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I’ve always stolen glances at you from the corner of my eye so you wouldn’t notice.
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Strange, isn’t it, how everything I fear is exactly what I desire the most? It’s as if, when you see me, like sunlight, you expose all my flaws, and leave me to scold my own disappointment, kissing the trace of your shadow the sun has imprinted in my eyes.
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Like sunlight, you reach me. And like the darkness of night, I recoil—frowning, fleeing. Maybe the boundaries between us have always been just:
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"The sun looks beautiful today,"
and my answer:
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"If only you knew how beautiful you are when your brown hair glows with that golden sunlight, and how your eyes shimmer when they reflect its rays."
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It’s unfortunate how the thought of what might follow after “Hello, good morning” terrifies me—just as “Goodbye” does. Maybe things shouldn’t begin if they’re destined to end. Maybe I should just wait for tomorrow, to live beside you only in my daydreams and deep sleep.
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I’m sorry for saying goodbye without you knowing my name, without you knowing who I am or what I want. It’s comforting, at least, that I won’t have to see your back as you walk away.
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Love is like death… it comes unannounced.
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Isn’t it terrifying, that a lover might die? I’ve always asked those who love sincerely—how do they move on? How could moving on ever be easy? Slowly, I drift in a constant circle of panic.
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Death itself doesn’t scare me as an idea… I fear what I might miss after it. I’m afraid of the unknown.
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What’s terrifying is that we all die—and yet, no one truly knows what death is. Maybe not even the dead do. But that’s how humans are; we call death “natural” simply because it happens to everyone—we’ve gotten used to it by habit.
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I always ask myself, amid all the luxuries surrounding me: am I lucky to live in this era? I know everyone feels that justified nostalgia for the past. But if the past has ended, why do we live on memories that strike us like cruel waves—painful, but not fatal?
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I’ve always told myself that if today was bad, tomorrow it would just be another story I’d tell—in my most sensitive moments—whispering it into the ear of the woman my heart truly loves, watching her lips tremble as she hugs me and tells me how proud she is of me.
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Whether those memories bring pity or pride, I’ll still be happy that they happened. But isn’t it terrifying that even the beautiful days… pass? They pass… and I’m still stuck in them.
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So I wonder— is it better to live those happy moments fully, or to let go of them so I don’t fear what I might lose when I die?
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It’s terrifying to die as you are—while the world continues, and everything you thought would last fades under dust and rot, or becomes something only the miserable revisit, believing the past was better.
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Wave to me again, oh bride of light… What good is victory that comes after loss? Who would celebrate when your place beside me has turned cold? What if I win only after I die—doesn’t that mean I’ve died a loser?
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Where do I go with the hell of your praise once I’m gone? Where do I go with the ache in my heart once it disappears?
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Owen laughed when I finished reading the text I’d written out of boredom. I wanted to ask him why he was laughing—I thought what I said was deeply profound—but he interrupted me, spinning in his chair in our dorm room.
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Owen: “Black, your parents were absolutely right naming you that. Why all this darkness? You dig your fingers into pain and then act surprised that it hurts… Death? Why fear death? There are billions of possibilities—and more—for what comes after. Whether they’re real or I just return to nothingness, what difference does it make? If I die a loser, I’ll regret nothing, because when the chance was before me, I turned my back.”
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I looked at him, put my hand over my mouth, and leaned against the desk behind me.
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Me: “And what if I try and fail?”
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Owen: “Then try again.”
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Black: “And if I fail again?”
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Owen: “Try something else. It’s foolish to repeat the same thing and expect a different result, isn’t it?”
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I answered, rubbing my chin, “Isn’t that surrender?” I cut him off before he could reply: “You refuse to talk about death, which could be the end of all suffering, as if it’s nothing. But you speak of death as though it isn’t surrender to nature itself. If humans could stop death, we wouldn’t die—but they’ve surrendered to it.”
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Owen smiled: “Who said they’ve stopped trying? And yes, I welcome surrender like an old friend. I embrace losses so the tails of regret don’t grow in the back of my head, as if my brain’s been pierced with a chain and dragged downward.
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Because unlike you, Black, you count the possibilities that might happen and forget about the black swan that may spread its wings in your face without warning. To keep losing until I lose myself—that’s foolishness. But it’s in that very foolishness that all the possibilities I never expected finally find me.”
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I smiled and said, “You and your optimistic ass.”
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He laughed, replying, “Better than being darkness within darkness. You hungry?”
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I nodded, admitting my hunger.
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He asked, “Pizza?”
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I nodded again, placed my papers on the table, and sat down, watching him, wondering once more—how can he be so happy? Is he an idiot? Or am I the idiot for not being able to be like him?
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Are memories—happy ones, especially—truly happy, or just what the gut of time spits back at the miserable so they can cling to the last bits of who they were?
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I jotted down my final note in pencil, then lay back and stared at the ceiling.
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and then Add to home screen.