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Beat Girl, you lived in the flat above me
I knew you from how much you said you hated your mom, and your unfair life
Beat Girl, you woke me up one morning
You were yelling again at your mom
At first I thought you a disrespectful, adolescent brat
Your friends must have hated their mothers too
Your screams at the top of your lungs were plain intolerable
I heard stomping and noises and then your defensive screams
You were hitting your mother – your mother was hitting you back
A mother, unable to lose her Korean accent, lost you with each translated hit
Though she feared failing her generation
like every generation angry at the next
She still had control over you because you weren’t ready
You could do nothing but cry, and yell, and wait a little longer
An hour later your mother must have watched you run out the door to school
Her fists still clenched with expectation like her mother and all mothers before her
Beat Girl, I waited for you to come home that day
The next morning I expected to hear you fight again for your future
While I waited, I decided to call you Beat Girl
I wasn’t sure if you were finally beat or if you were a girl anymore, but it was how I remembered you
It must have been how your mom remembered you every time she looked at her hands
I never heard you fight again with your mother
Did you find your future Beat Girl?
literophanes.com 
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