FRESH OFF MT. OLYMPUS WE PRESENT YOU APOLLO. HERE IN SEOUL THEY ARE KNOWN AS YOON HANEUL, SAID TO BE TWENTY-SIX YEARS OLD. LOCALS SAY THEY LOOK A LOT LIKE LEE TAEMIN, DO YOU SEE IT? EITHER WAY, I WONDER WHAT THEIR FATE WILL BE.
on the tattered globed shoulders, his blades jut with the preciseness of an antler, the juxtaposition somehow always off but it’s strung together with a knot. the knot, in this case, would be bloodied, bruised. there’s so much viscera around the purpling heartbeats that self-atonement doesn’t belong in the parentheses anymore. but what’s there to forgive, to be forgiven? perhaps there are plenty. memories bite his teeth, leaving crescent marks around the hard flesh. in the fractal is a memento of the older days with all their hazed glory, smoked rivulets of penance seeping from the interstices of his fingers. they beg, they plead. and in return, he demands. sacrifices, all the lambs with their mouthful of prayers, praises. his ire has always been without syllables, leaving behind a trail of bloodshed instead. for that, he’s feared. for that, he’s hailed. birthed from a mother’s lungful of cries, the ambrosia blooms him into a culture of violence. might not be the god of war, for all his battles are selfish, but he’s a deified plague. his cruelties are stomached by their silent whispers, fear inflicted penitence sleeping in the silts of their deepest night terrors. it doesn’t feel like the partiture of an old, ancient song. it feels like yesterday, still, how his knuckles still bleed from his bows’ sunk incisors, quiet filaments. the same way his fingers do with each pluck of his lyre. his tongue muscles are sore from the weight of all prophecies, still, but now that the world has descended on him, earth-stained, he learns how to tie the knot tighter, and tighter, and tighter. in this manmade habitat, he’s both presence and absence. his tales are rewoven with soft threads of humanity, rendering him weak. this is a form of punishment, he figures, but he’s in no place to apologize. instead, he becomes the virtuoso coveted, the archer admired, the heir envied. the palate of his mouth dried from all the tacit words revoked, he’s an antimatter of everything he once was, and is, and will be. sixth sense that tints, immense knowledge that streams. he’s still an amplified being among all the ordinary people. he’s still the monster that he always is destined to be. just seated amidst the deities in a mundane atrium of the universe, nonetheless. it’s just a matter of time, he figures, before they all starve to become gods again.