Monday, 8:45 A.M.

My right eye is closed

As I slump in this dismal taxi

Grinding its way through 

Stop-and-go Seoul

For the next seven hours I will be

Trapped

With my fellow inmates

In a windowless room that bars the sun

I do not see the shimmering city that creeps by

Only five hundred vocabulary words

To grind into my head

I abjure this. Is that even right? I don’t know

Abjure. Abhor. Abdicate.

In this antediluvian system we must master

I am but a lowly pawn

How is this day just starting?

I squint into the haze of words

And the looming deadline of this test that will determine

Everything

And the only thing that sustains me is the thought of

Seeing my friends, my lifeboats in this sea of SAT

Monday, 8:45 A.M.

My eyes are open

Peering through my magic kaleidoscope

As I sit in my air-conditioned taxi.

Through its lens, I know I am one of the lucky ones

For my parents have bought me

One hundred and eighty hours of help

So I can master this bear of a test

That scares the breath out of us

In the taxi, I use my love of art

To scribble funny scenarios for each word

For instance, me learning to abdicate 

my Throne of Self-Pity

To embrace grace

To learn to abjure complaints

To abhor breaking promises I made to myself

For that was Antediluvian Me

Instead of burying my teeth into the textbook

I listen as my driver regales me with tales

Of what this city once was, is, and will be

Our road follows the ancient Han

The liquid artery of the city

Beside which Hwarang, the Flowering Knights, 

once galloped on stallions to Gyeongbokgung 

to meet the king

I have a new master now–curiosity, gratitude

And this beautiful kaleidoscope that turns

Darkness into light

Unblinding me to what could be

Now that I’ve learned to see