INSTITUTIONS - Kim Sung-Hui

All day long one child colors pictures in a book:

Butterflies, flowers, clouds, streams.

The child is afraid the colors may go over the lines.

Who taught her that fear?

How did she learn

it's wrong to go over the lines?

Those butterflies, flowers, clouds, and streams

are all imprisoned inside lines.

Mummy, Mummy, the crayons mustn's go

outside the lines, must they?

Fear overflows from the child's gentle eyes.

All day long, docile and neat, my child is carefully

coloring inside the lines as the instructions say.

If I were not Mummy,

I would tell her: Go on, dear.

Sribble over the lines. Paint outside the lines.

Butterflies, streams, clouds, and flowers

are all things that explode.

They are all alive, dear.

Things that blossom, surging and scrambling over the lines

Things that trespass, that break the law, dear.

I used to hate every kind of institution

but being Mummy is an institution too.

I'll bind you with the ropes that once bound me!

I am that woman and the governor-general.

Kill Mummy, then, dear!