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#bye

I've received a few questions along the same lines now, so here it is:

Yes, I still write.

Yes, I still write about him.

Yes, I'm still conflicted and angry and upset, sometimes for several weeks without break.

I just don't want to feed some of my most intimate thoughts to an AI scraper.

I also no longer wish to share any sincere thoughts with the internet in general, regardless of AI.

Those who followed this blog over the years, I'm grateful for your company. Those who wish to keep in touch, sorry, I don't really feel like it. And those who would like to see more of my writing, if I ever feel like uploading anything again it'll be on ao3.

여태까지 같이 계실분께 고마운 마음이 있고 우리 모두 행복했음연 좋겠다

"It’s such a time when even pleasing things give pain; the radiance of this springtime moon will strike me down."

(your shadow sublime) (your face bejeweled) (puts starlight to shame again) (and brings anew to my garden:) (an augury of love, memory, grief, sanctuary.)

(억장이 무너질 듯) (고맙고 보고싶다)

#jonghyun

Dear Jonghyun

I imagine you smiling, laughing.

I imagine you happy, nostalgic, regretful, hopeful. I imagine you trying, succeeding, failing, trying again. I imagine you becoming, unbecoming, resettling into a new person day after day. Time after time.

I imagine you growing up. I imagine you growing old. I imagine you growing energetic and growing tired. I imagine you thinking of being and not being who you are as you wait to fall asleep. I imagine the size of your worries, your opinions, your beliefs and disillusionments. I imagine your frustrations with everything and nothing, with yourself, with those you love and trust. I imagine you accepting defeat, resigning yourself to the idea that you have no control. I imagine you changing the world in your own little ways.

I imagine you fulfilled. I imagine you desperate. I imagine you giving up and moving on. I imagine you persevering and never letting go. I imagine you in love, being loved, wanting love, claiming love, protecting love. I imagine you swearing off love entirely.

I imagine you at peace. I imagine you restless. I imagine you needing and abstaining. I imagine you whole, complete, yet also begrudging of the completeness of others. I imagine you are here. I imagine you watching.

I imagine you leaving for a distant place. I imagine you standing in a long queue, fingers clutched around a worn ticket stub and feet restless to board an already bursting train. I imagine you wishing you could go somewhere else and start again. Once again.

I imagine you beautiful. I imagine you damaged. I imagine you perfect and imperfect. I imagine you are real. I imagine you are not just in my imagination.

I imagine you raging, raging, against the dying of the light.

Because you are not imaginary.

I imagine that I will run out of these imaginations some day and cover my wounds, put them somewhere out of sight. I imagine myself at the end of these imaginations, where you will be waiting with answers I don't yet know the questions to.

Until then, my forever-friend, forever-burden. Until then, dearest Jonghyun.

수고이나 고생으로만 알려지면 안돼...

널 숙명으로 기억할게, 신념으로 기억할게.

“I am a friend. A lover. A brother and a son. I am a hyung. I am yours when you are mine. I’ll watch you heal. I’ll watch your victories. I’ll walk you home in the dark. I’ll take the shape of any story you pour me into. But I am not your saviour. My words were written to love you, not to lend you a crutch. So hold them, but don’t be afraid to let go and fly. Sit on the branches of my poems when you rest. But don’t build your nest on them.”

“Why not?”

Jonghyun smiles. “Because I am me, and you are you. My burdens are mine. Your worries are yours. We show each other our scars but we don’t trade them.

“I missed you. I’ll admit that. I missed you a lot, Tae. But this unending life is about missing and meeting. We come together and we come apart. We love and we let go. We reach and we touch. So remember to breathe. Remember to grip and then release. Don’t hold on. Don’t keep it locked inside you. Let it leave.”

“So goodbye light.

Goodbye flowers colours, scent, and reason too Goodbye, I bid To all that was, all that could be, all that I’d wished, all that we’d built. Goodbye, gods of love. Goodbye, rapturous youth. Goodbye, king and father, better half, mine. Leave me now, for I must toil to keep the peace While you sail to another land.”

#jonghyun

Dear Jonghyun

I ran away from you. Or tried to.

Parts of me got left behind, permanently burnt against memorable parts of you. You changed their behaviour, their properties, their every identifiable aspect that made them mine. Now those parts are not something I can claim with any pride or entitlement.

I ran away like I run away from other painful things, leaving traces of me in every failure and every mistake. I ran away because all other choices had closed off after a certain point, leaving only one.

Sometimes I host questions—questions that I can't voice to anyone else for fear of... judgement? Dismissal? Allegations of insanity? I don't know. I am afraid of talking. I am afraid of saying what I feel. I'm afraid of thinking. I'm afraid the parts I salvaged are changing too, slowly corrupting until my own body is unrecognisable to me. I'm afraid of changing but also afraid of remaining unchanged.

You were good. You were clean. We believe these things about you because they are easy to believe. You're easy to accept this way. There was once a man of gold, I like to say. But you're also a stranger. You're also a complete unknown. You're also meaningless, like everyone else in an expanding universe. You were good. You were clean. You were a man of gold. I write you this way because I don't know anything about you. I don't understand anything about you. What keeps me up is that I never will.

What if more of you takes more of me? What if I slowly erode until I am nothing but a mass of grief and self-reproach? What if my love becomes my loathing? That's not right. That's not fair. That's not what I want at all.

You are my albatross. I am your mariner. Between my voyages I shoot you down, again and again and again... then wear you like an anvil around the neck. I need to be free. I have to find ways to be free. I have to keep running.

It's not your fault, even if I sometimes convince myself of it.

One day I'll accept it all—that I don’t know, that I had no control, that I tried not to care. One day everything else that I do know and do control and do care for will be all that matters. One day I will become free of change, free of guilt, free of you. One day I'll run towards something else.

Until then I carry you. Until then, dear Jonghyun.

수고없이 사는 곳 고생없는 세상 속 그 자리로 가자. 그 세상에 다시, 새롭게 만나자.

“There once was, and always will be, a man named Jonghyun,” I explained. “He was, will always be, a shining light. Made from stars he was, once and eternally, and eternally will he remain as gentle as water. Spring bloomed, still blooms, at the sound of his voice. And the warmth he housed, will forever house, is reverent. It is unsparing.”

“I’m in an incomplete story. That’s it. That’s what I’m willing to accept. No matter how much light I sit in, I will… always be in the dark. That’s what I’ll accept,” he turns up to Jonghyun again. “But I want you to be complete. I want you to be full, and bright, and beautiful. Always. Just like you are right now. I hope you’re finally all the things you always wanted to be. Because anything less would make all this… completely meaningless.”

Jonghyun twinkles and shines.

“I’ll always love you, hyung,” Kibum smiles. “I’ll always miss you.”

If you allow me this insolence, you are winter.

With your arrival come two things most memorable: the rush of cold waves below my humble dhow, and an alignment of stars ideal for making love. You remind this old soul, of a tightly shut door, and a fire lit with the scraps of daily effort. As you are now, you remind me of an ample quilt, of the circle of a sleeping lover’s arms, and of that strange soft rain. Snowfall.

It's been a long time since I thought of you. Again I spend my hours on you.

It’s been a long time since I studied your happiness. Again it becomes the comfort of my days.

It’s been years since I held your voice, cherished it as if it came from my own heart. Again my breath is made of your music.

It's been so long, so long dear moonlight, since you broke through the clouds and climbed in my window. Again I awaken from dreaming of you.

It’s been a long time since you visited. Again I decorate your way home. Again I love. Again I praise. Again I prepare to tell you a story.

#jonghyun

Dear Jonghyun

I have a box, and in it I store every Jonghyun I have known--the one that was childish, the one that was loud and cheerful, the one who felt wronged and distanced himself, the one who stayed soft against harshness. The Jonghyun who sang for hours and the Jonghyun who hid in plain sight. I gathered all these Jonghyuns to cherish them. They are my treasures. But they are finite. Sometimes, when I bring one out to hold and admire, it shocks me to see what remains behind. There is so little of you in my box. There is so little of you to cherish. It scares me. It scares me because losing a single Jonghyun would be equal to losing everything.

I try to find ways to lock you in. I try to be a stone, to release nothing of you. I try to hoard you, bar you from escaping into the world. I try to live alone in this grief, stacking physical blocks of sadness, binding physical stretches of mourning. I make walls and roofs of my feelings. I build turrets and ramparts of depression. I make a bigger box, dedicated to your loss and my longing, and I place you on every free surface. I enshrine myself in a shrine of you.

These nested boxes, full and empty, will be what is left of me. When I am gone only my boxes will remain. Locked, untouched, shared with nobody else for fear of erosion.

But you aren't meant for a cage. You deserve to fly, to soar. Keeping you walled in would be like keeping time still: fruitless and futile. I am stone now but you are rich soil. You are heavy rain. You are the potent outcome of the world striving for love. My boxes cannot be locked, not for you. You break your way through and scatter like spring, like mist that does not fall or lie still. I am stone but you are alive. I am sand but you are wind. I am froth but you are sails. I am nothing but you are a cosmos.

You are not finite, not at all. My box is just too small to hold your infinity.

You are more than old photos, choppy sound clips and fancam videos. You are more than your words, more than your songs. You are more than moonlight and starlight. You go far beyond the human scale of my heart.

So I'll let you go.

수고 많았어도 고생 많았어도 수고도 고생도 널 이길 수 없었다.

사랑했어.

There was a man of gold we sent off to sea once. He comes back, sometimes. For a short while. And he tells us of his travels. Shares his stories in whispered words for us to repeat them out loud to the world.

We are his legacy. We are what he left behind and what he survives by. Let's remember him, this man of gold, man of love, man who was one of us. Let's remember him often.

#jonghyun

Dear Jonghyun

I still write it like that. You're still dear to me. In my mind, your things are still where you last left them. Your clothes and watch and plates and cup. Everything is exactly where it had been for 9 years. Your seat is still empty. And if I ever try to replace you, I'll look for someone of equal value.

But will there ever be an equivalent to you? Could another you ever be found in a mass of 7 billion? Or would I have to rely on several someones who aggregate into one Jonghyun?

We like to think we are unique—that each one of us has a special place in this world, and that no one can take our place. That the things we do are made of precious parts of us and that we leave our traces behind when we go.

That's what I think of you. There may be a thousand Kim Jonghyuns in this world, sharing this time with me. There may be a thousand Kim Jonghyuns existing and surviving alongside me. But really, there is only one Kim Jonghyun who lived. There is only one seat I wish weren't empty. Finding a replacement wouldn't change that.

From the first moment you shone to the very last; from your brightest, most joyful days, to your solemnly murmured nights. You lived. You were full of the drink of life and your kind heart poured some out for the rest of us too. There was a home in the comfort you offered. There was hope in the way you made us laugh with you, or cry with you, or sing with you. No one could replace a Kim Jonghyun like that.

Why did we create time? Why did we come up with something so cruel, something so hurtful that it moves only in one direction and never the right one? Why can't it stop? Why can't we steer it backwards to a moment when. When reaching meant touching. When reaching for you meant you were there. Your shape defined, your laugh visible, your words audible. Reaching for these things meant holding them in our hands and enjoying the weight of your existence... can you believe it? There was such a time, once. Now the place where you stood is occupied by another weight. An unwelcome, unwieldy burden like an empty seat.

But we love you enough to carry your absence in us.

I'll leave your things where they are. I won't let anyone else move them or stow them away. I'll keep you in those things, let all thoughts of you swim in their dips and cavities. I'll keep you in that room in my head. So stay a little longer. Please stay.

Today, once more, On a rope spun from my grief, I threaded flowers of your memory.

“Hyung. Hyung… I give up, often. In little ways. I pick up a heavy portion of life expecting it to be lighter, much lighter, and when I drop it to the ground, I quit. Often. But when I’m climbing a hill too steep for my lungs, you push me to keep going. When I’m given a test, I resign myself to failure before I even begin. But you tap my shoulders to remind me that I cannot know without trying. When I am unhappy with what my own hands have made, you come to me like a nudge. You tell me working harder costs nothing but always pays off. You help me pick up that heavy part of life from the floor and dust it off before I heave it onto my back and continue. You are here, in your absence. You are with me, when I am not in your world. You surround me with an ocean of your music and you say, just a little more, just a little bit further. And that gives me hope, often.”

“Then I did well,” Jonghyun smiles down at him.

“Always,” Taemin assures. “Always.”

This is probably alcohol talking ha but I'm not OK. I can't honestly say that I'm OK. I have a veneer that tells the world I am OK but you can always peel that off and look underneath and just. Scoff because what a fucking mess. What an absolute fucking mess there is in here. There was a man. A golden man. And I made a statue of him inside me. But it broke, right? It was completely destroyed. So I have to rebuild him. But look I'm not a sculptor. I can't get the shapes right and I can't make him the way he used to be. It’s not the same man. It’s a likeness of the man. And that breaks my heart because he deserves more than just a shitty likeness. But it also pisses me off that I think I can decide what he deserves. I can't. I know so little about him. He may have taught me how to write but that wasn't all of him. That was not the whole statue, just a small portion of it. I'm building this man from the pieces I have at hand, so he's mine. I won't share him with anyone else. This little memory of him. Or this image of him. This man is all mine. 100%. Regardless of how little the statue constitutes of the true man. Maybe 0.1% maybe 0.01%. But it's 100% for me, right? So it's OK for me to make him the way I wish he was, right? I am him and he is me. And I guess by that logic there's some of him in everyone. Each person in this world has 0.01% of him. So he's still here, right? Intangible but here. I can't laugh at him anymore. I can't read his words anymore. I can't hear his voice but he's here, that's what it means. So why does it hurt. Why does it feel so bad to carry this 0.01%. It should feel the same if he's still here so why does it feel like he's not? This is why I've been so fucked up for the last 3 years. Does it feel good to write him because I'm opening some kind of pressure relief valve for the 0.01% to drain out of my system? Does it feel good to reduce and dilute the concentration of him? Is he a blood clot I'm dissolving with every story? When does this 0.01% disappear, completely and without trace? And what do I do with its remnants in the meantime? Do I grow something out of them? Do I bury them? Do I resign myself to living with them so clearly in my sights? He wrote all those sweet and beautiful things. Why didn't he write "this is not on you, don't hold me inside you." Why couldn't he do that one last thing so I would hang on to it like I hang on to everything else he put to paper? He and I grew up together. Fuck. He was my age. And this man. This fucking asshole. He had a universe inside his body. He was so full of meaning. How many people my age have I ever met who are as mature or as fully-formed as this guy? How many people were as easy to love? What the fuck was he fed that he became what he did—so perfect that you even loved his imperfections? You and I grew up together. In the same world. You, whose name I can no longer say with any seriousness. Or without shame. You, who I don't mention except silently, to people who are not nearby and who cannot stop me from continuing to mourn. You, man from the past, man from the inside. You, who I write to keep alive. What do you want? Why are you still here and what do you want me to do so you'll leave me alone? And what do I do to make sure you'll never go away?

Dear Jonghyun

I live from April to December every year, counting down the days in between.

We grew up together, you and I. Separated by thousands of miles and thousands of dreams, but we grew up together nonetheless. The time you saw is the same I did. The songs you played sat in my hands too. I read their words and I thought of you then, as I think of you now. What would it have been like if we grew old together, I wonder. Would your voice still be a comfort in a time when nothing else is? Would your pen have sent forth ripples of gentle condolences? Would your uniform have made you look larger and brighter than you already were? Would you have smiled more and more, or spoken less and less? Would your voice grow loud when it spoke to us, when it guided us, when it prayed with us? Would your eyes shine when you read our letters? I wonder as I sprout white hair and speak white lies; I wonder as I say "I'm OK," when I'm not: would you have made us laugh with insignificant details from your long nights? Would you have earned our sympathies on sleepless mornings? Would you have wandered through places unknown to us, and told stories of worlds unseen by our eyes? Would you have remained a poet? Would you have gone on to sharpen your pen even as you softened your tongue? Would you have been like you used to be, or would you have turned into one of us—allowing fear to plague you?

I wonder too if you have deemed the world worthy of returning to it. I wonder if you walk again, if you breathe and think again. I wonder what they call you now. I wonder if you remember what we called you then. I wonder how you'll grow up again, how very different your life will be now. I wonder if your happinesses will eclipse everything else this time around. I wonder if you'll fly, if you'll swim, if you'll ride into the wind and let it carry you across the world, so we can treasure you again. So we can cherish the time we spend beside you again.

I wonder if you'll be golden again.

I spin you a thousand times. I give you a thousand lives. I give you all the joys I can imagine. I give you the best I can imagine. And I know imagination falls too short of reality. I know that in my imagination is my failure, and yours. But we grew up together. So allow me this. Let me hold on to you, just a little longer. Let me love you, just a little more. And then I'll let you go. I'll let you go. I'll let you go.

I live from April to December every year. I spend my nine months, wishing for your spring to come again.

이제 수고하지 않아도 돼. 이제 고생하지 않나도 돼. 그냥 행복하게 살아라. 그냥 자유롭게 살아라.

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