Foreign Memes




1. Cut

Popular culture resides in our hearts,
take me into the world of your memes  
 – I want to know you, all of you
but I know your mind is far.

Your social media feed is alien to me:
unfamiliar faces
foreign language
jokes I can’t understand.

You say we’re impossible
      cut –
by the habitus we were raised in,
the references, memes and habits we don’t share.

You ask
Have you ever watched Running Man?
How often do you go to karaoke?
Do you know Big Bang?

2. Same

But take away our contexts and
we are almost the same:
writing diaries every day
in Muji blue 0.38mm

bound by the fundamentals
how we love, fail, struggle, dream,
we choose the same coffee bean,
–  but it’s the details that make us unique.

3. Learn

The stories, the idols that raised you:
a lifetime to catch up on from an ocean away,
I diligently study night and day
 –  still not fluent in the language of your memes.

But slowly your world opens to me  
Screen radiates, we can laugh at ease,
we were not the same,
we can only learn.


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