humaintain - Tumblr blog

[humaintain]

my first newsletter of 2024 💌. welcome back everyone :3

[humaintain]

[humaintain]

A Yielding

after Toeti Heraty

Let us settle down, love. No more heartbreak. The rice cooker has always been turned on. The rice tender and warm. I don't forget, in this version of my life. Neither do you.               Malam tidak menggebrak masuk melalui halaman (jika kita bisa memanggilnya halaman) belakang, tetapi menyelinap dingin di atas linoleum menguning, membawa tenteram & bukannya ancaman-ancaman belaka.1 

We leave behind the jagged edges of ourselves. 

Ayo kita tanggalkan belati diri yang terpaksa ini.2                                     jati diri

/

autotranslation:

1. Night doesn't break in / through the backyard (if we can even call it one) / but slips, frigidly by, on top of the yellowing / linoleum, carrying tranquility & not / mere empty threats.

2. Come disarm the blade   we were forced to be.                           the person

[humaintain]

achilles

in this one, his heart doesn't stop. or his death

unavenged. in here we are the gods who cradle him

in our limbs, too flesh a thing who bears pain like a calling,

like it is what he is built and smelt to be. and it is. and how bruising

our song was. he was a stone yet we awoke him. somehow

his heart was there and we just let it be. we both thought

he was unmovable. then he let the pain go through his tendons.

ripping,

[humaintain]

things i want June 2022

Dark worn baggy jeans. Slingback flats. A handbag. Going out with my friends without scrutinizing my Flazz card. Stability (as I've been wanting for the past 6 years). More spiced coffee. Agar hatinya bisa terbuka lebih lebar. So much so that he can actually touch me. Not just an abandoned daughter. More drive in my own arms. More reaching out. More uncorking of my own soul. More opening of soju bottles. Making time for gratitude. Looking up. Being here.

[humaintain]

They forced me to take it off.

I'll wear it again.

I was wrong.

This was my fault.

You both were right all along.

I should've stayed quiet and knew you were right all along.

<alt text starts> "Pakai lagi, nak," mama's fingers are digging into her wrist – her anguished eyes looking into Aisyah's, her voice rasped, the veins of her neck jutting out painfully – and it hurts. "Kalau semua orang ngeliat kayak gimana?" 

Aisyah barely held the choked laughter in. 

Of course that is what what mama's afraid of. Of being seen, and known.

Papa's voice slices through the air. "Aisyah," and she wants to flinch away. "Kurang ajar kamu bikin mama stres waktu Adam juga lagi begini."

He framed it as if he had no stake in this, but – the disapproval rang clear in his hard eyes. She knows he's right – she saw how the accident shattered her mother. She knows how mama immediately gathered and patched the broken pieces of herself up. She knows how tightly mama smiled around the sniggers and sarcasm when the PTA moms visited Adam: a son she couldn't rein, and soon enough, a daughter gone wild. And here Aisyah was: fulfilling that ugly divination, her exposed hair swirling in the humidity and compressing those shards into dust – here are both of her children, dua anak durhaka, and behind them, a failed mother. <alt text ends>

[humaintain]

1. COLLEGE FOOTBALL: my high school boys were underachievers, and it showed. there was no trophy lining the halls, nothing to prove themselves of their worth. but they sought it through different avenues, didn’t they? thousands of millions of rupiahs down in the drain for the vapid thrill of it in the clubs and bars lining senopati and pondok indah. and of course there were the ones who thought they were above it all. they carried that glory in the way they skipped school and paid their schoolwork off. i can’t believe they still think any of this is enough.

2. GRAPEFRUIT: the scent of many fancy soaps lining high-end hotels.

3. SEA: bali, before the 2010s, before my concept of families fractured into nothing.

4. ANTLERS: the flesh of it shedding anew. the not-pain, apparently, even though it seems like rivulets of blood sinking down.

5. DISASTROUS: what i do to myself, unwittingly. i’m trying so hard to change that, though.

6. NYMPH: bidadari, kahyangan.

7. FRESHMAN: it was supposed to be 2 perfect semesters, but it wasn’t. but i’m grateful.

8. LACE: white western lace, but also scratchy, colorful, beautiful kebaya.

9. SMOOTHEN: a hot, smooth rock

10. FAMILY DEATH: august 2020? the world shattering below me. a lifeline cut off. a trip to halmahera, now forever a fleeting what-if. a generation sliced away cleanly from me.

11. RACCOON: skittering along the powerlines

12. MEADOW: i’ve never seen one, i think. i’d love to.

Word Association Activity

Everyone do this please! I’ve listed twelve words/concepts below, please reblog this post with either a word or short phrase you associate with each listed word/concept. Alternatively, you can use these as prompts for art or writing. Thanks!

1. COLLEGE FOOTBALL:

2. GRAPEFRUIT:

3. SEA:

4. ANTLERS:

5. DISASTROUS:

6. NYMPH:

7. FRESHMAN:

8. LACE:

9. SMOOTHEN:

10. FAMILY DEATH:

11. RACCOON:

12. MEADOW:

[humaintain]

수면 위로 비추는 이 세상을 봐: a close reading of taeyong's "dark clouds", "swimming pool", [& "blue" + "long flight"]

All of these songs thematically reference each other. However, both Dark Clouds and Swimming Pool are directly connected through the phrase "수면 위 세상" – the world above the water's surface.

먹구름 (DARK CLOUDS) (soundcloud / genius ENG translation)

in dark clouds, taeyong invites the listener (and in extension, himself) through “this letter” he has written to "look at the world reflecting on the water's surface (수면 위로 비추는 이 세상을 봐)": a reminder that it's okay to take a breath and not only tirelessly move through life. to look at the sky once in a while, where the whales swim, where the stars give light.

taeyong has used this whale imagery before: "Now the size of my heart is a real whale / The shark in my mind is no longer there" in long flight. his compassion and understanding has surrounded him more so than the negative feelings he has had – this kind of thinking has allowed him to give light to others! and he isn't wrong at all.

the alternative title for dark clouds was also “whale” 

he explicitly talked about this mindset change in his vlive too! 

to look up is to have the ability to float and see yourself in a bird's eye view. to know where you stand, and what you're going through in the grand scheme of things. most of the time, the hardships are temporary. to look up gives you perspective. "너도 알잖아?" he asked us – you knew this, didn't you? i knew. i just needed a reminder.

but to be able to do this does require your own effort – it's not merely the simple act of having perspective, you have to internalize it, believe it. "dark mold grows and i can't nip it in the bud [...] / now i face it, i scrape it down, kick & shout / but this is even more painful (싹을 잘라낼 수 없는 검은 곰팡이가 피어 [...] / 나 이제는 마주봐 흠 그래 긁어내려 발악해도 / 이건 더 참 괴로움)"... the process of healing is painful. but better to cut it out when you know if you let it grow, it will only fester. you have to know yourself that surrounding yourself only with your negative emotions will only bring you under the surface, so much so like you've swallowed water – you're drowning.

SWIMMING POOL (soundcloud / genius ENG translation)

what i love about this song is that it isn't the prequel to dark clouds, it is the continuation. i think taeyong made the deliberate decision to release swimming pool after dark clouds – "i will show you the other side" [of the water's surface], “looking at a different world from the one above the water (수면 위 세상과 다른 세상을 봐)” – in order to show that healing, of recovering, is not a clean, linear narrative. you have days where, even after being able to look at the world with bright eyes, all you want is to shut out the world and curl up, lock yourself "inside this frame i made (내가 만든 이 틀에서)".

there is comfort in a bad habit, of knowing and executing your self-sabotage. "Sometimes negative thinking can act as a safeguard that keeps us from the hard work that optimism requires," dominique mkhonza wrote. taeyong in swimming pool knows this all too well – he's tired of running, of making the effort. it's so hard.

"sitting alone in a swimming pool that has no water": this is what he said this song felt like. in verse 3, he has the imperative to drain the water out in this pool he made: it won’t change anything, because it's filled with nothing but “욕심”. 욕심 is a really nuanced word: naver dictionary describes it as "excessive desire", and in context it can either mean greed/ambition/aspiration. an aggressive desire for something. having a lot of 욕심 isn't bad – that means you have something to seek and work for in life– but there are times when you feel like you're only "satisfy[ing your] cravings ([너]의 갈망을 채우기)", just a selfish goal.

this song offers no resolution, either. because when you're in the thick of this, nothing seems to be able to pull you out the deep end – not from others, and certainly not from yourself. it is an honest, bare reflection of what this time of self-isolation feels like.

BLUE (soundcloud / genius ENG translation)

..is not an explicitly connected to dark clouds & swimming pool, but in every other sense it very much is so

his maturity and self-awareness really shines in this. this is a comfort song: not to us the listeners, but to himself too. he knows exactly how to pull himself out the waters now, which was a resolution that was not offered in swimming pool: it is not to isolate your heart, which is the misguided advice he got from other people:

Some people call me a fool Some people say I shouldn't try to understand others Yet the resentment would confine me And keep me from getting out of it, no

누군가는 나를 바보라고해 누군가를 이해하지 말라고해 원망은 날 옥죄어 이 곳 헤어나오지 못하게 하는건데도 no

without sharing your heart with others, all you are left with is a void of your own making. so, taeyong implores: “i hope you show it to me, it won't be embarrassing / [... to] dive in the blue with you, [to] pour it all to me (내게 보여주기 안 창피할테니 / [..] 모든걸 전부 쏟아내)” – he’ll do the same, too.

LONG FLIGHT (MV / genius ENG translation)

i thought dark clouds & swimming pool was a strict duology, but as i was searching for where taeyong has referenced "whales" before, the entirety of long flight's lyrics just bloomed before me and made me realize it was saying hi, i'm his first released work in this series! :)

long flight is definitely connected with dark clouds, or at least conceptualized with it in mind or vice versa, due to taeyong singing the demo during his long flight release vlive! :3

when i first listened to it, i thought the "This is enough(충분해) but I’m still starving baby" line for the chorus was funny and sensual, especially towards the romantic interest he's talking to in this song. but then, it is followed with:

Wanna go up much higher hey So I can touch the top of the sky So I can take in the entire world [...]

Wanna go up much higher hey 하늘 위까지 닿을 수 있게 [...] 세계를 담을 수 있게, mmm

so, having the realization of how much the phrase and concept of 욕심 means to him, i now have the understanding that long flight's lyrics, in its entirety, might also underwent the same alteration process that baby don't like it (나쁜 짓)'s lyrics went through - there were a lot of revisions in its lyrics to make it err, for the lack of better word, "palatable" to the GP. this made the themes of long flight less coherent due to the romance aspect being shifted into it. but that's what words can do: have multi-interpretation, and this still worked in context. 

but i want to honor what the original intention of these lines might be. "it's enough, but i'm still starving". & there's nothing wrong that. to take, to give, to the world so much - if we can find a balance in this process, that's all we can ask of existing.

extra notes:

since he still hasn’t released the official lyrics, this is an analysis based on transcriptions. still, he’s since said that he really appreciates the interpretations, & i will honor that today! hehe

i love how he provides the opposite element, fire, in dark clouds. it cuts through the image he’s painting: the way its intensity makes his feelings flare and bloom in his heart, in comparison to how calming and soothing everything else is. that it reflects in between his blurry eyes – burns red & bright, representing that his negative emotions aren't the only thing defining him. the intensity of his ambition is also what drives him forward – something that keeps him focused, grounded. i think taeyong is a very grounded person: he acknowledges his ups & downs, and that they're both part of him. he isn't always one-or-the-other. his emotions don't define him. he's come to this conclusion after a long, arduous journey – and i'm so happy that here is where he has arrived to.

taeyong is a deliberate, conscious, serious artist. he does a lot of self-referencing across his body of work; he knows what themes and imagery pops up and constantly uses them in order to drive home the narrative he wants to tell. the air (sky)/water (pool) comparison was 100% deliberate too, & it's kinda obvious so i don't think it needs to be expanded here LOL

i knew he is an amazing artist, but with this analysis my awe and respect only grows and expands. i am so inspired by how sure he is of his craft, & so, so excited to see what he wants to share with the world next.

happy 1st year anniversary, tyongcloud! thank you for carrying me through 2021, and continuing to do so this year. thank you, taeyong, for sharing with us the lessons you've learned and the music that was born with it. i’m honored to exist alongside you.

[humaintain]

💌 from my march[?] newsletter

[alt text: an excerpt of tumblr user humaintain’s substack newsletter, titled “I dont think anyone is unloveable u r spending a lot of time alone in ur room”. It was published on March 10th 2022, and has 3 likes at the time of screen capture. The content reads:

I spent a long time in high school thinking that I would forever be an observer. That I would be allowed merely to glimpse those intense-bright-volatile moments of life — heartbreak/fury/joy to be some of them — but that I would never be involved, be inside, be the subject of those situations. But it wasn’t that. It was that I never allowed myself to be vulnerable when[where it mattered. I ate my heart out in front of a comparatively, punily-sized “audience”, silent enough I thought they were just wisps, and hid the gore from my family and friends. They would never want to see any of this, was my thought. And they would never understand, anyway. Foolish girl. Why didn’t I believe them when they said they would be there for me? I believed in the world’s kindness — an abstract conception — yet their extended hands could never fully grasp mine because I recoiled the last second. Thought it was kind, but fleeting. Then they left before I could push through those layers of excuses and hold their hands back. What was I thinking?

end of alt text.]

[humaintain]

I SING THIS TO NO ONE BUT I HOPE SHE'S LISTENING

and tells me that it's okay to cradle hope            the way someone picks at their scabs.

i never thought of myself as a god, but maybe,            laughingly, a prophet. destined for anything else

other than this–other than glimpsing lustre            yet never owning it. i wanted my hands

to wring cerebrospinal fluid to understanding,            my name a gasping breath to all the girls pulled

into too many directions. my name: immortalized in textbooks,            in literary canons, in nebulae. hope, a strange,

viscous thing–gripping me the opposite way my mother            sharpens reality into a knife but guts me the same way

my grandma let her do to her stomach. history silent in its violence:            the way three generations sleep in one bed

and never acknowledge the hurt bruising below their diaphragm.            yes, i admit, i'm choking on all these visions of the future

and i, unlike a prophet, selfishly reach out to the one            where i am destined for greatness and the others

drop dead around me. i'm holding the bludgeon. and i, unlike a god,            don't have the hands to scoop the blood back

into their glittering bodies. but the knife does its job, twisting my insides            to see blearily into the future–a cold reality.

i am no seer. god, i wish i were. i wish my hair            could be twisted into a crown and we could all

call it a day. but hope is a blister that tells me            to never let go. but reality tries harder to open up

an exit wound, and tells me that i'm a monster            for letting my inferno swallow the world to roaring ashes.

but this is a pipedream i disguise as fate–            i'm willing to scar for it. my chest is a cage

i'm rattling out of. girls with sharp ambitions must dull themselves out            until they can touch anyone without skinning them alive.

(2017)

— from my chapbook, if i’m not a fire then what am i (madina malahayati chumaera, jun 2020) | if you’re in indonesia, click here! there’s also added extra commentary that can be seen on instagram / twitter.

[humaintain]

reflection

after fka twigs’ meta angel

                               ]  i don't want to be the version of myself that looks hopelessly[forlornly up, waiting for the world to take her away. [                                      ] yes i wish i didn't have to tiptoe through life knowing what sliver of happiness i have can be so brutally stricken down. but that doesn’t mean i only have things that i can't control. i have a lot of power in my hands. i can pick up that arrow and kill that girl in the white. not out of self-hatred or bitterness, but so that we both can move on. i forgive her. of course i do. how could i not, when i know of everything that she went through? 

                                       but i don't need hands that don't flinch when it touches fire. i don't need a girl that waits for death to whisk her away. i need mouths that speak and hands that do things, protecting herself and the people she loves. that can draw boundaries. i'm sick of waiting for a miracle, when my muscles haven't moved a twitch. 

i don't want the mirror to scream where did i go anymore.

i'm right here. my hands are ready.

[humaintain]

I would say to get the character in your mind. Once he is in your mind, and he is right, and he’s true, then he does the work himself. All you need to do then is to trot along behind him and put down what he does and what he says. It’s the ingestion and then the gestation. You’ve got to know the character. You’ve got to believe in him. You’ve got to feel that he is alive, and then, of course, you will have to do a certain amount of picking and choosing among the possibilities of his action, so that his actions fit the character which you believe in. After that, the business of putting him down on paper is mechanical. Most of the the writing has got to take place up here before you ever put the pencil to the paper. But the character’s got to be true by your conception and by your experience, and that would include, as we’ve just said, what you’ve read, what you’ve imagined, what you’ve heard, all that going to giving you the gauge to measure this imaginary character by, and once he comes alive and true to you, and he’s important and moving, then it’s not too much trouble to put him down.

William Faulkner on starting a novel (via nosebleedclub)

[humaintain]

trying to get back into the groove of it (transcription below)

there's no knife or blood in this one, only the lukewarm air conditioner and my mother's hard snore in this un/yielding world. no ichor smelted in the cracked concrete, but rather the glaring difference of a cityscape artificially made beautiful and the reality.                               how many more poems will i write about how hard & brutal this perpetuality is? about appreciating the little things, the shimmers and whatnot-- all against the gaping doom those above us, greedier than us,

have forced humanity to? the scent of lemongrass in the air like a balm for this screaming gnash against the bone marrow of the world. temporary & never a cure. the beautiful little things distracting me, like a child.

[humaintain]

my remix of chiara situmorang’s poem alexandrite was published in utopia: a remix zine (mixed by jessica ginting)! head over the link to savor the beautiful works for this theme <3 

[alt text below]

transmission: X23320312-AQwE#456433opQ blind carbon copy: X23320312-AQwE#456433opX

STATUS: sent through worm tunnel 22rt3,                emergent in white hole #453234550292029e_9

[BEGIN MESSAGE...]

blossomed      bloomed I pick the flowers oh bleeding moon, i worship you:      your transit & the tides you pull, in a different realm...

Solaria weeps at your power, but Her flower, forgive me, wraps[have][will][always] around my heart. did you hate her, when you cast her away? did you hate that chain tethering you both, so much you cast

What Once Was Us out? i studied the calculations, the walls that separated us, that was supposed                to be us & found nothing more than just years of longing. and screaming... you couldn't be her,

not even her light, which you borrowed, and claimed for yourself.

[humaintain]

if you currently can’t afford the price for any reason, some amazing people have generously sponsored copies of my chapbook!!!! (i’m so so so grateful). please don’t hesitate to message me here, too, if you want a copy!!.

IF I’M NOT A FIRE THEN WHAT AM I

my (currently only digital) chapbook of 35 selected writings from 2015-2019, is here!!! 💖✨ current price is rp35k / $3. including some unreleased writings!

google forms: https://forms.gle/2TiqXw3kPQdeMBvAA (to pay with wire transfer in rupiah, & honestly if ur my friend just DM me haha) payhip: https://payhip.com/b/QvxB

[humaintain]

IF I'M NOT A FIRE THEN WHAT AM I

my (currently only digital) chapbook of 35 selected writings from 2015-2019, is here!!! 💖✨ current price is rp35k / $3. including some unreleased writings!

google forms: https://forms.gle/2TiqXw3kPQdeMBvAA (to pay with wire transfer in rupiah, & honestly if ur my friend just DM me haha) payhip: https://payhip.com/b/QvxB

[humaintain]

my piece A FIELD GUIDE ON LIVING THROUGH THE END TIMES* was published on kudeta magazine for their immediate worlds issue! (i also was hired as a managing editor hehe v honored)

an except:

5. ARE YOU ARMED? ARE YOU SELF-SUFFICIENT? WILL YOU SURVIVE WHEN THE WORLD COLLAPSES ON ITSELF? let me tell you a secret: these questions don’t matter if you have money. you pay for other people to be armed, to suffice your needs, to survive for you. you pay for your mbak and supir to die first. you pay for the mbak-mbak kasir and ojek drivers to die first.

please also check out our carrd on #papuanlivesmatter: we need to talk about papua