I travelled alone this trip.
Kimchi jjigae fierce and hot on Garosu-gil.
Gimbap Seaweed rice, cool and salty.
I was marrying him this year and needed this trip for myself.
By the time I got to Seoul,
I had lost my breasts and cleavage,
to obedience,
to servitude,
to expectations of fashion.
I was never flat.
I was full.
For a Chinese girl:
I had breasts.
Real ones.
Full.
Alive.
I wore them like they belonged.
Because they did.
And then I gave them up.
Not all at once.
Not in a moment of choice.
But in a slow bleed of trying to be acceptable.
A man called me fat.
Another called me a beached whale.
They didn’t touch me with cruelty.
They touched me
with opinion,
with judgment,
with expectation.
And I listened.
Because I was raised to give.
To bend.
To slim down.
To disappear.
So I did what so many women do;
I took pills.
I ran miles.
I swallowed shame.
I got small.
And the weight dropped.
And with it my breasts.
Two cup sizes; gone.
Not because I chose it.
Because I let it happen.
I got thin.
I looked good in clothes.
But I lost something that was mine.
The part no one tells you
Women don’t just wear their breasts for men.
They wear them for themselves.
For their walk.
For their mirror.
For their power.
I didn’t lose cleavage.
I lost territory.
I lost part of my body’s voice.
What I reclaimed
Years later, I stopped blaming the men.
I stopped blaming the pills.
I stopped blaming the mirror.
I used what I learned,
Landmark taught me to take responsibility.
To complete what wasn’t complete.
To restore what was mine.
So I did.
I got breast augmentation.
But don’t call it augmentation.
Call it replacement.
The “re” is silent — but I feel it every day.
I didn’t add anything.
I restored what was mine.
The surgeon advised smaller than I had planned.
I listened and looked good with breasts defying gravity.
Next time, I’m going with the size I had planned.
And yes, it hurt.
Yes, it bruised.
Yes, it cost.
But nothing I’ve reclaimed ever came free.
Only the faint scars in my armpits remind us these breasts are placed.
I stood tall and full in my wedding dress.
