aesols

[aesols]

Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi, from "Lamps" (trans. Sarah Maguire & Sabry Hafez), My Voice: A Decade of Poems from the Poetry Translation Centre (ed. Sarah Maguire) [ID'd]

[aesols]

hi seungkwan. it's late (again). it's been a while since we first shared our i love yous. i wanted to make sure i had a good idea on what to write before i attempted to put my words down on a screen— to be fair, i still have 0 idea on what to say just because what i feel transcends what i wish to say.

you love me.

i feel like i knew that or i should've known that from the start and, in a way, i kind of did. but this is a different kind of love— the love that two people who are romantically involved with one another share, not the kind of love that two people who have grown up together share. it's different but it also toes the line of what's right and what's wrong. thankfully, we didn't have to go through that phase; i think it was pretty easy from the get-go with both of us, considering we were already toeing that line. things were blurred from the start, right?

you loved me. i loved you, too. i think i loved you in a way i didn't even understand. i just felt something towards you that later translated into "my bisexual awakening" as penned by sofia.

crazy how that works.

anyway, you love me. i love you.

i don't want to wear it out by saying it too much— and i know you know it but it's still crazy when the thought gets translated into my head. he loves me. my heart gets all weird and crazy even though, deep down, i knew it. when you first told me you love me with my full name (sans vernon), i almost felt like i was going to burst. you're my first real and serious relationship. you're my first everything, let's be so fucking serious. i didn't care for getting with someone unless i vibed with them and maybe, here and there, i vibed with people a little too hard but you were someone that i felt attracted to, like a magnet.

it was a magnetic pull with you.

no one could compare with you. i only ever wanted you.

and i have you. and i love you.

my boo.

[aesols]

Andrea Gibson, Lord of the Butterflies

[aesols]

hi seungkwan. it's late. ariana grande's "we can't be friends" is playing into my ears and i'm wearing my airpods max right now.

seungkwan, i'm overthinking right now. it started with a drop of rain and then turned into an ocean. i feel like i'm drowning a bit— just a bit. did you know one of the hyungs says that a lot? "just a bit". i've caught onto it. my mimicry and me. anyway, yeah. i fell a bit. slipped in a puddle and fell into an ocean with no way to swim my way up.

ariana grande has a really weird way of making me slip away into my thoughts, even with you sleeping on my arm and looking pretty— but that's where i think even harder. well, i don't have to think too hard. unfortunately, it comes too easy for me and when i look at you while you're sleeping, it rushes over my head.

i'm enamored with you. i like you, a lot. i harbor strong feelings, even stronger feelings than how much i like my cats or castella or even making music. hyung said falling for someone is scary— i never understood it because liking someone is a rush, it's adrenaline and it's a good thing. i never understood how it could be considered scary and especially by myungho hyung of all people, but he's wise and he knows better than me so i took his words into careful consideration.

he had this faraway look in his eye that made me curious. i never understood it and i think he could tell i didn't get it, so he smiled and just told me to eat. i listened to him. i didn't want to dig my fingers into whatever he was thinking of, didn't want to open some pandora's box, but he seemed content, you know?

like being scared isn't a bad thing.

but i get it. i get it now. i'm not scared, i don't think. my chest feels tight and i can't breathe too well, my throat feels like it's closing in and it feels like sand is pouring into my mouth. and when i look at you, i feel like every bit of energy is leaving my body or that my heart is pounding so fast, so loud, that i'll evaporate on the spot.

i think i'm really nervous. i feel unsteady, i don't feel grounded with you. i think i understand hyung's words and the way he looked faraway, content, and so much younger. but i look at you sleeping and i feel like kicking off, running down the streets until the cold air makes me feel numb.

i'm really nervous because memories flooded in like a tidal wave. what am i going to do in the long run? what if you don't like me and i'm still horribly down bad for you? if i think back to you smiling at me in the green room, your careful eyes assessing me, in the present— then what would i do in— well, i mean, what would i do, hypothetically, after you stop liking me? those memories would be the fucking death of me.

would you want to be friends still? would i even be able to handle that? i'd have to. i would. for you, i'd do anything even if it tore me apart.

i have to clarify though, seungkwan, that i'm not nervous that you're going to stop liking me anytime soon. i know we share the same feelings, i understand it well enough. i'm nervous because i feel much stronger about you than before. remember? hyung said falling for someone is scary. remember that i said i understand it.

we— like, it hasn't been that long since we started dating officially but i've liked you for some time. it was on and off for the longest time but i spent my youth liking you, i spent my teenage years trying to forget it, i'm spending my adult years reliving my affection for you. i've liked you for so long. i can't be your friend so simply and so easily. i look at you and it feels like my heart erupts into a thousand little fireflies.

butterflies isn't it for me— fireflies though? they're small and mighty, lighting up a dark space with just a tiny light. that's what you do to me. so if you decided to not like me ever, those lights would continue to stay. it would be so hard, i think.

but what use is it to even think of the future when i don't even know about it? you know what hyung also said? he said having a crush on someone makes you highly irrational. i told him i believe him because this is the same guy that took an immediate flight to china to see his ex. lol.

yeah, he gave me an ugly glare.

anyway. he didn't use the phrase "having a crush" but i'm nervous to give it a life, seungkwan. bear with me, yeah?

i want to write so many songs about you. i want to pen down how you make me feel onto paper, tap in beats to our hearts beating together in the computer. i want to hold you close to me, i want to immortalize this moment and store it in my head. i want to get you in the studio and sing along to my heartbeat. i want you to wake up so badly, to smile at me like how you did earlier, to look at me when i translated for you.

boo seungkwan, i want you badly. in the words of ye olde bridgerton, i burn for you. you're the object of my desires. etc, etc.

i think i'm starting to fall extremely in love with you, seungkwan, and i'm nervous as all hell.

[aesols]

today, i put on a circular-shaped band-aid on my fingertip. i got a papercut, then my shirt got messy because i was trying to serve myself food and, you know me. i'm clumsy. i was wearing a white shirt, too. moment of silence.

anyway, i have a circular-shaped band-aid on my finger and i can't stop looking at it. it's so unique, so out of the box from the typical band-aids we use and wear. what's the purpose of a round band-aid? we have smaller rectangular ones anyway. but i like this round one. it fits around my finger and stanches the bleeding right away, a small pool of rouge pebbling against the gauze.

i think i'm like this band-aid; unique and out of the box. i've always been a bit unique, set apart from my peers, and i've always found myself in the same situation over and over again. even when i passed auditions and became a trainee, i was unique. i was different. it's not something that i would have said with pride or even out loud but it was what it was, regardless. back then, we had samuel and jun hyung and josh. we also had mingming hyung too. then, when mingming hyung left, we got myungho hyung. a quiet understanding amongst the foreigners. we were like the circular band-aids in a first-aid kit full of rectangular band-aids.

this is a really odd comparison, isn't it? but this is how my mind works. i've been thinking about my younger self for days now and i finally have an object to link it to, like a thread and it's needle.

for a while, at least, it was hard to leave a place where i wasn't seen as socially acceptable to another place where my korean wasn't as strong and my american accent thickened every syllable. i was a kid. i cried in the corners. i had big eyes and a small nose and a really wide mouth and overexposed gums. my hair was floppy, i was skinny, i was small. every inch of me screamed foreigner but ever inch drew them all to me. even with my broken korean for a good couple of months and my obnoxious laughter and my clingy demeanor.

they were my family away from home. i missed my sister, i missed my mom, i missed my dad, i missed my cats. they were family but you were something else.

calling you family feels odd— fuck it, it felt so fucking weird even back then. those guys were my brothers, my homies, but you were something sent from god, i think. an angel, i remember thinking. a best friend, i think now. i wasn't as rational as i am now, you know that. i was a kid, running on the fumes of an expansive imagination and the vigor of childhood. so, yeah. angel. angel with your round cheeks, justin bieber-esque bangs, and your pretty smile. angel with a heaven-sent voice and an intense gaze. angel with a habit to single me out in a group of people only to drop me into a pit of fire where everyone else burns to ashes and i'm the only one unharmed.

it was so weird, seungkwan. have you ever thought back to everything in the green room? every so often, i wonder why but then i look at you snoozing beside me and i answer with oh. for every youthful desire i had of wanting to become a rectangular band-aid, for every desire i had of running from cameras and pointing fingers, you were there. you kept me still and held me close. you stared at me and lifted me up. you made me breathless even when i was clearly being evaluated.

(literally. thank god you grew out of that habit of staring at me like you were glaring.)

did you know that i wasn't really the type to be too affected by being so different though? i had a family that reassured me and made sure i loved my differences, but being far away from their voices back then was hard. you liked me for my differences anyway. i didn't look american but i didn't look korean either. you and i were inseparable then, as we are now too.

but this is where i get to the heart of my thoughts: how did we grow up? i think the simple answer is we roughened up due to the weight of our work. but there's a deeper answer in there, too. all my doll-like tendencies eroded from my face and the faster i grew, the faster i hit puberty, the more aware i became. it was like i was in a simulation and then i became a sentient program, aware of everything. but i kept you in my pocket of youth, where our affections would never die.

that didn't last too long. we live in a pretty rough world with a grueling line of work ahead of us. cameras, paparazzi, invasive interview questions, etc. i had to sandpaper my feelings into something less recognizable, less loud. when i get into my head, i do feel guilty about it. i'm grateful, though, that we know each other well enough that you can grasp onto my feelings without me having been loud like before and i can see right through you, too.

do you remember when i told you that you make me feel young again? it sounds stupid in hindsight because we are young but it meant something more to me.

you made me feel like this circular band-aid on my finger. you made me feel like chwe hansol hailing from new york to be a pledis trainee for the first time. you made me feel like i was teetering on the floor, my shoes squeaking awkwardly, while yebin was stumbling around and staring at me but all i could see was you, your indecipherable expression. you made me feel out of the box again, my affections curdling into that distant and unfamiliar feeling of being clingy. you morphed me like clay into that kid again, the one that couldn't stop touching you, while retaining my adult self for the cameras and the other guys.

how do you do it? you grew up but, at the same time, you didn't. me, on the other hand? i grew up entirely. you feel like peter pan to me, while i'm wendy. you became even more camera-aware than me, while i chiseled myself down into what people consider "strange" and "inexpressive". we both hit puberty ten times over and we both became strangers but you always manage to bring me back.

oh.

roots. i think the heart of my thoughts are roots.

i'm the tree, but you're my roots. nourishing and expansive and social, but ultimately mine.

do you think myungho hyung would approve of that line being poetic? ㅎㅎ

[aesols]

vernon-ah, you know that i really love you, right?

yes. yeah, i know. i've known for years now. i've spent my every waking moment, every drawn breath, knowing that you love me. i've woken up to the world blanketed with the expanse of your affection for me, seungkwan. yes, i know that you really love me. i will never forget it even when i'm six feet under the ground, our roots entangling together.

rather, you will never let me forget it. silently, i tell you i really love you too— that my affection for you is as vast as the sky and as deep as the ocean, that you and i are like vines entangling, that you're the flower and i'm a patch of grass that grows around you. we're together, always, and that will never change, seungkwan-ah.

i remember my heartbeat picking up when you whispered it into my ears. you'll never understand how it felt for your voice to slither into my ears the way that it did. you'll never understand how my heart beat thunderously in my chest at the admission of your love for me. you'll remember how it gave me away to the staff, to the remaining members (even when they didn't say anything on it), and i know you'll remember simply staring at me only as you spoke.

like we were the only two in the world.

but you'll never understand how much i wanted to open my eyes and gaze at you, to watch your mouth form those words for me. to see how you're feeling as you utter sentiment after sentiment into the microphone. you'll never understand how tough the fight was for me because you sounded undeniably tender in my ears, so fragile, and sweet at the same time.

you sounded the same as a crème brûlée would taste— the initial tap to break the sugar on top, then the spoon diving into the delicacy. just one tap, and i felt you would break. you told me you loved me. it's no different than how you normally tell me but i understood. the glimpses of last words spoken, the emptiness reaching out with phantom limbs obscuring your urge to shower me with affection so i know you love me.

and i know. i know why. i understand. i'm here, seungkwan. i know.

많이 사랑해. i love you so much.

i wanted to grab you and hold you close to my chest, to make you feel the way my heart beat for you like drummers going off the rails during their solo. i wanted to hold you under those blankets, sharing the pillow like we used to, and mold our hearts into one beating organ so you can feel my skin, trace my tattoo with your finger delicately, so that i can feel your breath cascade over my throat and so you can feel mine washing over your hair.

i wanted to keep you close; to let you feel it in the way i feel mine in my bloodstream, keeping me alive with the knowledge of how much i adore you.

it was hard not to curl my fingers into a fist, to ground myself into the blankets on the floor, to tether myself to you; it was hard not to crawl to you and immediately gather you in my arms. i didn't want to do that in front of others. i wanted it to be private. a moment between us.

seungkwan-ah, you know that i really love you too, right?

[aesols]

did you know old habits have a hard time of dying? once i sat down in my backyard with sofia (hangyeolie, as you call her. she hates it when i say it but loves it when you do), looking at the stars, and we talked about habits. the past. wonders of the world. we talked about her life, we talked about mine.

vern, she would say in her american style of speaking. i basically know your life already. it's all online. and she was joking, her half-tilt of a smile, but it struck a chord in me. i kept staring at the stars, let out a laugh, and couldn't stop thinking about it even well after the fact. even after violet-grey clouds passed over the bright balls of fire lighting up our sky. i know your habits. i know what you did in the so-called melona room when you were just a kid. then the conversation got contemplative, like two philosophers were having a discussion over blood-red wine in togas and laurel wreaths adorned while we stood next to a polished stone pillar. i didn't look at her until later, our gazes meeting in some weird clash of i know you and no, you don't.

we have the same gaze, you know this. it's hard to beat her because she mastered the same blunt sharpness i carry. to some degree, i'm proud of her. but it's annoying when she turns it against me.

anyway, yeah. we had a silent argument under the blanketing stars and then my mom came out with glasses of apple juice, told us to not fight, and left with a laugh. i remember telling her more than what was recorded through that dingy camcorder. about you, about us. i told her about myself with you. how we had become not two separate people but one singular being, with a shared beating heart.

how our thoughts were molding at a horrifying rate, how i couldn't bear to be apart from you in that room and even in the dorms. how our skin would melt into one another just when we touched. how you helped me, how i helped you, how we were just kids but it was an electric beginning to my adolescence.

i told her how you carried the scent of jeju waves with you, how your sweat tasted like the sweetness of jeju tangerines, how your smile was everything bright and warm and inviting. how i was just a kid who didn't know how to fit in and fought for equality because i was two different halves in one person but here was a kid from an island who looked at me like i was whole. like i was everything.

seungkwan, you were intense and i'm pretty sure kid-vernon wanted it. i was also a teenager with a crazy, raging hormonal thing going on. puberty was cruel to all of us. we witnessed our hyungs and dongsaengs grow through puberty. there was a day where the way seungcheol hyung looked at jeonghan hyung had changed. there was a day where some of the guys got touchier than usual, where at night there was a really strange unease blanketing over us all.

it was totally suffocating. it was infectious, like inhaling fucking spores from fungi that excrete them. i don't know. i remember it and feel so fucking insane.

i didn't tell sofia that. she didn't need to know it. but i want you to know it. your scent had become sweeter at some point, intoxicating, and then my body itched to just be near you. my mind and body worked in tandem. i was labeled clingy and cute because of it. we were thought to be as cute because you accepted it with ease. our faces were always so close. any closer than that and it would be taboo. it would cast us into the streets.

so, i settled for nose rubs.

yeah, did you know old habits don't die so easily? i can't help doing it now, too. my itch to be near you hasn't died down either. to touch your skin, to have you in my arms, to feel your back against my chest. anything, everything, all at once. you've indulged me then, you indulge me now.

for every half i am, you make me whole.

[aesols]

i think people have wondered why i stare at you so much. to be fair, i've wondered it myself too. i've even told myself to stop because i thought it might come off as too much for you, maybe even freak you out. but for as long as i remember (for as long as my childhood was formed with the existence of you and a bunch of other hormonal boys), you've never been deterred by anything. especially not by my staring.

i think you liked it. the attentiveness my eyes hold to you. i also think you hated it. i can always see you, see past you, and also see what ghosts you're struggling to hide. then again, i don't think you really try to hide it with me.

i don't treat you like a treasure chest hiding in a hard-to-get area— that would be diminishing your gleam, i think. i also don't try to treat you as me being indiana jones and you being a cavern full of harmful shit, no. that's also weird.

the reason why i don't have to seek it out is because you and i are like the grass and the sun. it's natural, a way of life, and it follows a specific cycle where it's symbiotic. another symbiotic relationship would be a gator and one of those small birds. or a whale and the small fish that eat the bacteria and gunk off the whale. or sharks and small fish. are we also part of a symbiotic relationship then?

i don't think so. but i digress.

what i mean to say is you don't really have to hide it with me and i don't have to seek it out of you. your excessive brightness is meant to cover your ghosts, an overpour of white light to hide the fact that you are, in fact, not okay. while it might blind others, it doesn't blind me.

i've gotten used to staring at you through your excessiveness and your underwhelmingness. i've picked it apart silently just by staring at you. but just as you find comfort in my physical presence, i find the same. staring at you makes me feel and realize you're here, that you're not a specter. that, through weathering the worst, i can keep you in the frame of my gaze and know whether or not you're still okay.

you're like the comfort of my eyes, regardless of what it is you're going through, because it makes you human and i like that about you.

my eyes like that about you.

i saw a clip of you from suji's vlog. if i said you look different, you know i'd be lying. you look as you usually do with me— your walls down, the excessive brightness gone. you look human, comfortable. the gleam in your eyes isn't there. your posture is lacking. the smile only half meets your eyes. you're wearing white and it's very pretty on you.

you look like you're committing this to memory. like if you sink in it forever, it'll remain in the forefront, replaying and replaying and replaying.

you look gentle. it makes me want to open my arms, tell you to come and give me a hug (only if you want to). to round out your hurt and grievances into something soft and bearable.

i think people have wondered why i stare so much.