SNS || jeon jungkook ✓

53. power

I don't know what I can do to find my own message. I don't know why I should bother.

The way she is caressing the vase, and the tilt of her head makes me think that she is almost gazing lovingly at it. Auntie exhales heavily before speaking.

"I was around your age when I got married," she recounts.

Her voice is thick and heavy; I can tell it is difficult for her to get breaths in. Her chest is rising slowly, but I can tell from the pained expression on her face that she is trying to breathe before then. I squat down to not only relieve my feet from my heels, but to get closer to her to relieve her strain.

"He was an older man with a lot of money. Women during this time had very limited rights, and I didn't think much of the marriage.  It was what I was expected to do."

"To be a wife?"

"Yes," she nods, "To be a wife."

I'm silent. I have to make a conscious effort not to ask any questions— that didn't work out so well the last time. We sit in more silence: me staring at the flowers, and her at the vase.

"He didn't permit me an education." Her voice is timid.

I can't believe what I'm hearing. I feel like a piece of shit because I was so quick to assume otherwise. What is wrong with me?

"That man you read about," she clenches her teeth, "was no husband to me. He drank, and drank... and yet, he still thought he was better than me. He didn't allow me to read or write. He took away the only power I had— knowledge."

My reaction is involuntary; my eyes are wide and I'm staring at this woman next to me in awe. I'm biting my lip nervously as she continues.

"That's the problem. There will always be a culture of power, no matter how many laws are passed or how many rights are given. The war ended, yet that man still made me his subordinate and had the audacity to expect a child,"

"It wasn't until his death that I realized this hold he had on me. I went to school and became a doctor. I knew I had knowledge worth using for good."

My lips are quivering. We live in a society in which a culture of power will always exist. It's apparent that this power radiates energy all over the world— it doesn't discriminate against countries or regions. The fact that I could be so blatantly wrong about something blows my mind. I'm sitting here squatting in dirt with tears streaming down my face because of the guilt eating away at my soul.

"Auntie," I breathe, "I didn't know— I-I shouldn't have said anything about the article."

She begins to shake her head at me. Her right hand lifts and she opens her palm for me to grasp. I do. She squeezes my hand.

"No," she asserts. I can feel our hands shaking in her hold. "You remind me of myself."

"Auntie," I cry, "I am not as strong as you."

"Jae," she lifts her other hand to place over ours, "You travelled to a country you knew nothing of. You couldn't read the language for fuck sake."

"You don't understand," now I'm sobbing, "I'm only here because of a man, Auntie. I'm letting that control my life."