will always be mine, and only mine for them.

The Misfits

I am the crack in the sidewalk.I am the split ends in her hair.

I am the salt in the cake.

I am the tears that roll down her cheek.

I am the book that no one has read.I am pure loneliness.

I am the emptiness in his words.I am the gift that no one bothers to give back in return.

I am the flower that no one wants to pick, The weed amongst the pile.

I am the hidden scars,Buried deep under the sleeves of your coat,

Waiting to be forgotten.

I am the creases in your brows, As you wonder, “What’s wrong with them?”

I am the grass beneath your feet,The one you love to walk in barefooted,Becoming one with the Earth,But you end up trampling on instead.

Commentary on “The Misfits”I selected this particular piece of work because I liked the format of it.

It’s what you would say is “short and sweet”, well more of “short and bittersweet” in this poem though. I thought that this piece stood out from the others because I felt like I was more into this piece than the others. I also really loved some of the stanzas I had created, particularly the last stanza. It’s relatable because I love walking around barefoot in the warm, grassy fields, but really, I’m just trampling on it instead. I feel as if that was one of the strengths in this piece, the intriguing little bits of things that are pointed out that aren’t normally pointed out. Hence, “the crack in the sidewalk” and etc.

As I was writing this piece, I really liked the whole misfit idea. I can’t really tell if I’m a misfit. But, well, there are times we at least feel like misfits. I really wanted to capture that whole nature of feeling out of place and misunderstood. From this writing, I felt that I’ve learned how to capture strong things in such short lines.

For future pieces, I would like to work on the skill of capturing strong ideas and condensing it into smaller sentences because I think the words that leave the strongest imprint are the shortest, most straightforward ones, not the long, fluff filled kind of stuff. If I were to keep revising this piece, I think I’d want to make the thoughts portrayed clearer.

Lies

How many lies does it taketo hide yourself?Everyone says it starts with thatLittle, white lie.Do they all startWhite and little?

When the problems get suffocating,All we ask for is a little love.When the heaviness ofYour thoughts,Seem to crush your heart entirely.What do you do then?Do you patch it up with a cry?Or hide it with a smile and shallow eyes?

What does it take

To forget yourself entirely?When the reality,Becomes yourself.

And that’s what we end up do,We kill ourselves with somethingSo littleAnd white.We kill ourselvesWith lies.But why?

Commentary on “Lies”

Out of all my pieces, I have to say I love Lies and The Misfits the most (My Grandpa is a close second). I believe that this piece stands out to me because it’s so true and relevant in everyday life. Have you ever wondered what kind of person you would be without the influence of you peers and family? When every time you had a clashing opinion, you either had to argue it out or you had to lie and agree with the other person?

In this piece, I think that the strengths of this piece is the ending, I like how the ending somehow ties back to the question of lies masking what a person is really like. I especially enjoy the part about how it talks about how a lie can metaphorically kill a person.

I thought that the whole aspect of being yourself was important to me in this piece. In this piece, I really had to bring out the aspect of someone killing themselves as result of complying with society. From this piece, I learned to elaborate on questions. How one question can lead to another and that could lead to a different idea but in the end, it all connects back to the central idea.

I would like to use the questions again in future pieces, to take one question and elaborate on about it while referring back to it with similar questions as was did in this piece. If I were to keep revising this piece, I would make thoughts clearer and elaborate more on ideas that are already there.

Happy Birthday to Me?

Most of the time,I like to believe that I’m not alone.Then, there are timesWhen the loneliness just hits meStraight in the face,Pounding straight through my bonesAnd leaving throbbingScars behind.

“Are you still mad at me?”“No”“Then why aren’t you talking to me?”The tension was raised,The flirts were having one of their infamous,Overdramatized, fights.

“Nevermind. So, Yujin, what’s up?”

“Nah, nothing much. Maybe you should talk to Jen?”“Don’t mind her, she’s being her usual irritating self.”“Joe… You know how she is.”I motioned to Jen and Kali sitting acrossFrom each other,Having an animate,Obviously unconcealed mouthedArgument.

“Oh gosh, look there goes Yujin again…Her infamous seducing skills seem to be working great on your lover boy, Jen.”“Shut up, what’s wrong with her? Doesn’t she know her place?”

As each argument is mouthed,I wanted to disappear,

And never come back.

Jen turned to me,A smirk played along her lips,As her eyes flashed with anger.“Hey, Yujin. You want to know why Carly never showed up?”“Didn’t she have baby-sitting?”“She doesn’t want to come, she still feels awkward around you,After you took Jeff from her.”“Oh…”And there she did it.It was like she had slapped me across the face.Reminding me that I was the villain,She portrayed me asA player far beyondWhat my imaginationCould comprehend.

I turned away,

Playing with my straw,My eyes turned downward To hide the glistening tearsThat I felt like spewing.“You okay?” Joe asks, with his worried eyes.

And for once,I wasn’t.I was fed up with their shit.Who do they think you are?It was my birthday.My damned birthday.

Hey, remember?Happy birthday to me?Who did you come for?Because, it sure as hell didn’t feel like you cameFor me.

A Question

It was a question I had worn on my lips for days – like a loose thread on my favorite sweater I couldn’t resist pulling-despite knowing it could all unravel around me.

“Do you love me?” I ask.

In your hesitation, I found my answer.

- Lang Leav from Love and Misadventure

Commentary on “A Question”

The title of this poem is “A Question”. It is written by Lang Leav. As you can tell, the poem is written in 1st person. The speaker is “I”.

The basic situation that is going on is that I is enthralled by a particular person; the lingering question of “Does he love me? Does he not?” makes I quite curious. Even though I realizes that there is a possibility that the other person will not return their feelings, I asks anyway and in the hesitation before the answer, I already knows that the other person doesn’t return his/her feelings.

There are no definite settings that are mentioned in this poem. Yes, there is conflict in this poem, the other person does not return his/her feelings. When I read this poem, I could picture a knitted bulky but comfy sweater that a girl really likes wearing, the loose thread, and the sweater unraveling around her and leaving her naked and alone. I could picture a girl hesitatingly asking a another person if they liked them back but then a boy looking confused and sorry as he is about to reply but the girl is already crushed, her eyes brimming with tears.

This poem has no rhyme scheme, which I think works quite well for this poem. It feels awkward yet flowing in a sense, like you can feel the short stanzas leaving you feeling like the girl in the end in the possible situation I imagined.

In this poem, there is a simile, “It was a question I had worn on my lips for days – like a loose thread on my favorite sweater I couldn’t resist pulling-despite knowing it could all unravel around me.” where they compare the question to a loose thread that is just keeps on bugging her. There is a caesura at the end of the poem, “In your hesitation, I found my answer.” there is that pause right before where you’re just like, “Does he? Or does he not?”

The mood of this poem is very curious and at the end where it says, “In your hesitation, I found my answer.” you get a crushing sort of feeling, where you know something you wanted will never work out. The curious part of it is portrayed in the beginning where it starts off with “It was a question I had worn on my lips for days”.

The author’s tone towards its subject is very hopeful. She knows that there might be a chance that the other person will not return her feelings but

she decides to just try and work it out and see because she is hopeful since a small part of her is saying “What if he does…”.

The significance of the poem’s title is the simplicity of it. It shows how much “A Question” can affect an entire person’s feelings. It shows the power of words.

There is a girl, small and frail, wearing a bulky, knitted sweater that she cherishes, she’s playing with the loose thread thinking about the boy she loves, wondering if he feels the same way towards her. Eventually she finds the courage to ask him, even though she knows that if he feels otherwise, it will crush her. However, in his hesitation to answer, she already knows that he doesn’t like her and she is crushed.

I think that the author wanted to share how hope can help someone but at the same time, it can also crush someone. The girl in this poem had hope, so much hope that he just might, just might like her back but in just the second he takes to reply, the hope has failed her and has turned into a poison. It had fed her so much motivation to keep trying but the truth causes her motivation to only be the cause of her new depression.

My Grandpa

Coming back home on his bicycle,He steps inside, shaking the snow off his coat,Hanging his security cap on the fence.His eyes are shallow and full of bags,Below his eyes,He yawns as he stretches his legs,Fighting the strain of 70 year old muscles.He winks at me,His signature wink,With a touch of his crooked smile,Letting me know not to worry.

Coming back home on his bicycle,I remember the times we lived next to preschool.

When the days were carefree and never ending,We’d race each other home,“Yujin-na! Why so fast?” he’d call out, Pretending to catch a breath.I just ran and ran gigglingMy pink princess backpack flying behind me.

Coming back home on his bicycle,He walks into his apartment, Sighing at the empty space.The rooms empty.His eyes searching for the Wild, young days.Then he sees me and my brotherAnd smiles.This is his life now.