Rooftop Mapo-gu

The roof access is unlocked the way things are unlocked in January when nobody anticipated a need for the roof in January I climb the last stair, I push and the city opens like a statement Seoul at 5:30 AM in January is not what the photographs suggest it is grey and it is certain and it is already beginning its next administrative hour the Han River visible, just a darker grey between the grey districts the Lotte Tower still blinking its position to passing aircraft saying: I am here, I am here as if the city needs reminding where itself is The city wakes like nothing happened I wake like everything did I am standing on a rooftop in Mapo-gu and I am the only thing up here that knows what the night contained The city wakes like nothing happened I wake like everything did the Han River doesn't remember last night the bridge doesn't remember my name the sunrise comes the way it always comes indifferent, insufficient, early the city wakes like nothing happened and I am standing here still holding last night still holding last night in my chest like something I don't know how to put down You lived in Mapo-gu two streets from where I'm standing third floor, the window with the plants the succulents that always looked on the edge of surviving I could walk to your building from here in four minutes the way I have walked it a hundred times and I will not walk it this morning because the window will have its light on because someone is feeding the succulents someone has been assigned the practical aftermath of you I am avoiding the direction of your window the way you avoid a word in a sentence that, if you say it, makes it real I am standing with my back to Mapo-gu watching a city that doesn't know to lower its flags The city wakes like nothing happened I wake like everything did and the body says: eat something the body says: find a subway station the body says: the line runs south the body says: the day is beginning and I say: I know I know The city wakes like nothing happened I wake like everything did the Han River doesn't remember last night the bridge doesn't remember my name the sunrise comes the way it always comes indifferent, insufficient, early the city wakes like nothing happened and I am standing here still holding last night still holding last night in my chest like something I don't know how to put down Somewhere in this city a delivery app is processing an order I placed at 2 AM from the jjimjilbang the coffee will arrive to a building I'm no longer in and the rider will wait at the door and leave the notification in the app and I will collect it later or I won't and either way the day will have occurred This is what they mean by going on this is the specific texture of it: a cold rooftop a wrong address for a coffee a river that keeps its own counsel a city that already has other business and me, standing here still insisting with every held breath on the importance of this particular moment that already knows it's becoming the past The city wakes like nothing happened I wake like everything did the sunrise comes the way it always comes and I am not ready I am not ready but the light doesn't wait for readiness the light just comes Mapo-gu at dawn January grey, the specific grey of a city that has survived the night again and so have I again and so and so and so the light comes whether I'm ready whether I know how to hold this whether I've learned anything from standing at railings and rooftops and convenience stores in a city that practices its indifference like a second language it has almost mastered