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milkhwi · 6 years

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So Close, Yet so Far - Park Jisung

summary: loving someone is painful especially if they don’t love you back, you’ll die

genre: hanahaki! au, aNGST, 0.1% fluff

warnings: Death, blood, throwing up, & probably not all proof read

word count: 2.2k

note: to the anon who requested angst, this is the best i could doo (i need to improve my writting skills) i finished this at 3 am so if it doesn’t make sense iM really sOrRY

italics = thoughts

m.list

“Be careful of who you want to end up loving.”, is something your parents would always say. Luckily for both of them, they ended up falling in love with each other and no death involved there (You didn’t really care much about love, at the age of 10) Your friends- on the other hand, already had found the perfect person they wanted to spend their lives with. It’s basically like soulmates- except you can fall in love with anyone and fall out of love. Except falling in love can probably kill you, with flowers.

One great thing about you is, it wasn’t easy catching feelings.

“So anyone that interests you?” One of your highschool classmates said, called Donghyuck, with a hint of curiosity.

“Hmmm, well, uh, no.” You sighed- both, in relief and stress. You wanted to feel excitement, your heart flutter, and love. Couples were everywhere but a few people weren’t lucky. At the same time, you were scared of dying. A mere mistake of falling in love with the wrong person could give me a goddamn disease ending up with- “Don’t worry, maybe you’re destined with someone perfect for you.” Jeno, your classmate who you met a few months back who coincidentally, hasn’t been interested in anyone but his studies. “I think I should give up looking for now and focus on something else.”

It’s been 8 months and no luck. Truly, you don’t really care anymore. Jeno on the other hand, already was in love with someone and got lucky. Sadly enough for you, he stopped hanging out with you everyday. You were happy for him when he told you the news but then a bit upset after he started dating. You did miss having him next to you. But you can make a few new friends, right?

The sound of the rain made you feel- well, less lonely. The sound of thunder falling like it was the end of the world. The lighting making it feel like it was a terrifying yet beautiful sight. It made you realize life wasn’t that shitty after all.

Another start to a hellish school year. They just get worse and worse. It goes two ways: more couples or less people alive. This school year Jeno has talked to you more now since you have a few classes together. He’s also been brighter than before, “Y/n!! Today you’re gonna meet one of my closest friends!!”

“Oh? Is he going to attend this school?” You said confused about why he randomly blurted that out. Jeno nodded, excited for the day to start.

Later that day, the news spread out like wildfire that a new student was transferring. Obviously, everyone wanted to know who it was. Being highschool kids meant curious about whoever is a new transfer student.

While entering Biology class, you spotted a few familiar faces and a boy who smiled at the sight of Jeno. “Jisung!! It’s been so long! I hope you enjoy being here!” You smiled at how Jeno could easily make the atmosphere bright up in a short amount of time.

You noticed how Jisung wasn’t much of a talker, but tried his best to answer all the questions about himself that they asked. It made your heart flutter a bit. (But you obviously ingnoring it thinking it was nothing.)

You and Jisung had actually a lot of things in common. It’s like the gods heard you, wanting to meet a person who made you feel completely happy. If anyone saw the both of you together they would think both of you would be dating. You and Jisung would instantly deny it but your face would be heating up- unlike his. You didn’t want to catch on feelings so soon and denied it. (But your heart wanted to say otherwise.)

“Hey y/n, do you wanna hang out today? Like outside of school?” Jisung said, giving you a smile. It’s the last class for today and you didn’t have any plans for tonight. (Unless scrolling through your phone was a plan). You smiled to yourself and instantly answered back but waited atleast three seconds, “Sure!”

It was also the first time Jisung asked you to hang out. You felt your mind being filled with different scenarios of what could possibly happen. Some made your heart flutter a bit.

“So, Jisung, were are we going?” You smiled at him, excitement rising up.

“Let’s get ice cream?” Jisung said, sounding more like a question.

Later on, you both sat at a bench near a playground. He smiled at the children playing together. You looked at his face features. You definitely smiled without noticing. How his pink lips made him look cuter, especially with a smile plastered on him. How his eyes followed the sight of the children running around, laughing. And how his hair fell down, it looked so soft that you just wanted to run your hand through it for hours. He was so close yet so far from your reach.

He turned to see you, causing you to quickly turn away and look at a few buildings near by. “Oh, do you wanna go there?” He happily said. So is this a date or not?

“Oh! Yeah, let’s see if we can find anything before we go home” You faked smiled, questions lingered in your head about Jisung.

On the way, Jisung decided to drop you home and visit a few of his old classmates. Midway, you spotted a girl, maybe around both your ages, she was staring at Jisung with a wide smile and ran towards him and gave him a hug, to which, Jisung returned surprised at her actions. That made your heart break but you ignored it again, thinking you were jumping into conclusions. “Jisung! How have you been? How’s school so far? Have you made any friends? Do you miss me?” The girl, full of questions looked at him happily. Is she- does she like him? Perhaps you were right.

“I’ve been good, it’s actually fun, yes I have, and I do miss you and the rest of you guys!” Jisung smiled back at her. You felt out of place in the conversation since you were confused about the whole sudden meeting right infront of you. You sighed, deciding to introduce yourself to her, only about to be caught off. “Oh! Is she your girlfriend? Did you guys go on a date~?” She said, giving Jisung a teasingly smile.

“Hahaha no she isn’t my girlfriend and it wasn’t a date!” Jisung said playfully arguing back to her. A few minutes later you sighed, not wanting to hear more about their conversation since both of them completely ignored your presence.

“Okay, I’m gonna go home now. Bye Jisung and uh-“

“Ivy” She smiled at you, slowly waving you off.

Once you got home, you immediately went straight to your bed and layed there, thinking. I should’ve known he doesn’t like me. You tried putting all the pieces together but you couldn’t. Maybe it was how he looked at her and how she looked at him. You realized you haven’t gotten any disease meaning Jisung does like you, correct?

wrong.

You woke up and you couldn’t breathe properly. You started coughing and felt sick all of a sudden. Once you started coughing more, blood came out. So you immediately headed to the bathroom and threw up. You felt a few petals coming out of your mouth. They’re the color red- perhaps because of the blood. Red Cypress flowers; meaning death, despair, and mourning. You didn’t know what to do. How long do I have until I die? Surely not enough, right? You were nervous about going to school now. You weren’t planning on telling your friends any time soon- or your parents. Luckily since you barely started with the disease, it wouldn’t be that bad the first few days.

Heading to school was definitely painful. You felt your heart hurt and sting at random times and you didn’t know what to do or how to fix it. You felt scared and nervous. This isn’t how you wanted it to be. You were definitely unlucky- loving someone who didn’t love you back.

“Hey Y/n, sorry about what happened last week, it’s just I haven’t seen my friend since forever” Jisung said, walking with you to your next class.

“It’s fine! I know what it feels like, too. So don’t worry about anything!” You tried your best to act perfectly fine even though you were dying inside.

A few weeks have passed, and you started drifting away from Jisung and your friends. They didn’t know the reason why, so they decided to ask you. “No reason, I’m not just feeling it today.” Is all you would tell them. Eventually they gave up on you. Which caused more flowers to appear.

Every single day, you woke up to blood spilling out of your mouth and more Cypress flowers coming out of your mouth. Sometimes you woke up in the middle of the night not being able to breathe well. You could hardly sleep anymore. Your parents noticed that you were less and less brighter than before. They would atleast have a serious conversation with you once a week but you told them you were fine and that you’re happy. It was believable enough, so they left you alone.

You were running out of time.

Pushing them away made you feel worse about yourself. Nothing you did make you feel better. You tried to forget about Jisung but, it didn’t even work. Jisung was still there even though you kept trying your best to push him away. You wanted to keep quiet but of course, that didn’t happen.

“Y/n! Please just tell me. We’re all worried about you.”

You thought about telling him but it didn’t matter anymore. Lie.

“I’m- I’m moving out.”

You wish you could’ve told him- but if you did, he would’ve wanted to help you out and which you rather not.

You could’ve sworn Jisung’s eyes turned glassy.

“Oh- well I hope you’ll find other people that will make you smile once again just like we did.”

Those were the last words Jisung told you after you left. Your parents disagreed to the moving out plan but you told them about the flowers. Your mom wasn’t smiling anymore and you could hear her cry at times in the nighttime.

Days and Nights passed and you didn’t hear from Jisung anymore. Perhaps he was happy with others. Your last days were coming to an end anyways.

Jeno and Donghyuck found out about you and felt like they were terrible friends but they didn’t know how they could’ve helped. They wanted you to get surgery but you decided not to, since it was your fault for falling in love with a boy who was never going to know how you felt.

Your parents, Donghyuck, and Jeno decided to make you smile atleast for a day, and also took you outside to look at the sun shining. If a person saw all of you, it would’ve seen like all of you were one of the happiest families. Even though they didn’t know when your time was up, they felt that you still had a few months and decided to have fun again the next day.

That same night you died. There weren’t enough words to explain the situation. Sure everything was perfect hours before- perhaps they were too perfect that it made you feel so happy. Something you shouldn’t have felt.

3 days later and Jisung found out. Chenle told him not to blame himself but he did. Every single day. He felt worse and worse each day. He had Jeno and Donghyuck with him. All they did tell him was that you had written him something. They didn’t want to talk about you since the wound was still hurting.

“It’s all my fault, because of me” Is all Jisung could ever say. Was he was dying inside? Yes he was. He felt so empty without you. He realized he wouldn’t see you smile brightly at him anymore. And he was dying because of you.

Jisung was also coughing up blood and flowers. Asphodels- meaning regret. They told him to get surgery, since they didn’t want to lose him like they did to you.

The day after his surgery, he went and visited you. He noticed that it was his first time visiting you after the last time he actually saw you. He should’ve said he loved you.

There he saw there was a note that had his name and read like this; Dear Jisung, I’m sorry for falling in love with you. I’m sorry I lied to you. I couldn’t help fall in love with you- but I didn’t stand a chance. So if you see this, please find someone who will love you back. Maybe in another lifetime we will actually spend our lives together.

He knew his feelings for you were gone, but he still cried. Why was life so cruel to him? Was this how it was supposed to end? He always wanted a happy ending but unfortunately, life gave him the worst ending.

And just like that he realized that he wasn’t ever going to see you in this timeline.

#nct dream #Park Jisung #nct #nct 2018 #nct imagines #lee donghyuck #lee jeno #zhong chenle #nct x reader #nct fluff #nct scenarios #kpop fluff #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines

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slowbladed · 5 years

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you know with kh3 ended, the xehanort chronicles finished i have a lot of thoughts on my history, my experiences, my memories...

i got into the game in july of 2017. i got it on amazon, i sat down and just played it. it took me about a week to finish everything except 2.8. i normally dont really do that with video games. in fact, kingdom hearts is the first game that really pulled me in like that. and i always found it funny.

see, growing up, i didn’t have a ps2, or a gba, or a ds. but my godparents did, and my god brother wanted to desperately show me kh1. and i did. i played it and i couldnt get past any of the worlds. so i kind of just put it to the side and forgot about it. i was maybe 5. a year or so later, he tried again with kh2. i played it, and i would always play roxas’s story. i just loved roxas and loved doing skate tricks. but otherwise i watched him play it, and one day he gave me his gba+chain of memories to play for a bit. i got lost, but i met larxene and was big gay. and i remember, i remember my friend playing kh2, and getting stuck at demyx and beating it for him. i remember loading up my old ps2 kh2 save file that someone played on and fighting xemnas. for a long time i had a kh2 poster. kh1 was the first cd i ever got. simple and clean was something i listened to all the time, both the orchestra and the opening.

my memory is awful. i dont remember much of anything from my childhood because of severe abuse growing up. many memories, both good and bad, i oppressed because of how awful it was. but its funny, i still remember that feeling of happiness hearing sora talk about hearts and things. and i always found it funny that kh is one of the things that stick in my heart, and it wasn’t even the game that kept me together through my childhood (that goes out to halo). i still remember getting lost in agrabah in com. i still remember fighting xemnas for the first time. i still remember all these things, but most of my childhood is just gone. you can argue that the reason i focus so much on memories in my writing, that i think so much on this is because im trying to fill the hole of my childhood.

when i was 13, i met one of my long time friends on tumblr. he’d always say “please get into kh” and i would reply “maybe one day”. even funnier, i only bought kh because toy story was confirmed in it. i love toy story, and thats the thing that made me go “yeah, ill get into the series. ill do it for toy story”. i was 19.

of course my friends joked “pt youre finally getting into it!” “it only took you 15 years” “i think your favorite character will be xion, marluxia, etc” and i laughed at them. i told them “xion wont be my favorite” “im only doing it for toy story” but.. part of me feels like i wasnt. part of me feels like i was doing it to reconnect with my childhood. and this is the first time im really admitting it. that part of me missed that nostagia.

i sat down and played it. and i dont know what happened, but i kept playing it. i kept playing it because, even if kh1 wasnt great, there was something to it. i fell in love with marluxias character, but there was one character that resonated with me the most: xion.

and it might sound so stupid, it might sound so fucking STUPID but my biggest fear is being forgotten. my belief is that, even if i die, if people remember me deep in their hearts that i wont die. that ill live on and once people have forgotten me that is when i’d truly will die. man, i even had this idea before i got into kh and i thought it was so DUMB growing up. but seeing xion, seeing her based so much on memories, eating ice cream, laughing with her friends, being abused by the organization, then being forgotten, it resonated so deeply inside me. people think i joke when i say i cried whenever xion comes on screen, but she means so much to me. i guess you could even say that i see her as a reflection of myself. that the reason i cry, the reason i resonate with her, is because i understand how she feels. and its so dumb! its so dumb but its how i feel.

and... then i beat all the games. i beat them and talked to my friends. i made this blog. i made new friends. i became even closer to friends i lost contact with. i reached out to them with kh and we fell back with our usual BS as if a day never went by. we laughed, we cried... one friend that was on call with me through KH2, one that i fell a little out of contact with, cried with me when i beat kh2.

i still remember... i still remember crying when roxas and axel sat on the clock tower. eating ice cream. i dont know why. i didnt even watch days yet. i didnt even like axel. i didnt even get roxas. but that scene always stuck out to me. something about it...

i still remember screaming “THATS NOT RIKU!” when kairi revealed ansem underneath the hood. i remember singing awfully out of tune simple and cleans. i remember joking with my friend “hey that looks like castle oblivion!” in the bbs opening and him laughing at me when that part was revealed. i remember dreaming of xigbar serving me food at a restaurant and my friend telling me something important is going to happen august 28th and sure enough lauriam is revealed

and, this has gotten so long. im a giant sap. im a giant emotional sap that has been so affected by kingdom hearts that watching the current one end and seeing a new one open makes me almost wish i could live in his bubble where i could always experience the first time playing it. im a big sap that wants to finally get all my thoughts, all my emotions down, but even i know that no matter what words i use it can never convey what i want to say. im that one guy who, at the end of kh3 cried so hard and for so long because its over, some of these characters ill never see again. im that idiot that cried midway writing this.

im genuinely sad its over. not in a bittersweet way but just outright sad. but i have to remember that even if i played those games all those years ago, that even if i wont be able to feel that feeling playing the games for the first time, that it gave me... some semblance of a childhood. i was able to experience new things like a kid would. to follow sora through the games and watch him grow up. and its dumb, maybe, but.... thinking about it.... i think thats why the game has made me feel this way. even if i didnt wait years between releases. even if i only waited 1 year for kh3... its still a valid experience and a valid emotion.

this has gotten so long but... a lot of this stuff i never really talked about, or even admitted to anyone or myself and having this small piece of media end makes me sad to no end but. BUT.... i kind of got back something that i was missing. even if artificial, its still real to me.

#ooc #this was a long time coming but here it is #im putting my heart on a plate and serving it on this post #and somehow #im ok to admit this to others and myself #it feels refreshing

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mountphoenixrp · 3 years

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We have a returning citizen in Mount Phoenix:

Gemini Ryu, who is known by no other name; a 26 year old son of Dagda. He is a trauma surgeon at Asclepius General.

FC NAME/GROUP: im jaebum / got7 CHARACTER NAME: gemini ryu AGE/DATE OF BIRTH: 26 ; 6/3/93 PLACE OF BIRTH: milltown malbay, ireland OCCUPATION: trauma surgeon at asclepius HEIGHT: 6’0” DEFINING FEATURES: complete heterochromia (glassy blue left eye, earthy brown right eye). he’s incredibly pale, almost to a fault, although often holds a lively expression on his face which causes many to wonder if he’s sick or something otherwise. has a scale tattoo on his right inner forearm as a self-reminder to himself to keep the ‘balance’. two moles on his right eyelid. multitudes of piercings in his ears + snake bites, nose. when under the influence of negative emotions, others may notice that the immediate vicinity around gemini is rather stuffy and suffocating almost. likewise, when under the influence of positive emotions, others may notice that the vicinity is much more lightweight and freeing somewhat.

PERSONALITY: as the epitome of ‘hard shell, soft interior’, gemini finds it both easy and difficult to make friends with others ― on one hand he’s always generous and welcoming, yet on the other hand he is unwillingly intimidating and finds he doesn’t truly click with many. quiet and observant, he has a determined mindset that disallows for distractions in both work and otherwise, though he tries his hardest to accept opportunities when they come and get to know others. gemini takes his role in upholding the balance of life and death very seriously, almost to a fault sometimes ― holding an occupation that lingers on the area in between, he often beats himself up about his work if he feels like he isn’t performing well enough, or especially if he has made what he considers a ‘wrong choice’.

losing sleep, time, and energy are all things he’s become accustomed to ― still, gemini does take the chance to meet new people whenever able. more often than not he’s all smiles, eager to help and even more eager to provide a warm atmosphere. comforting silence is his forte, and gemini prides himself on his ability in being a listener rather than a talker, giving his advice and experience when needed along with a joke or too. he sacrifices the majority of his well-being for others, sometimes to the detriment of his health ― regardless if he’s known you for two seconds or two years, you can best bet that he’ll help no matter the situation.

HISTORY:

it is a warm summer morning that beckons forth the home birth of a peculiar child ― silent, cold to the touch, and as grey as the winter’s breath. his mother believe him to be stillborn, though the smallest of movements and the slightest grasping of a finger give them hope otherwise. the midwife says he is on the verge of death, but the glow on the newborn’s face notes otherwise ― it is as if life springs into his very bones the moment he takes his first breath, filling him with the wanting to continue forth with his future.

she names him gemini ― as two-faced as the way and day he was born.

ii.

his childhood is filled with days by the sea, nights in the pastures, time spent making friends with the horses mingling about the hills. slanted eyes and strange languages mark him as different from the rest ― but different is good, his mother says. different means you have stories to tell, means you have a future brighter than the others. it takes him longer to find a home within the close-knit community of the little village he is in, but the redemption pays well ― gemini finds solace in the quiet of the early mornings and the familiarity of knowing others by heart, eager to help and even more so to please. he is stranger to none but friend to all ― it doesn’t even cross his mind that he might come to regret such a fact.

iii.

come maturation, gemini begins to lose the childhood innocence that lingered on his form for far longer than he’d like. a cold face takes the place of youthful brightness, eyes seeming to pierce into others rather than welcome them closer. his tongue is venomous honey, articulated and a weapon all the same. normalised teenage rebellion begins to evolve into something more ― gemini begins to drift away from others, tired and yet concerned upon hearing their complaints regarding feeling ‘chained’ when around him. he navigates the world alone, save for his mother ― something is different then, he can feel it in the way she watches him at times, in the way she peers at him as if he is danger incarnate.

and for a time, he surely comes to believe it.

iv.

he says he was an accident but no one seems to agree on the matter, not even gemini himself ― an argument between two ex-friends turned deadly, they say. one boy gravely injured, the other remorseful for actions committed, and a bloody pen discarded on the cobblestone streets. a split second decision results in him being ostracized from the community, unable to come to his own defense while the life of another hangs in the critical balance ― not that he has a defense anyway. gemini is as stunned as everyone else, having simply believed a sharp poke from the item would merely harm, not bring the other to death’s doorway as it seemed. he is kept locked away inside his home, unable to venture out into the sunlight he so desperately craved. his mother was separated, mentally and physically, only venturing close to him when absolutely necessary ― she was scared, but so was he.

the news of his ex-friend’s death weighs even heavier upon his shoulders than he wanted to admit, breaking a chunk off his mental state and effectively convincing himself if he stayed he would most likely be killed ― they hadn’t been able to save him, lingering on the precipice of damnation before his parents finally decided to pull the plug. superstition was rampant, and gemini wasn’t an exception ― he’s rifling through items in preparation to leave when he stumbles across a letter addressed to him, dated for when he would turn 19. reading it nearly gives him a heart attack, and gemini isn’t sure he wants to believe what lies before him. questions he’d always had but never garnered the chance to receive answers ― who his father was, where he was, why his life had led to this very moment. the reality of the situation, being a demigod, shakes him to his core; but who was he to discern otherwise? gemini is left with even more questions, though he understands one thing only ― he wasn’t safe in any way shape or form.

vi.

he leaves in the night, taking with him only what he can carry on his back, the letter, and the drifting pull of something else along the horizon. he drifts among the hills, now a stranger to all and friend to none. for once, gemini has no purpose, finding himself lingering about without aim and only a husk of himself. he’s a recluse, but only to a certain point ― a chance encounter with someone else like him plants thoughts in his head he couldn’t have made up on his own; an island for people like him. an island where he might find his father. the idea alone rocks him to the core, but he is even more shaken when the reality of the situation fully appears ― gemini is lead with a more driven spirit to this place seeming straight out of a fairytale, the sight of civilization effectively convincing him he might actually have a chance.

and sure enough, he has garnered much more than that.

PANTHEON: celtic CHILD OF: dagda POWERS: gemini is able to utilize any object deemed a ‘weapon’ as a taker and bringer of life. if he should use what might be considered the ‘pointy end’ of the item, he holds the ability to bring someone to the precipice of death no matter their situation. likewise, if he ‘flips it around’ and uses said end of the item, he will also hold the ability to bring that person back to their prior or entirely healed state.

STRENGTHS:

after living in mouth phoenix for over 9 years, he has rather good control over the ability, essentially extended to the fact that if he wants to use it, it will almost always work

gemini can focus his ability around a specific ‘area’ if needed ― for instance, if someone’s leg is heavily injured he can utilize his power to deteriorate and then revitalize simply that leg

any item is able to be used, regardless if it falls under the traditional ‘weapon’ category ― hell, a branch could be used as such if he wanted it to

his ability does not only affect the physical, but also the mental ― still, despite many trying to use him as an instant ‘cure’, he’s very picky on who he uses his ability on that aren’t in immediate danger

WEAKNESSES:

his ability sometimes falters, causing him to either leave his target in a ‘midway’ state where they are not entirely healed nor entirely in the same state of injury ― if such a case arises, he will have to repeat the process to get desired results

using his powers hurts for the target ― more often than not, those he practices his ability on will wish they were dead one way or another simply from the sheer pain of being drawn near death and likewise back to life. this is not something he can control, likewise resulting in gemini only using his ability when he absolutely needs to

while any item may be used, any item may be used ― should his ability act up (which happens more than he’d like to admit) he may unknowingly cause someone else to experience near death or likewise being brought to a fully healed state. this has caused gemini to be a lot less ‘touch-feely’ than he’d like to be, largely worried he might accidentally bring harm to someone if he does something as simple as handing them a fork

using his ability frequently tires him out, though he has worked up a sense of mental and physical stamina over the years that leaves him be able to ‘hold out’ for longer periods of time. if he pushes himself too much, he will eventually be rendered unconscious

he must use an item; his ability does not carry over to his hands

#kpop rp #krp #got7 #im jaebum #got7 jb #mp; welcome

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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Theaster Gates: ‘I want to believe that there is power in my poverty’

The Chicagoan artist, who made a name for himself with his art-meets-urban regeneration projects in the city, is back in a gallery with work that challenges assumptions about race, class and what it means to be poor

Earlier this decade the artist Theaster Gates began dropping hints that he might not be long for the confines of the art world. Instead,Gates said, he wanted to focus on what he called practicing life. What could be interpreted as an abstract idea made sense when you look at Gatess work, most prominently a series of project spaces in South Side Chicago that located art outside the walls of galleries and institutions.

In the African-American neighborhood south of the Midway, Gates gutted a string of condemned buildings and then turned them into sculpture, covertly turning his collectors into patrons of urban renewal. If you draw a circle around a thing, stand in the middle of the thing, invite others to stand in it with you and pray and work and move your body, that place wont be the same any more, he says of the project.

He took former crack houses and turned them into cinemas, showing everything from Mario Van Peebles back catalog to Carwash. Under his guidance, a crumbling bank became a center for art and held dance classes. Along with Turner Prize winners, Assemble, hes at the heart of a new way of thinking of regeneration as art itself.

It is a time-honored role for artist as designator, to point at the stuff of the physical world and revision it as art, harkening back to the readymade. But Gates decision to bump off from art and live in the sphere of dirt, the dirty, the stuff that we think is in the ground was revelatory, leading to invitations to Davos and a TED Talk, where he talked about how he revived a neighborhood with imagination and hard graft. In the insistence that the scrap material framing black lives has important pedigree and in the starkness by which Gates interventions with lumber and screws made refuse into investment-class commodity was also the flat-out thrill of seeing a broken trickle system work, even but once.

Now hes back with But To Be A Poor Race, Gates first show with Los Angeles gallery Regen Projects, and he is in Washington DC with an invitation to the White House in the final days of the Obama presidency.I feel like Im settling into my values, says Gates, who will follow the Regen Projects show with an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art. It is a set of things that I want to explore deeply, like, where does real power come from? What does one do with power? And whos really the poor race, and who really won?

Theaster Gatess Line Drawing for Black People. Photograph: Brian Forrest/Courtesy the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles

Gatess new show takes those questions further and draws its title from the WEB DuBois book The Souls of Black Folk, and the NAACP co-founders line about that greatest of hardships, but to be a poor race in the land of dollars. Canonized as a sociologist and civil-rights activist, DuBois created visualization aids for the 1900 Paris Exposition charts showing black achievement in the 40 years after the end of the Civil War. By documenting how many people owned their homes or owned land, had kitchen appliances or farm apparatuses, or went to college, DuBois and his colleagues turned statistics into unfurling lines and the blocks of color that united them. They were not only great and handy at the thing that we know theyre great and handy at, but DuBois was an artist, Gates says. There was no market for his artistry except for the invention of black platforms that would elevate black people.

Like Gates color-field paintings responding to DuBois datasets, a new suite of tar paintings made on-site in Los Angeles bind mark-making to its labors. The paintings situate black resilience and longing within the history of abstraction, when post-war artists such as Barnett Newman sought another way to confront the damage without reinforcing it through representation, lest we become victim to it and believe that is ultimately the truth, as Gates explains. An inability to face the horrors of violence, and a desire to sing a new steadier song abstraction, thats what abstraction is. Within the refusal to be literal also is the repositing of what it means to be a byproduct of a certain poverty, a certain poorness, to use [DuBois] term, is an imaginative resilience that then allows people to conjure things, Gates says.

The work also confronts ideas of appropriation and imperialism head on. A bronze sculpture from a series recalling African reliquary masks in But To Be A Poor Race pulls even deeper past, heavy with the shifting weight of talismans into requisitioned modernist forms. They were pillaging our shit, Gates says, speaking of the modernists, who were influenced by deliberately abstracted proportions and forms in African figural carvings, often meant to represent more than one person. As they were creating a gross poverty, a systematic poverty, they were at the same time feeding themselves the kind of black philosophy that would yield a new era of art, would bring them out of the artistic dark ages.

These objects for me are studies in black power. I want to be in conversation with black power, and Gates does not mean anything as temporal as the 1960s. I want to ask my ancestors things. Like, how did you figure out the orchestration of stars, and do it with such precision?

When Gates travels, he says he is often asked about the violence in Chicago, and he goes instead to the lives that are unamplified: the intellectual rigor, the care that black people have for one another, he says. Instead of just pondering it with the western rational mind, I want to get in the zone of the ecstatic, of the hallucinogenic, of the otherworldly. I want to get in the zone of the eternal. I want to be inside of those sculptural objects. I want to re-ritualize. I want to knead them so they might be a channel for power, be a protection from powers, be a hedge around my head, be the hem of Christs garment. I want to believe that there is power in my poverty.

Gates, who has worked in clay and once created a fictional Japanese potter to be the ostensible author of his work in mud and water, has infused humble materials with mythology, over and again. From the roots of gospel, his band The Black Monks of Mississippi bend their voices towards something incantatory, a hum from these bodies and also beyond it. In a video at Regen Projects, Sweet Land of Liberty, the stanzas of the American patriotic anthem My Country Tis of Thee disintegrate in Gates singing of them, into the soft, fine romantic dream fragments of we land of liberty, from every mountainside, and let freedom ring. Theyre actually so beautiful, the kind of movement from one note to the next; theyre like salves, he says. Its like Mariah Carey missing her lip sync. All I can do is try to mouth these things. I can entertain people with the lyrics, the same way a modernist could grab an image of a big nose or a Fijian girl and put it in a painting. I could appropriate the lyric of white power, but in fact I am still just part of a poor race.

In another clip, Gates catches the singer Yaw Agyeman coming out of a chant of devotion and overlays it with the rising intro notes of Soul Train, the long-running Chicago-born institution and unifying mechanism where people could gather and dance. And so I decided to counterbalance Yaws nam myoho, which is a way to channel a meditative unity by using sound, Gates says of his own filmed duet, and the shared sounds that, in a way, dont have meanings in and of themselves, but when done with others make meaning. In these diverse mediums, Gates interrogations and redemptions of black history take visibility as pliable, and thus too are the makings of power, spun through this life and out of our attentions: To be a poor race is a gift, he says, if you can see the richness.

But To Be A Poor Race opens at Regen Projects in Los Angeles on 14 January