us-niverse-blog

[us-niverse-blog]

plague

You argue about who I am

Then leave for me all the blame

You fight over my existence

When all I want is acceptance

  You say that I can be fixed

Am I broken? Am I not a whole?

You say that I shouldn’t live

Are we not same; flesh and bone?

 You curse Hellfire on me

Swear of pain and misery

Say that heaven closes its door

That God hates me and so much more

 Then please ask that God of yours

If this love is so forbidden,

Why does He let it plague my soul

[us-niverse-blog]

Happy Mother’s Day

The last time I wished you a "Happy Mother's Day" was 7 years ago. It was a small event arranged by the school, and singing "Bunda" by Melly Goeslawㅡclicheㅡ, I gave you a rose. We hugged so tight and cried so loud. You told me not to cry and I cried even louder. I didn't know whether I cried because I was sorry or I was grateful, or because during that kind of situation, you were just obliged to cry.

The last time I greeted you a "Happy Birthday" was some time when I was 13. We went to a restaurant and you celebrated it with your friends, leaving me at my seat smiling awkwardly at the elders. Since then, I've always been nervous at August 19th, knowing the next day is your birthday and practicing my greeting. Tried and failed the exact same times.

We're even in this case. Because you even forget my birthday. Still haven't figured out how you mixed up July 5th with May 7th ㅡokay, understandableㅡ and May 12th ㅡnot understandable.

The last time we hugged and kissed, was out of my memory. I guess it was some times during my childhood. When I was still a spoiled little kid, who refused to sleep if not cuddled next to you and whose tummyache could only be cured by your palm on my belly. We used to exchange "I love you"s every night in a singsong tone you made up and I didn't know when or why we stopped.

Most children's love to their parents is obligatory. Because they are their parents and because without them, they won't exist. But mine is not. I love you not because I won't be able to live without you but because you are there when I'm at the top and at the pit bottom, because I messed up and you love me nontheless, because that evening, when I went home late and drenched because of the rain, unlike the usual days when you'd scold me, you appeared with a towel and a bowl of warm soup. That was the moment I realized I would not be able to live without you.

Isn't it what it is to love someone? Not being able to picture a life without them. I decided to live for you, a tattoo carved on my wrist of your birthday ㅡa date you, too, forget. So, even if I forget the last time I said "I love you", daringly and confidently, trust me. I do.

[us-niverse-blog]

For Aleppo

One man is shot at the arm, another complains his coffee's no longer warm.

A child wails, his leg chopped off from his knee. Another child wails, his favorite show isn't on TV.

A family hides behind ruins, praying never to be found. Another circles the dining table but no one makes a sound.

A woman has just died for her baby to live. Another woman in her living room, preparing a Christmas gift.

Some loud voices come from explosion and shotguns. Some loud voices come from blaring speakers yelling some fun.

Some people send their last message, wishing the world would listen for once.

Some people might no longer hope for a helpful hand, just a thoughful prayer.

Some people just want to survive, despite staying alive in fear.

But some others are too selfish, thinking "as long as it doesn't happen here."

It happens here,under the same sky across the seas.

We all are just separated by the furthest six degrees.

As long as we step on the same earth, beneath the same stars.

We're all brothers and sisters, no matter how far.

[us-niverse-blog]

Here Is

Here's to the poets who change the pronouns in their poems

And those who feel like guests in their own living rooms

Here's to the boys who hide the make-ups when their parents knock

Who receives "don't be such a girl" as part of daily mocks

Here's to the girls who wear long jeans and baggy sweatshirts

Despite loving stocking, tank-top, and frilly short skirts

But was taught that wearing so is an "invitation" to man

As if she was a party in which rape is the main event

Here's to the children who feel the safest in their closet

Who find monsters not under the bed, but in strangers they never met

Who are scared of falling in love, not for the hurt of loving but pain of rejection

In society that is so terribly rotten that aliens cancel their invasion

Here's to teen boys who get laughed at for being virgin

And to those who get mistaken by words "gay" and "feminine"

As if woman is a tool to determine masculinity

As if a man is not a man if he plays with barbie

[us-niverse-blog]

KNOTS

I am walking along the knots of my thoughts and find out things that are surprising. More or less. The first knot is pink like, cotton-candy-pink. There lies hundreds of questions about love ㅡabout feelings and emotions, but mostly loveㅡ about whether it is possible to hand so much portion of your heart to someone. You're a gambler who do not know how much exactly you are going to lose. Even when you do, you don't. Above all questions though, it questions the necessity of having a lover. Is love not coming in many forms? Is it not okay to live with the loving of family and friends, of pets and arts? Is human so vulnerable it needs a significant other to stay alive? I ignore the first knot and walk over the second one. This time, it's blue. On it the names of people who were once in my life, and on the other side the names of people who are still in my life. Very little have their names on both sides. It's okay, of course. The thing is, encounters are temporary and sometimes, goodbyes are forever. People come and go in every sequence of your life, and at the end of the day, you can only depend on yourself. Because once you've given a part of you to someone and he/she goes away with it, you've lost yourself, too. Do you always lose a little of yourself when you find somebody else? I frown and looks back at the first knot. Then decide to just visit the third. I almost miss the third one because it's transparent. But when you look a bit more closely, you'll see life. In it, the dreams of people who still pursue for them or have given up on them. In it, the laughter of a newborn and the tears of broken-up lovers. In it, time and space, tying altogether what's within. Of course it questions what most humans question: the purpose. Life promises to us that we live not only to die. That we live not only to graduate and get work, probably a family, and die. Until now, though, life hasn't fulfilled its promise. Not at least to me. I've met a traveler who claimed he understood life in the South hill in Kenya, and a writer who knows life from the scratch of ink on an old paper. How are we seeking for life in wooden tables and slides of presentation? Dizzy, I move on to the last knot. It is not easy reaching there. It's placed furthest, like hiding from curious wanderers. Like not wanting to be found. The last knot is jet black, the blackest of black that it is almost void. The same black that fills 75% of the universe. The knot is me. And I do not mean it literally. I, too, only know because on it, carved the series of my stories. The timeline of my not-so-long journey, the deepest secrets and memories I start to forget. In it, the other 3 knots and other of thousand knots, too many that it might burst in any second. But it does not and it will not. And I only know because I, too, bear this much of burdens. What am I and what happens after I perish? Will the world still remember me or do I disappear like I've never existed? Is there really a soul or does it die along with my mortal body? Or is life is just a scary-but-possible loop of time and when I die, I was born again? Same name, same face, same life. Over and over again until infinite amount of time. Ad infinitum. I sit down in front of the knot, staring at it and try to get answers. I don't, of course. But I sit down and stare anyway.

[us-niverse-blog]

A short paragraph based on this tweet

“The sky’s filled with lights but not the ones I want to see” - @wheeinr (20160418)

What, my love, are you looking for?

What, my love, do you wish to see?

Is it not beautiful the stars that flicker, courting you with their dance show? Aligning in a pattern only you and I know, delivering codes that we, too, fail to solve.

Maybe it’s not the stars you want to see tonight. I am, too, jealous at the way they twinkle together, brighter when with each other.

But is it not beautiful the city lights, in all colors humans can and cannot name? Awakened when we’re asleep, witnessing late night phone calls and kisses at 2 AM.

Maybe it’s not the city lights you want to see tonight. Their flashy lights too blinding, it’s hurting.

What about the planes and their lights, my love? Cutting through the skyline like a tail of a comet, making you wish you could fly with someone you never met.

Maybe it’s not that lights you want, either. Too far away to be seen, too fast gone by the wind.

Is it sunshine you wish to view, my love? Shimmer of hope and new promises, for sometimes nights can be plain darkness and alley of nemesis.

Maybe you don’t really wait for sunshine this time, for every morning leads to the same nights. Like every love shatter to the same fights.

Or perhaps, is it mirror, you suit to see, my love?

For you’re the brightest beam, that everything around you looks dark and dim. Lights and rays are only seen in darkness, not in brightness.

Maybe that is why, my love, you cannot see the lights out--they are always within.

[us-niverse-blog]

This Morning, Too

The air smelled like burnt toast with a tint of cinnamon

Only, no one had ever made breakfast.

The lone worker ate anywhere but his room

and his job was nothing but surviving another day.

The blanket tasted like perfume and string of memories

of one body who used to melt at the touch of a lover

and now was nowhere to be found, not because was lost

But because she had found herself in the arm of who knows?

The wall’s crack was a lot wider than it was last year

leaving a peeping hole that looked black as jet

You spent hours taping down the hole, to no avail of course

--Whom exactly were you hiding from?

There’s always something poetic about being mildly lonely

Like the resonance of your thoughts by the ceiling,

sending tales of days you spent sleeping alone

Because there was nothing left but a glimpse of lipstick stain

Or the creaking rust of the bathroom door

in which you always forced to lock

--whom exactly were you hiding from?

Whom exactly were you looking for?

[us-niverse-blog]

Solar’s Daily Memo : “Today was first broadcast! Our Moomoos thank you ㅎ.ㅎ Let’s run along all the way!!!!!!! - Picture of 뾰동이 (Pointed and round)” (rough trans)

[us-niverse-blog]

Décalcomanie

You are the art that I was

A pottery of my blue-print

A miniature out of glass

All my mistakes are your sin

You are the scratch of my pen

The right to my left, up to my down

I am o one and you are ten

An exact image that is drawn

When I stand, you stand too

I sing a lullaby and you will coo

If I am happy, then so are you

If I’m sad, you too, are blue

For a moment it feels less lonely

Knowing that now I have somebody

Yet slowly it becomes less free

For if I am, then also you will be

What once was new and compelling

Now turn out to be nothing but terrifying

For even if I run away to the furthest corner

You will always be there, forever

[us-niverse-blog]

It’s weird to think that outer space is the natural state of the universe. It’s foreign and scary to us, but as far as existence is concerned, space is the most normal and natural state.

[us-niverse-blog]

I'm Sorry

He scribbled down on his note and for as much times he wrote down words, crumpled paper was thrown away to the dustbin --some in, some landed a tad too far. It was unusual, for him to be uneasy about writing. Stories usually poured out from his pen as naturally as waterfalls. He wrote the way humans breathed --the way sun rose from the East and Christmas came every December. Only, that night, his thoughts were tight knots of doubts. Of regrets, fears, and a distant familiar, yet salty, feeling of missing someone. He was friend with sadness though. That was where the ideas came from. He wrote best when he was sad, so he could mercilessly make others cry along with him. However, that night's sadness was alien to him. It suffocated him, it tightly clenched his heart to the extent he wanted to vomit. It made him gulp down the smoke of the cigarette. It made him want to cry. Giving up on his pen --which he very rarely did-- he reached out for his phone. A cigar still lit laid comfortably between his fingers. Text messages not replied. Phone calls not answered. He still called anyway, just to listen to the voice of hers in the mailbox. It had only been days since she stopped replying, but he was never sure since when he had lost grasp of her. Her existence as a whole and not as a mere stain of lipstick on his pillow or trace of her perfume on his sheet. He didn't know if he still deserved to reminisce about her. Giving up staring at his phone, he then averted his gaze to meet the light of the moon. It was very pale tonight and it shone too bright he felt as if it was mocking him. He'd prefer the sky pitch black, as black as the funeral so at least he could pretend he died. He knew all too well it was his faults, which made the clutch in his heart tightened with guilt, because it'd be a lot easier if there was something else to blame, right? Even if it was the situation. Even if it was God. Giving up staring at the moonlight, his pupils anxiously wandered around the room, desperately trying to find anything to lay his eyes on. Anything but the ticking clock that reminded him of the past that could not be rewinded --even if it could, would he be able to promise not to re-do the same mistake?-- Anything but the door which she slammed shut the day she left --she never really did and he knew. It was him letting go of her that she now slipped off out of his reach. Anything but the bed with only a creased part on the left, and hollow on the other side --maybe it was best for her to find a better bed to sleep on, the way someone slept on his. Anything but his phone that was beeping with her name on it. His fingers were shaking. Eyes at nothing but words of her name. A minute left and he hadn't moved. Another minute and he had yet to open the text. When he finally did, the words he read was the climax of the unfamiliar sadness he had been encountering. "I'm sorry" Like how you rode on a roller coaster, the sadness piled up and finally reached its highest point. Only, the roller coaster stopped there and never came down. So, he would never be able to feel the euphoria of riding down when he could finally scream in freedom --escaped from the sorrow. He never would, never could. And had I mentioned how the sadness made him want to cry? He did.

[us-niverse-blog]

TAEYEON 태연_ I (feat. Verbal Jint)_Music Video

[us-niverse-blog]

feels..

[LYRIC TRANSLATION] TAEYEON - "I"

Sky that pours light (I) stand under it Fly as if I’m dreaming My life is a beauty A story I’ve heard often somewhere Ugly duckling and swan, a butterfly before it flies People don’t know, they don’t see your wings A new world you’ve met could be cruel But strong girl, you know you were born to fly Tears you’ve cried, all of the pain you’ve felt It’s to prepare you for the day you’ll fly even higher Butterfly, Everybody’s gonna see it soon Sky that pours light (I) stand under it Fly as if I’m dreaming My life is a beauty Forgotten dream, I draw it again in my heart Collect all of the times I withdrew and swallow it Small memories wake me up one by one It opens me up, as if it’ll fill the whole world Past the long, long night Want to embark on the road for a trip again Why not? In this world, One word that awakens my heart Yesterday, I was alone Countless gazes Falling tears I withstood another day again Yesterday, that was a close call All of the words that poured out It embraced me, who was shaking, again Sky that pours light (I) stand under it Fly as if I’m dreaming My life is a beauty My life is a beauty Flower petals wilt I had difficult times, but followed a small light Distant day, let it go far, faraway I fly splendidly Sky that pours light Renewed eyes (Renewed eyes) Fly far away (Fly high, fly high) Beauty that belongs only to me Moment I close my eyes Time stops I rise again

[TRANS by Stella ♡]