"So here’s what’s up, Babe.

You’re dry land, depression is the ocean, writing is a flotation device and I’m a bad swimmer. Get it?

And some days, the good days, I’m Not such a bad swimmer. I feel good and I feel strong and I enjoy the wind and the water and the sun, but other days?

Other days, I get tossed around in the waves and I’m clutching on to my flotation device and desperately trying to keep you in view, but I can’t.

Those are bad days. Those are the days that I can’t break the surface no matter how hard I try and sometimes,

Those are the days that I stop trying.

I think of you

And I clutch at my flotation device

And I kick and flail to get back to the surface

But it’s no use.

I’m exhausted.

I’m really not a very good swimmer and my flotation device sinks with me and you’re too far away to help.

But that doesn’t mean you’re not doing enough and it doesn’t mean that I don’t love you.

I love you.

But you’re an island

And I need to learn to swim..."

"...let me break it down for you, in as raw and real a way as I know how (although, I’m a poet by nature so, I’ll never truly be able to escape the metaphors.)

The bottom line, is that death is easy and life is hard.

It’s kind of just that simple...

...I’m nineteen. The average natural lifespan for a healthy human being is about eighty to ninety years.

That means that, as exhausted as I am now, I potentially still have about sixty years left to go.

Three more lifetimes worth of memories and struggle, etcetera, etcetera. Also, my first memory wasn’t made until my fourth year of living  which means that, actually, I’m only holding fifteen years worth of memories right now.

Only fifteen years worth with another sixty to go and I am already so exhausted. I am exhausted.

Also, on a scale of one to ten (one being easy as a breeze and ten being Holocaust levels of fucked up), I would say that my life has been about a five. Maybe a six.

That means that, as much as I have struggled, it could have been so much worse. It could still get worse.

Life sucks and oblivion is a familiar and comforting embrace.

I know oblivion. I know the empty satisfaction of a dreamless sleep. I know.

And death is just oblivion times infinity.

As much as I love the people and things I love and as many reasons as I have for why I have to live, as many things as I have to do and as much as I think life and the universe are beautiful and full of wonder…

...Still, oblivion would just be so much easier. Death would be so much easier. And in death, I would feel no guilt or regret for the things I didn’t accomplish or for the people that I failed.

I would feel nothing.

I would be nothing.

And life never gets any lighter either. I’ll never have less memories, less experience or less life lived tomorrow than I did today. It doesn’t decrease, it only increases.

Good memories or bad memories, it still adds up. I still feel the weight and there will always be more to carry tomorrow than there was today.

It’s heavy. It gets heavier for every second that I spend awake.

I’m exhausted and there is no cure for this.

I only have three options:

One: die.

Two: sleep/find some way to get amnesia or Alzheimer’s.

Three: live.

I am trying to live.

I am forcing myself out of bed every morning and finding reasons to keep going...

...I love you.

I want to live.

I’ll keep trying for as long as I am able.

If I give up, if I collapse halfway through and I leave you behind, I am sorry...

...I wish I could somehow make it easier for both of us, but I haven’t found the way yet. I may never figure it out...

...You’re one of the only things that truly makes me feel that living is worth all the struggle. That I’m actually grateful for all of it, if only to have you.

Don’t feel guilty or think that there is anything more that you could be doing to help..."

"It’s weird that I’ve had depression since I was like ten, but even now that I’m almost twenty, I’m still learning how to navigate it.

Like, I’ve gotten a pretty good grip of it, but I still have moments where I slip up and don’t realize it until days later?

Not to the point where I’m drowning in it, but just to the point where my head goes under for a second and I have to splutter and flail my way back to the surface.

I sometimes forget that it’s a life sentence for me and I’ll never be able to completely escape it.

But, I have gotten and continue to get pretty good at coping, so I’ll probably be okay."

*KPop, real people, male/male, Kim RyeoWook/Choi SiWon, one-sided love, one swear word*

*If you don't like it, please don't read it.*

It’s not like SiWon is really all that bothered by it…

Or at least, not all the time.

For the most part he’s just living his own life-- They both are--

But occasionally.

Occasionally there are months and months in-between where RyeoWook simply doesn’t contact him, doesn’t think about him–

There’s just nothing, not even a fucking text or at least a twitter post,

Nothing.

Just nothing, and SiWon…

He doesn’t think about it and he’s not upset over it, but he feels it. He can’t deny that he feels it.

After long days of starving and shooting; when his phone rings and it’s a different number; when the ‘Little Prince’ or ‘Eternal Maknae’ gets mentioned in a fan-cafe; when he sees the other members going back and forth online or when they post pictures of shared meals or set visits…

SiWon feels it.

A little tickle of something off, something lacking that nags at him too often to be ignored, but not enough to be acknowledged or confronted.

Every once-in-a-while though, in the quiet hours of late-night/early-morning, SiWon thinks of doing something crazy.

He lays in bed and stares at the ceiling and feels empty and thinks of flying back to Seoul.

He imagines showing up unannounced, barging in and pushing the small body up against a wall and…

Anything, everything, whatever it takes to make RyeoWook look at him, feel him, miss him the way SiWon does.

He wants to be a hollow space in RyeoWook’s chest: a craving that’s never satisfied and an existence that can’t be replaced.

He imagines it over and over again in vivid detail with every possible variation. He sees his own faltering steps and hears RyeoWook’s half-awake grumbles and watches the boy’s eyes widen in surprise, looking up at him and saying:

“I didn’t know you were back in Korea.” And then,

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” And maybe he’ll have been a little annoyed, but mostly he’ll be shocked and concerned.

He’ll be warm and soft and tiny and he’ll let SiWon cling to him without limit or complaint and SiWon will breathe him in and listen to his clear, sharp voice as it whispers kindness and SiWon will be reassured.

SiWon will be comforted and contented and after a while– As long as RyeoWook will allow– SiWon will detach himself and they’ll go and sit in the living room and RyeoWook will ask again:

“What’s wrong?” And SiWon will be honest and answer:

“I miss you.” And RyeoWook won’t know how to respond.

And SiWon doesn’t know how he wants RyeoWook to respond, but he wants to say it anyways.

And he imagines it so many times and so desperately every time that it almost ceases to be fantasy, instead becoming memory as tangible and distinct as any other.

But it isn’t real. It’s never real.

And RyeoWook continues to throw him away in TV interviews and holds him to his meager allowance of three hugs and three high-fives and an occasional:

“I love you, SiWonnie-hyung.” Off-handed and hardly sincere and never quite enough.

Never enough texts or ka-talks or phone calls or letters or tagged posts on Instagram, never enough of anything and SiWon doesn’t have a name for what would be enough.

He’s just feeling a little empty, a little unsatisfied.

It’s just not enough.

There are a lot of things

To be said about names.

That they are the first piece of love that you are given,

That they have a hand in deciding your fate,

That they define who you are to the world.

Some names are as old as time,

Some are brand new,

Some are common,

Some are rare...

But what about my name?

What about these three letters,

Five letters,

Nine letters,

Ten letters that I found and chose for myself?

What about this simple, plain, innocuous, inelegant, unextraordinary bit of sound that I stumbled upon?

This thing that I almost scrolled passed,

But it stuck in my throat and begged me to

LOOK.

SEE.

This. Is who you are.

What about that?

What about Me?

Tiny minds

With desperate hands

And desperate hearts,

Trying to fill the spaces with things that won't fit.

They scream with it,

They ache and rage,

But those desires will never be satisfied.

Eat and eat and eat and eat

And stay empty for the rest of your life.

If you've done anything at all,

You've made your hunger grow.

Love for me is an endless well,

It pours and pours and never stops.

It finds itself again, whenever it is lost.

It is involuntary.

I have to struggle not to love.

But, devotion...

Devotion?

I had never known the meaning of the word,

I had never understood,

Felt,

Known and bled,

But, you?

You, My Dear,

You swallowed the sun.

And I love them all, but you...

You are more than love.

You are more than a well,

You are an ocean.

You are every ocean.

You eclipse every other ounce of love

And drown me in something new.

Devotion:

A foreign concept and a love I could never understand

Without You.

You are my Black Star.

I am devoted to you.