Looking for the real me
I feel like fall is all warm colors and brown, but can also have a really stark brightness to it
Maybe the brightness reminds me of how the weather gets a little sharp with the cold
No matter how thick my sweater is, the colds winds its way through to my skin
It bites in the way the ending of a year always does
So filled with celebration and joy that it almost doesn’t hurt
You make me want to write poetry again
Pen making the pages bleed
With mouthless words
My contacts list receives hundreds of texts, pictures, and calls each week but I don’t talk to God.
Every time I follow classmates on Instagram , his profile pops in the recommended. Once, curious, I tapped the screen: his account was private.
At lunch, my friends tell me about how they hung out with him on Sunday. For the mutual friends we have, I don’t know much about him. I haven’t heard God’s name on the role, have’t brushed his shoulder in the hall. For so long all the information I had about him came from friends, and they have nothing but praise for the guy.
I’ve heard he’s loving, but there are rumors going around that he doesn’t like my trans sister. That he invited the whole school to his birthday party, but not me.
The theologians would ask god about a monumental piece of doctrine but if I could ask him one thing I’d want to know what kind cereal he likes best or whether he plays an instrument or something.
I want to know if he’s a cat person, so I can know if I was truly made in his image. If we have more in common than who we know.
I don’t need to know if those rumors are true. My name among the whispers is loud, but my friends’ arms around me are louder. To be honest, I don’t believe God even goes to this school.
Right now, I already know the information that’s important. He makes my friend’s happy.
From the age of six my father knew he would be lawyer like his father, and like his father’s father before him. When it comes to ambitions, he’s never known what it was to not know. Dad doesn’t want for me to follow in his foot steps, but can’t give me advice on how to find anything else to do with my life. I think it’s for people like me that a young man called Rap Monster dedicated a song to “all da youngsta’s widdout dreamz” (3:43). For kids who have never met The Phantom.
You see, me and Raoul have been going steady since elementary school. He held my hand when it first dawned on me every car holds real people with their own important lives and destinations. In high school he helped me apply to the University my dad went to.
I don’t know how to tell him that I took eight AP classes between this year and last because I like them. College didn’t factor into the equation. College never factored into the equation, because when all the times my life was added up, I reached zero before graduation.
But Raoul doesn’t know any of that, doesn’t know anything about me; even if he’s all I’ve ever known, I don’t know him either. Whether this guy is a childhood love like a old worn shirt, or an arranged match is unclear. He is comfortable, despite his holes. No idea what he’s gonna do with the business degree or how many kids he wants, but it’s no matter. He’s convenient. There’s nothing easier than falling into comfort with someone who can’t look at anything but you.
Yet I can’t help up look past him on the sidelines at every track meet to the stands, wondering if the Phantom has finally made his way watch.
I want to say that I’m moving work to fulfill my dreams, but I don’t any. Not a single one. In middle school, the girl I spoke to my councilor with was taking xyz classes and would go to so-and-so college to become a surgeon. My mouth was blank, hands grasping ink-less pens. A failure.
“I guess I like math? Or English?”
Eye’s never settling, I can the bleachers for a face made of other’s words, not memory. Words like “attractive,” “breathtaking,” and “he’ll find you one day.” My phantom doesn’t have features or a name, and I’ve been told you can’t dream of faces you’ve never seen.
And to be honest I couldn’t even tell you if Raoul really is care worn, ridden with holes but clearly loved. That’s what Nelson and my mom have said, but my Raoul is collecting dust in the closet, he’s never taken off the hanger by me. His face doesn’t come to me in sleep either.
At the age of six, I didn’t want to be a princess, or an astronaut, or a vet. When asked the question, the answers adults wanted came. Now the adult, I don’t know what answer I want to here from myself or Raoul or the Phantom. I just hope he searches for me a little longer.
I’m searching for him too.
The Olympics are happening, playing as background noise at my family meals and facilitating post-dinner conversations. Saturday night the Men’s team Free Skate saw America’s own Alex Rippon in third place, and my brother Jack throwing out complaints. The skaters can’t make it through their program without my brother raging over how no matter what the skaters do, it only counts so long as the “judges like the music.” Every quad toe loop and triple axel I hear, “hopefully the judges like the music.”
Full disclosure, I’ve been on the Olympic hype train for since early November, and I only care about the figure skating events. So when we were at the Famous Daves when Jack’s started spouting views that lines up with Edward Agros, a sports reporter, I was not too pleased. On the twelfth, Argos tweeted that although skating is highly difficult, it is an “art form,” “not a sport.” Explaining in later tweets that the choreographic elements make the event “too subjective,” and that figure skating lacks “quantifiable metrics” by which it is scored.
The guy who sits two seats behind me in the English went so far as say that any sport with judges shouldn’t be considered a sport at all.
Funnily enough, I’ve never heard this argument leveled against snowboarding. Olympic Halfpipe Snowboarding has a six judge panel that gives boarders a score between 1 and 100 based on their “overall impression” of the run. Sure, they consider elements like difficulty, variety, amplitude, and progression, but it’s all subject to the opinion of the judges. Jump “X” isn’t worth “Y” amount of points. Instead, Snowboarders are compared to each other, and points given for the same routine can vary wildly. Often, the first athlete receives a low score because the judges are comparing him or her to theoretical runs that might be occur later on. Those metrics don’t seem all that quantifiable.
If there isn’t a problem there, then Figure skating is absolutely a sport. Figure skating is extraordinary technical in it’s scoring. Every jump has a base value. For example, a quadruple salchow is worth 10.3 points, with 3 points that can be added or deducted based on execution. There’s not much debate over what something is worth. Computers, who calculate what a jump is worth, have even gone so far as to measure the angle of a skate upon take off to determine it’s score. The particular taste of a judge has far less weight in figure skating than snowboarding, but again, I’ve never heard anyone question a boarders title of Athlete.
Because it seems like Jack and Egros and the guy two seats behind don’t care about subjectivity, really. Their arguments of always end up at the music. “The Olympics are about athleticism,” Jack had declared, watching a skaters spin, mocking his hand position. What about his hand looking like this or that is athletic?
Lots of sports show raw physical strength. Shot put is about how far you can throw, cross country skiing is about speed, and hockey about how many points you can score. Clear examples of human athleticism. But what about archery? And don’t get me started on shooting. You just move your finger.
No, the don’t push the limits of the human body, but what they do demonstrate is precision and control; skating is no different. Not only are these athlete leaping into the air and rotating up to four full times, but they have to look good doing while they do it! In between jumps, they don’t get to rest in between, they’re demonstrating complex footwork. That skating gets more points for it hand looking like this, because it’s more difficult that way.
And yes, the skaters are scored on artistry and how well they express their chosen piece of music. However, that too takes a good deal of physicality. It makes the in between jumps and spins moments count. The skaters show endurance and skill by keeping their whole body engaged the entire time. Even their facial expressions must be schooled something fitting the story they want to tell, rather than showing how difficult what their doing is.
That isn’t to say there’s no stretching of what the human’s are physically capable of. There are men out there using just the power of their legs to launch into the air and rotate four times before landing without flaw, transitioning into the next part of their routine. Achieving one quad jump take a significant amount of power, and America’s Nathan just became the first man to attempt six in a single routine. Figure skating isn’t a “who-can-look-the-prettiest” spectacle, it’s a sport requiring great athleticism.
These athletes manage to beautifully blend sport and art. To say that what these people do isn’t a sport is an insult to the years of intense training and athleticism they’ve cultivated throughout their entire lives. The mix of incredible, powerful jumps with up to four rotation and choreography imbued with grace come together to showcase the capabilities of the human form like no other sport can.
[Verse 1]
Took in a glass of soju and I felt it
Life is the process of continuously getting to know loneliness.
Whether there were many people around or not
The little self inside me was always lonely.
Why is there no opposite word for loneliness?
Could it be, because people, until they die, have no moments of not being lonely?
The world around can overflow with lively noise
But the time always comes when you have to be alone –
Yeah, that’s life
We live inside danger
As payment for allowing us to see this beautiful world
Bulletproof vests* and street lamps and sturdy cars
None of these can perfectly protect us from death
(Bangtan=bulletproof, referencing the symbol of his band: a bullet proof vest)
From the moment everyone is born,
Life is more beautiful because we’ve taken a loan on death
Even light is treasured more when there’s darkness,
The sunshine appears after we’ve passed through the storm
[CHORUS]
Life, fall in love
Life gets wounded by us and feels lonely from the wind
(Wordplay: “wind” also means to have an affair”)
We wanna be right, but always wrong
Were we born so we can be wrong? Could it be life is like that?
For our whole lives, we would never know what tomorrow brings
Even if this building was going to fall, we won’t be able to escape
We tryna be bright, but always dark
It feels like we’ve lived long enough to know, but we still don’t know
[VERSE 2]
The world is decalcomanie
Those who seemed to be on my side, turned into vicious enemy
Like folding paper, all I would have to do is fold for this relationship to end
The next moment he sneers at me from the opposite side
Just the same, but, kid, there’s no reason to be angry
To some parents, even their children don’t exist when they see money
We must burn up because the world is so cold
So that nobody can make us frozen, even if I hurt myself
(Wordplay: “Burn up also means to “climb over” [others in competition])
Maybe their’s no such thing as right or wrong
But the thing we always ended up learning was: to step on, to catch, to erase, to hate someone
“Fuck all the peace and love” I know that’s “the natural enemy of success”
As if obvious, these quotes logically followed makes me more sad
But what does it matter? I’m just words too
Just a wind passing by another
[CHORUS]
[BRIDGE]
Were we born so that we can live?
Were we born so that we can die?
Were we born so that we can live?
Were we born so that we can die?
Are we living so that we can die?
Are we dying so that we can live?
The label on my name
Is it life?
Or death?
Who knows…
[CHORUS]
(Translations from SUGA & spice’s video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUCkRat6Y7M and https://muish.wordpress.com/2017/08/21/rm-bts-life-english-translation-ramblings/)
Bonus: Songs on my Playlist by Artist’s Whose Names Start with “J”
I actually tried really hard to make this a video, but it wasn’t panning out, so here’s a bunch of pictures with music instead.
Top shelf:
I haven’t read them all.
More books I have and haven’t read
Middle shelf:
I sewed the bat(?) thing
Frog journal + alpaca
Bottom shelf:
Color changing pacman ghost lamp
The figit spinner glows in the dark
Pig from my dad that he got a Wooden Flute shop
Fun fact! The bottom shelf used to have a bunch of particle junk (i.e. school books, art supplies, extra paper) but it ripped itself from the wall. I had to remove stacks of books from the top shelf to prevent a similar fate, as well as reorganize the bottom shelf.
Bonus: wall decorations
I started collecting the clip figures and it’s a bit out of control at this point, to be honest. Idk where to put them anymore…
30th anniversary Star Trek poster from my Grandma!
Some days I want to post essays, not poetry.
Mr. Rees always says to write to from your “address” and my life isn’t actually full of dancing by the dying fires of eternal youthful love. I’m from asthma, atheism, and too much alliteration.
I want to write more about unimportant things that matter a whole lot.
My roller skates are stored next to the family’s toilet plunger, which might be poetic, but certainly not as romantic as something I love so much deserves.
I like to take them out when it’s dark most of all. I like to stare up at the stars and be just cold enough to feel alive, feel in-the-moment real.
I think of myself as a skater before poet or athlete.
I hate my neighborhoods new streetlamps. The old ones where warm orange and covered at the top to reduce light pollution. The new ones are exposed bright white LED middle fingers to the environment. Even though they work better as spotlights for my improvised nighttime jam skate sessions, I still want them gone.
I want to give you the feeling of gliding underneath the stars in the cold, but hate the idea of having to tell you it’s something it’s not for you to understand what it’s like. Maybe I’ll find a way one day.
I almost forgot to tell you the reason I chose my pen name!
Agust D, to me, is a reminder to be real and honest. He’s a South Korean rapper who opened up about his struggles with mental health in his song The Last in a country where having depression is often seen as a character flaw and talking about it is taboo. That’s brave as hell.
The song is also super freaking good.
Agust D 