tteokbokki

sweet, spicy, tteokbokki,

with many confusing Korean double letters

you are my favorite

as well as my seongsaengnim's 

we practice writing it during class over and over again

because it is my favorite

yet i can't spell it right,

still

떡볶이

it is a pretty word to look at 

you can see the way the rice cake floats in between the letters

and the sauce coats the vowels

even the strange, 

doubled g noises, which i always get mixed up with the 

n

and there are no r sounds in Korean

so i can't really decide whether or not i want to 

wait before we eat 

or go ahead

because it is my favorite

why are hot dogs something all types of people eat?

i wish tteokbokki was too. 

i picture it as a dish everyone eats around the table

not just koreans

latinas, japanese, german, canadian, indian, english,

the smell walked down the streets of Seoul itself