Kimchi Fried Rice

When I lived in New York, I used to dream about free will.

Not in the ways people talk about it.

Not escape. Not reinvention. Not becoming someone louder or braver.

I pictured myself making kimchi fried rice.

I saw it clearly.

A pan heating on the stove. Oil blooming across the surface.

Cold rice pressed flat until it crackled at the edges.

The sharp smell of kimchi cutting through the room.

That was the fantasy.

Not love.

Not permanence.

Just deciding what to eat, and when.