Opening Line, First Wound “That one’s a crazy bitch around food.” I was eight. I had just emptied a plate of tteokbokki. Even the sauce. Mother pressed her lips shut and thumbed a text to someone. That single line flashed in front of my eyes; that day I learned how to read language—and, at the same time, I touched my stomach. Thick, yielding flesh slipped between my fingers. --- ## Mother’s Silence, My Hunger Mother said nothing more. Instead she snapped a padlock on the refrigerator. After seven in the evening the kitchen went into “lockdown.” She must have believed hunger could be house-trained. At two a.m. I woke and turned on the bathroom tap. Each sip of water carried the weight of her gaze—not her eyes, but the heaviness of those lowered lids. “Don’t lie; your stomach still sticks out.” Even as a teenager she called me “belly.” Not by my name. The most common noun I ever answered to. I began to echo it myself. In front of mirrors, on men’s beds, in the school cafeteria. Belly, you’re really tucking in. --- ## The Secret Banquet of the Orphanage Girls They met on toilet lids—Mijeong, three years older, and Seoyeon, five years younger. Every Wednesday during third period Mijeong smuggled out a snack basket. The orphanage was Mother’s domain, so no one watched the inventory. > “Today cereal with double milk.” Seoyeon balanced the bowl on the closed lid. With one hand Mijeong stroked Seoyeon’s hair; with the other she spooned cereal into her mouth like a mother bird. “Mom doesn’t scold us much if we stay thin.” Their bodies were still sleek, like fins too stiff to bend. But Seoyeon could already see the future—wondered if, once she became a mother, she too would forbid her child to eat. So Mijeong hugged her. Together they licked the hunger from each other’s skin. --- ## Love on a Scale At twenty-seven I slept with a man for the first time. When his hand glided over my belly I closed my eyes. Behind the lids Mother stood watching. The man pulled a bathroom scale onto the bed where my body lay. 174 cm, 68.5 kg. The numbers burned themselves into me. “It’s not that you ate too much.” He folded back the quilt. My stomach spilled into view. He pressed an ear to it as though listening for someone crying inside. > Whom do you have to starve before you feel at peace? After that I brought a packed lunch every time we met. Kimbap, rolled omelet, steamed eggs. While I ate he stared holes through me, then whispered as he folded me in his arms: “Get your mother out of here.” --- ## The Gene of Hunger Why does starvation make us feel envy? From the moment Mother named me “belly,” I began eyeing other children’s lunchboxes. When school meals ended, I devoured the leftovers with my gaze. I learned orgasm by imagining someone going hungry. It wasn’t simple revenge. It was a rabid longing for the possible body. Mother proved her power over me by refusing food. I submitted to that power and, in the same breath, warped it. When I starved someone else, I could stand for a moment in Mother’s line of sight. In truth we all carry the memory of hunger. Before birth, in the womb, we were hungry. Mother tries to sever that hunger; I keep trying to knot the severed cord. --- ## Last Lines, Inside the Belly Today, again, I open the refrigerator. The moment the door sighs, I hear Mother breathing somewhere. I take nothing out; I simply close the door and press my forehead against the cold shelf. Do you still need to starve someone in order to live? Or are you still the one being starved by your mother?
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