“Not all love is gentle. Sometimes it’s gritty and dirty and possessive, sometimes it’s not supposed to be careful or soft at all. Sometimes it feels like teeth.”
cruel summer - taylor swift // a primer for the small weird loves - richard siken // twin size mattress - the front bottoms // little beast - richard siken // margaret atwood // the end of time part two - doctor who // a child's defintion of love // wuthering heights - emily brontë // the timeless children - doctor who
white ferrari by frank ocean / call down the hawk by maggie stiefvater / mirrored heart by fka twigs / anna degnbol / bound (1996) dir. lana & lilly wachowski
it’s not much of the ability he learned from years on the job, but more of an intuition, an inkling that always told him when tristan was around. maybe it came for those initial weeks when he followed tristan from a safe distance, watched him from the back of the bar. maybe it came from the subsequential months walking side by side with tristan. now it feels like his nature, like this part of him was waiting for tristan to come along.
what a fucking stupid thought.
what a fucking stupid person tristan turned him into.
he doesn’t move from his spot at the balcony. once upon a time tristan and him sat there after sex, sharing a cigarette. hyungsik remembers it well, the things they talked while smoking. i used to be afraid of dying, tristan had told him, but not anymore. funny, he remembers his thought, that hyungsik was there to kill him.
that didn’t work really well, did it?
“you shouldn’t be here.” tristan’s voice brings him back to the present. he isn’t surprised to see hyungsik there, obviously, and he isn’t scared or angry. he expected it, of course. tristan knows him well, too.
“i like the view.” hyungsik exhales, watches the smoke disappear into the night. it’s late and the city is quiet, making hyungsik think they are the only people around. it was always like this with tristan, other people didn’t matter at all. “you didn’t change the lock.” he adds, as if it isn’t important, but it is.
“you’d pick my lock or find another way in and i’m not fond of wasting money on unnecessary repairs.” tristand doesn’t move, but hyungsik knows he wants to. he knows everything about tristan, from research and from life.
hyungsik gets up and puts his cigarette out on the full ashtray. it always annoyed him, how tristan would wait for the whole thing to fill before throwing it away. it sounds funny now, a detail he remembers of a life that no longers belong to him.
they are face to face now. the bedroom is dark, the only source of light being the hall, but hyungsik doesn’t need lights to know how tristan looks. he remembers everything about tristan in vivid detail, knows those things will never leave his mind and heart. one day, maybe soon, hyungsik will be bleeding to death at some shady alleyway and he’ll remember tristan, his voice, his rare smiles, his soft touches.
“you should go.” tristan says, but doesn’t move to make way for him. that’s how he always was with hyungsik, if you want something you’ll have to come and get it. it shouldn’t be this exciting, even now, but it is.
“you didn’t call the police.” hyungsik says, hands on the pockets of his coat so he doesn’t make the mistake of taking a step forward and touching tristan.
“i could take you down by myself.”
hyungsik chuckles. “that you could, hyung.”
“don’t call me that.” it’s tristan who takes a step towards him. his body language is not tense, but hyungsik knows him enough to call his bluff.
“would you rather i called you babe, then?”
“the fuck do you want here, hyungsik?” tristan asks, but doesn’t step back.
“i wanted to see you one last time.” hyungsik answers and smirks because this is the exact answer tristan wanted to hear, but not the one he needs right now. and hyungsik, well, hyungsik always lived to do what he wanted.
this time hyungsik is the one to take a step forward. they are almost chest to chest the way they’ve been countless times before and it’s as exciting now as it was the first time – tristan could both hurt or kiss him, hyungsik was never sure of what was about to happen and this is what always made things good.
“i love you, tristan.” he says not because he expects anything or because he wants to hear it back, he says it because it’s the truth.
tristan closes his eyes. “don’t.” he whispers. “don’t say that now.”
“if i don’t say it now i might not be able to say it ever again.” despite his best judgement hyungsik reaches out and touches tristan’s cheek. “i love you, tristan.” he repeats, voice soft. “don’t forget that.”
tristan chuckles humourlessly as he opens his eyes. “you’re fucking stupid.”
“you already said that.”
tristan grabs him by the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer. hyungsik allows it to happen, eyes already closed by the time their lips touch. kissing tristan still feels as good as the first time, like the sweetest thing hyungsik could ever taste, like he didn’t deserve it.
“i should kill you.” tristan says when they pull apart, his hands still holding hyungsik’s shirt. “i should kill you.”
“i can say the same, babe.” hyungsik smiles and steals another kiss. “i’ll wait for you.”
this makes tristan pull away, hands dropping by his side. hyungsik miss him already. “don’t. this is it for us.”
“still,” hyungsik takes a step forward and this time tristan moves out of his way. “i’ll wait. take your time, tristan. i’ve waited for you before, i can do it again.”
tristan takes a deep breath. “get the fuck of my house before i murder you.”
hyungsik stops by the bedroom door and looks back, smiling. for a moment he remembers their first meeting, tristan refusing to give his number. maybe next time, he had said then. “find me.” he says before leaving.
“When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity. Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken. Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us. Our souls, dependent upon their nurture, now shrink, wizened. Our mind, formed and informed by their radiance, fall away. We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of dark, cold caves. And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us, they existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.”
— Maya Angelou, from When Great Trees Fall (Ailey, Baldwin, Floyd, Killens, and Mayfeld)
Jenny Holzer
Inflammatory Essays (excerpt)
1979–82
Offset lithograph on colored paper
Published by the artist; printed by Millner Bros., New York
Each sheet: 17" x 17"
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