Crosswalk

When you feel tired, you should take some good rest. But when your mind is troubled, taking a rest could not be the best option. When you are frustrated, sad, or angry, you should take a walk. In other words, you can calm your mind when you are busy walking. It is a wise choice to try to forget your pain by concentrating on faced-paced walking.

The crosswalks and traffic lights you come across while walking are not helpful. They force you to stop. When you stop walking, your mind gets troubled again, and this time, pain gets to you again. Standing in front of the crosswalk, the tears you held back burst out and the thoughts you barely put aside will come back again.

For those who have such experiences, “Crosswalk” by poet Koh Doo-hyun is something that cannot go unnoticed. This poem reminds you of the day your mind collapsed as you stopped walking. In the poem, you see yourself about to fall on the ground as you succumb to sorrow. Your heart is empty like you left it somewhere else.

The poet is walking away from someone dear to him. He feels he is moving further away from the person as he passes a crosswalk. The crosswalk is a battlefield, where the heart that does not want to go and the heart that has to go come into conflict. That is why the poet wrote he wants to lie down on the ground like the white stripes in a crosswalk. The poet probably could not have gone back. He probably crossed the crosswalk when the light turned green. But what we know is that a fragment of his soul still remains, on that day, on that crosswalk, and on that street. We know of that crosswalk because we all have had that experience.