I capture his smile inside my six inches screen. The upturned corner of his lips The lid of his eyes closing just a little bit. Perfect picture of serenity. He is Monet's Etretat, Sunset. I see his moon hides behind the fast spinning sphere. And there are waves when he opened his eyes again. Surging sorrows in the dark of his orbs. I capture his smile in the small mirror of my matter. Your grey looks familiar, I said. Like finding an ebb for a flow. A cliff to crash my little waves. He is Gogh's Seascape at Saintes-Maries. 21/10/25
dear woo.
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It's been a year and a half since I last written anything in this blog.
If you're wondering: no, I have not stopped writing. There were no dramatic changes that have stopped me from writing except my own laziness (and I've scattered my writings in so many other places). Still, life changed a lot. Last year was.. rough. Coming back to my childhood home, whether intentional or not, always bring me to a specific state of mind. Last year was no exception. Facing all the guilts and all the angers and all the love that feels tougher than it is soft, it was enough to drown me in a sea I've barely gotten out during college years. Simply said, I had a feeling that I was never going to rebound back. That the water would continue to fill my lungs while the dark blue would fill my vision while I drifted further away from the sunshine. Drowning and drowning, I found myself never planning on kicking back to the surface. I was trying my best to fall in the least hurtful way possible. I just wanted to find a quiet place to stay and I was too far away from the surface. When you take away all of the metaphors, these all meant dark rooms, days of crying and sleeping, and people not leaving me alone in the house (while saying I was being dramatic, of course, but that's for another time). Looking back now, I think I just wanted to ask the sea, were you scared for me? were you scared of me? were you just disappointed at me? When I was able to resurface, early this year, I felt out of touch with the world. I resurfaced, yes, but there were prices to be paid. Things to be missed and people to let go. I resurfaced with scars and more memories that would take years to be forgotten (and a trip to therapist... that I don't want to take yet). I was able to climb up the boat and breathe in the fresh air once again, but the boat I'm now in shakes a lot. The sea is still unstable, big waves and small waves. It's funny that when you resurface, you seem to truly forget what it felt to be deep inside the sea. No, you're not too busy celebrating, you're too busy trying to remember the life of someone else that have the same name as yours. Like opening your eyes after fainting. The scars were scattered and in fragments, the pain dull and comes back at certain period of times only. My boat shakes a lot, but I talk to the ship captain every weekend and it shakes less then. My boat shakes a lot, but I got other things to distract myself now. My boat shakes a lot, but I know which pole to hold on to when it's too hard for me to stand alone. But I do still have seasick. It's something I've had since years ago, when my childhood stories still used present tense. So when the boat shakes, I still get sick. I still want to vomit. My stomach hurts every other day while my eyes water at absolutely everything and anything. But they come in season. They come only when the wave is strong or when the dark blue ocean seemed too close to where I'm sitting. So I'm still afraid. Because my waves are still strong. Because the dark blue ocean looms in the back of my head. Because the boat is still sailing, no land in sight. Because the sun is far and close and when I try to chase it I end up leaving myself in the cold air once again. Because I'm still myself and I still call my problems the sea and my house the boat and my traumas the seasick. Because I am here, and sometimes, when I don't want to, my brain agrees. I called him my ocean. It’s something I thought of constantly from when we first met, something I thought was fitting for him, though the word had seemed bigger than anything I've known before. We had met in a quiet cafe down the road of Iksandong, him in his light brown jacket and me in my lilac sundress. The cafe had been decorated in a measured mix of silver and white, and he wasn’t even wearing anything remotely close to blue or green, but I thought I was finally beginning to understand what it meant to associate a person with something else completely unrelated. My ocean, mine. Then again, I was not much of a traveler. My parents did not take me to enough places for me to know how the ocean really looked like. I was never one to take the risk and go on a spontaneous adventure or anything of the like, so the only resource of ocean I could have was from some nature related account on Instagram. For all I know, I could be very wrong about how any ocean should be like. Or if they all had something similar enough that there could be a definite should look like. Since him though, I could not help but get convinced that he was one, an ocean of his own. He was the one constant calming waves surging through my entire being, drowning me in his laughter. Emerald sparkles reflected in his eyes every time he tried to read me in silence. Comforting and calm breeze every time he put an arm around me. He had become my definition of ocean, the sole core on how the word had even morphed into something real instead of anything i’ve heard of that or i’ve seen it, yeah or i’ll try to visit one soon. Maybe because he grew up in an island that I called him that. He never minded the nickname, although I had noticed on more occasion than one the series of deep breath and closed eyes forced to open whenever he talked about his hometown. I never asked and he never told me. And it was clear how we both steered far from such topic. Didn’t matter at all, all I wanted to talk about was of us anyway, futures and hopes and promises both know could never keep but say anyway. Us forever, though the words felt heavy on my mouth and sometimes my brain screamed at the very idea of it. “I love you,” he all but growled, a ringing in my ears and red cheek where he had touched it (a little too loud, that’s all). I called him my ocean. Even on his bad day, he was still my ocean. Look, it’s just the tidal wave. “Do you remember that time? I baked the whole class cupcakes.”
“Of course. How could I not, really? It tasted kinda weird, that was hard to forget,” he smiled, slow and teasing with a mischievous twinkle on his eyes. It was one she knew was meant to get her anger rising up, a smile he had specifically saved for her. This time, he formed it out of habit more than actual jest. The smile used to work before, when they were a few decade younger. But they were no longer teenagers ㅡticking time bomb ready to explode. She was no longer affected by those smile, at least not in the way it was before. Now it only brought a small nudge on her heart, a barely-there thud ㅡpainful but distant. In fact, it had been long since anything he do seemed to affect her at all. She all but grimaced at the faint realisation of it, though she was polite enough to disguise it as a cough. “It was supposed to be yours only,” she gently said, her lips cast downward, eyes staring at the space behind him. “But I was… too shy for that, of course. I wasn’t exactly friend with you either.” He nodded subtly at the remark, almost like he knew what she was implying. He didn’t, of course. He was not much of a man to know anything of such, really. But he had learned something akin to her over-the-top politeness, always ready to chalk his lack of knowledge with an appropriate reaction. Cold, perhaps. Professional, that’s more like it. But she could see that he really had no clue. Not a fucking clue at all. He still smiled at her afterward though, and shifted only slightly on his seat as he smoothed out his grey suit with a hand. She held his gaze, an amused smile ghosting over her lips as she shook her head once. God, he really didn’t know, did he? The thought almost made her roll over on the floor with laughter. After all the sulking, the brooding, the punching-her-stuffed-dolls and the tantrums (mostly thrown by her to herself, though sometimes it would also be her mother). After her desperate attempts on making him knows but not too much. After all those study sessions that always ended with them watching movies together instead of actually studying, till his father came into the room and she blamed him and he got mad at her. Oh, how her sweet teenager self would cry hours after hours after hours if she knew that this boy, Jesus, this mere boy had no idea of what she felt for him. Even when she knew she could do better, a thousand times better. She must’ve been a good liar back then, she must’ve had a knack for cheating. Not a trait she would expect from herself, what with her being model student and stuffs. Or maybe he was just the dense one, after all. Her friends all had guessed she liked him (of course, they never dare to say it out loud, she was quite the grumpy girl growing up but there were whispers, she figured). But he must’ve never guessed about it. Maybe he didn’t care all that much. Maybe he had heard it in passing and couldn’t bother to check out the truth. One less problem on his way. Beside, she wasn’t the exact type of girl anyone would fall over in high school. Maybe he just simply didn’t even think of the possibility of it all. Because if he had known, then they would not be sitting here, sipping tea in a fancy cafe ㅡwith pretentious grace and too formal of an outfit for a normal afternoon hangout session. If he knew, she would probably be picking up their child from pre-school and he would be in his office right now. If he knew, well… (She couldn’t let herself linger on these stupid what ifs, really.) If he knew, and for God’s sake, fine! she wants him to knew, they would not be catching up over cold tea while waiting for their respective husband and wife to come and join them. But he didn’t. He just didn’t. It's official: I am now part of the whirlwind of thoughts aka the twenty-something emo kids club.
Welcome to the cult, self! you're finally here; alive and mostly well. To be perfectly honest, I've never actually considered myself to be living up until this very point ㅡfor one reason and another, so imagine my surprise that I, for all intents and purpose, am living just another day through October 2019. The journey is by far way too surreal to be anything but real, and I am currently trying to convince myself to get up and do something for just another day. So far, I am barely succeeding, but the threshold is higher than last year. So congratulations is in order. 2019. I am officially twenty. There should probably more thing I can write here, like advice and such, but in all honesty? It's all a whirlwind over here. Being twenty is like starting anew, like resetting every single thing you've learnt for the past 19 years of your life and is now being plunged to another dimension one can barely understand. You're in college now, or most of you (Thank God for the blessings), and is about to finish and search for a new job down the real-world lane. Things change. People change. Every single thing I've known for the teen years of my life are gradually fading, and I am now stuck in a limbo of questions and feelings, or lack thereof. I was always quite proud of the life I have lead so far, but being twenty kind of messed all those beliefs I carefully stacked upon all my teenage shenanigans. Whenever I look around now, I feel mad. I feel mad that the world is changing, that the world is moving and that the things I used to understand don't matter anymore. People have their own problems now, problems I can't begin to understand, let alone try to relate to. My family is falling apart at every seams, but now that I am twenty and have seen all kind of relationship, I know that the happiness of every single person in my family is what matters, even if it doesn't really mean a functional and healthy family. I myself am falling apart, but who isn't, apparently. I also am trying hard at being a good friend, but at every turn there is argument, and the amount of people I can count on (and vice versa) keep on disappearing at an alarming rate. I am at the point where it is pointless even if you got good grades in college, because in the end everybody got skills, freakishly, maddeningly, sickening set of skills I can't even begin to know where they got it from. And don't ask me about the future, or where I want to be a year or two from now on. Truth to be told, I don't know at all. The world is growing bigger, stronger, with fresh news every single fast-pacing hour. I look at my social media, my television, youtube, everywhere, and I see one more thing that humans do wrong. New crime, new political feud, new climate change effect, new dangers. Before, I was quite content to just look at the sidelines and pretend these problems don't exist. Now it feels like if I don't have an opinion, I am just a bad person altogether. Every single damn step I took everyday is like going into a war; my mind is always asking am I doing this right? or is this what everybody will approve? or will this opinion affects me in the future? or am i doing what i want to do, or am i trying to be the best version of myself for people to see? What exactly is the best version of myself? Alive at twenty, I was actually hoping for a semblance of serenity, a semblance of balance in an otherwise new world. What I get, at least so far, is just the realization that adults don't really know what they're doing with their life either. The sentence "it's my first time being a mother too," (being said by a mom to their children), used to make little to no sense to me. But now, it feels like I do understand what it means to be doing everything for the first time. Someone is 23 for the first time in their life, someone is 37 for the first time in their life, heck, someone is 78 for the first time in their life. Nobody knows shit about what will actually happen when you turn another year older, but somehow, others really think that you've probably know something just because you're older. Being a certain age is a unique and different experience for everyone on this planet. At twenty, it feels like I am bracing through everything alone. It feels like I don't have anything with me, no type of comfort or another person to lean back on. I can't look at my family, friends, or the other people in my proximity without feeling like being a burden. It takes a lot of courage to even write this here and not feel like a big ass burden on anybody else, even though nobody is probably reading this. So welcome to being twenty ㅡwhen being depressed is easier than being content; when life is just a big ball of questions that you shout into the abyss, bouncing back with no answer for you. Welcome, and enjoy the party. Please cherish everyone you can hang on to right now, because the spaceship to the unknown is about to be launched and you'll need them, as much as they need you. Cheers, ma chérie, we're all just a creature of query anyway. "It wasn't love at the very first sight, you know," he started softly, his tone light but the look in his eyes said otherwise.
"She was really pretty when she first entered the company, and I thought maybe we could be friends," he continued, staring hard at his half-empty can of beer. The weather had started getting colder with the winter breeze, and so he shivered a little underneath his thick padding, drowning what was left of his beer. The liquid flew down his throat, warmth spreading his entire body as he crushed the empty can with his hand. He took a deep breath, eyes glued to something and nothing on the other side of the river. "He was my best friend," she quietly said in response to his story, eyes also not looking at his. The corner of his lips went up as he turned his head to the side, observing her intently. There was a soft sad smile on her visage that he was all too familiar with. It was like seeing and talking with his own reflection. She was clad in a padding just as thick as his, but the clatters in her teeth was loud against the silent night air. "I think he is still one," lost in her own thought, she stared absentmindedly into the frozen Han river in front of them, burying her head deep inside her own padding. "I was the first person he met when we were both trainees, and he was just so clueless back then." "He debuted first," he said after a few minutes of silence. "Yeah," she could not hide the bitterness in her own voice. It wasn't like she wasn't happy that he had debuted first, but there was a part of her heart that died after her phone calls always went unanswered right after his first music broadcast. There were things she had to give up after he debuted, things she always longed for to have on nights she could not sleep. She knew she was being selfish that way, going a little more mad at every single voicemail, but he had made time for everyone else, his high-school buddies, his own dance crew, everyone but her. She had to swallow a big lump that had formed as soon as she remembered the way Taemin would always have to be the one giving information to her about him, like she had no right to be concerned about him. She let out a shaky breath, the night getting deeper as the two of them readjusted their seat. Silence enveloped the two of them again, not entirely uncomfortable for two strangers tied up in sickening fate of loss. "I made a scarf for her before." We took a bunch of pictures on the photobox before. "I told her that long wavy hair makes her shine, like aurora." His jet black hair was my favorite. "She said she likes photography the way I do." He loved Hikashino Keigo's books just as much as I do. "I gave her a blue bracelet and kept another one for myself." We had matching coat and sneakers. "I made a song about her." I drew him before, in colors I knew he likes. She whipped her head just in time he did too, finding the twinkle in his eyes he desperately tried to hide. He was smiling and she easily found her heart aching for him the same way it had always hurt the whole time she looked at him. "You love her," she whispered softly. "Every man would," he replied in a hushed tone, as if he was afraid that anyone else would hear the looming grim on his eyes. "Maybe that's why," she nodded a little. That's why he loves her. Both of them were once again lost in their own thought, an apparent stillness in the air and way too big of a space on the bench they're occupying. It was like a cruel joke for them, his heart screamed. For putting two cowards in a situation just like this, for making two fools sitting right beside the other, still not telling those love stories to the person they're in love with. "Are we going to be happy?" Her voice was so small and fragile that looking at her right in the eyes almost made his own heart burst. He had asked himself that question over and over, like a broken record playing his mind. No matter how many time he thought of it, the answer would never come to him. At least, not in a way that could bring a smile to his face. "Are they?" he asked instead, looking away from her before he could let the sadness wash over him some more, focusing his eyes to the bright light somewhere across the river. "Yeah," she answered dejectedly, and he felt like he was suddenly getting pulled back at the harsh reality between them. He bit back a curse on the tip of his tongue. There was no use in regretting things now. She was his anyway, he bitterly thought to himself, hating his inner-voice a little more that night. In the silence that followed, he knew she had found her answer too. "That's enough for us, I guess," and although his tone was steady and her eyes were not filled with tears, their hearts were silently getting ripped apart, in ways only the two of them knew. London was not made of rain and cloud, she silently said to the intricate pattern of wallpaper on her new flat downtown. It had its happy days too, she thought to herself. And it was pretty, what with its warm sunshine and blooming daisies. All soft hues and distant chatters of people.
“You were wrong,” she voiced her thought bitterly, still talking to the walls. She had her legs folded up, arms engulfing them and chin propped on top of her knees. It was getting hard to do anything else beside curling up into a ball today (or any day after it, actually, but she decided it was not a matter to discuss now). He used to say how London was an unpredictable entity like that. One minute it would rain, and the next it would be sunny. But mostly (he used to pause a little every time he told her this), London always looked like it had a sense of melancholy attached to it. It’s something only London has, was what he had said in an endearing tone when she asked him why. You’re just the same, he used to finish, tone light and bear no judgment. She used to frown at him afterward, the fine lines making layers up on her forehead. He used to laugh and put his thumb up against it, gently smoothing the crinkles and kissed away her pouty lips. He was not one for denying things that wasn’t true, always honest and straightforward, but never a jerk. She let out a scoff, a sour smile slowly creeping at her visage as the memories began flooding back. He had no idea how London truly is, beside what he had seen on the internet. He always dreamed about going one day, though, that much she knew. It was on top of his bucket list, and right below it, was her name and then nothing else. With you, of course. She chuckled to herself at that, the laugh did not quite reaching her eyes. He was a workaholic, to say the least. He had always traveled places ᅳhis job required more than just regular routines and staying in one place. She was always the one to stay back home, ready to hear new stories he brought from places she only heard in passing before. It was that, and the pictures. To be exact, pictures he took, of scenery and strangers. Buildings, sometimes just random signs, or even foods. She had asked him why he was never in any of the shot before. “Because they’re not home, and I’m not with you there,” he answered with a serene look on his face, darting his eyes alongside the corners of her old flat in Seoul. “You’re ridiculous,” she remarked, scrunching up her nose in faux disgust. “You love me.” He lifted his shoulders nonchalantly, ruffling her hair with a hand. Yea, yeah, I do. She wondered that maybe she was supposed to say those words out loud. At least he would’ve stayed long enough to hear it out. But there were a bunch of other things he did not hear and things she did not say, and in the end it only became a stack of mistakes they both made. She heaved out a long sigh, looking out to find that today’s London sky had turned gray and cloudy. His exact favorite. She wondered again how much an international call would cost her. “Hey there.” “Hey.” “Okay, well, I don’t know whether I should tell you this or not, but London isn’t as melancholic as what you used to tell me.” Do you like it less now? “How are you so sure of that?” “I’ve moved here since a few months ago. Today’s been a little cloudy, but I can definitely assure you that the sun has been a very constant companion since the day I come.” Do you like me less now? “I did not know you moved there.” He did not know a lot of things, in fact. He didn’t know the way she had cried for a week after he left. He didn’t know the way the doorbells always got her ears perking up and her hands trembling because maybe, her heart whispered, he was coming back. He didn’t know the way she had book a one way ticket to London without preparation, and her many hesitations to just ask him to come, because maybe, just maybe, he would be with her if it’s for London. “It’s not the same without you around, though.” That finally cracked something inside of him (and her, but she had been cracking from the very first time she thought of him again today), and the clipped tone he wore just a few second ago dissipated. He laughed at remark and the tone she had used, and she could only imagine the way he would shake his head in disbelief. She managed a small chuckle on her part. “Seoul’s not the same without you too.” “Yeah?” “Sure.” There was a slight noise in the background, sound she could only deduce as lighting and camera flashes. “You’re working right now?” “Ah, yes, it’s another photo-shoot.” “I hope I’m not disturbing anything,” she blurted out after a minute of silence. “Nah, never.” Maybe he was lying, but she wouldn’t want to know the truth either. It’s been months now, she could not say she knows him anymore. There was a static sound as the both of them continued to stay silent, holding breaths on each end of the line. “We’re kilometers apart now, isn’t it strange?” It was indeed very strange. They had met and ended everything in Seoul. And while he had traveled far enough to last weeks or months when they were together, it would always be her Gangnam flat in the end of the day. There was no place that had no trace of him there. He was in every corner of Seoul ᅳcafes, parks, bars, karaokes, her home. He had left so much of him inside the city that she could not run anywhere without feeling like he was trying to suffocate her. Or at the very least, his memories. So she moved away. “I hope London’s treating you better.” She didn’t know that London also had a little of him inside it. “It is.” Better than you, she almost said it, but bit down the harsh word and swallowed it right up. You weren’t the best either, she whispered to herself, almost like a scold. London had, admittedly, only brought good things to her. She had never understood his obsession with the city, but opening the curtain of her living room’s big windowpane every morning and smiling over anything she first saw might give her a good idea over what he meant. There were more noises in the background, and she released a shaky breath as silently as she could. She could hear him talking to someone in the background, tone hushed and a little rushed. “Look, I’m so sorry but I have to go now. We’ll catch up later, okay? I’d like to hear every story about London that you have.” “Sure.” She pressed the red button on her phone softly. Catching up was not part of the plan. She deleted his number. The phone call was not worth it. Life update: I keep on forgetting what day is it today and stop replying to important chats.
It's finally 2019, as you can see. I am going to be the big two-o this year and I'm more than excited to welcome the new life as an adult. Or no. I am mostly worried that it'll do me some type of tragedy. I really don't know how to be an adult, or any proper human being, at this point of life. On the outside, life is pretty much going well. Too well. My grades from the past semester have just been announced and I am doing alright, I got a scholarship, I went on a vacation for new year, I got appointed as the new division head of an organization I am in, and I am currently binge-watching SKY Castle (best drama of the year!!). Life seems pretty easy on the outside but I can't help it that I am afraid. Being happy is not something I completely am familiar with. I am closer to sadness. But these days life keep on giving me reasons to smile and therefore I am worried. When you are not used to things, you start thinking of the worst to happen. It happens when you're best-friend with sorrow. But I hope this is all my anxiety talking, though. I hope so. You took it away,
the last of my sanity. I breathed and poof! You snatched away what was left of this soul. I was left scattered, tattered, damaged, lost. So now I can not finish this poem, because the thought of you, just brings me the hammering feeling in my chest, and I just want to choke on the last bit of your scent. I love him,
in bits and pieces, a pair of limb and long legs, a twinkling set of eyes, a half-moon shaped smile. I love him, as a whole, like a match igniting my flame, like the sunshine on my rainy days, like the refrain to my favorite song. I love him, for who he is, and who I am, when I'm with him. |
AuthorA spotless mind who loves books, music, and beautiful things. Not forgetting the fact that things you love will break you down, though. Archives
October 2021
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