nah

Murph to Cooper

after Interstellar (2014)

I've had so long to think, after our true goodbye.

Did you really believe in that phrase -- let me rephrase, was how I realized that dream the way it played out

  against your skull? Lo and behold: this continued existence of ours; an endless green warping to the back of your head (rather   than those burning fields); a humankind untethered to the soil that birthed it and it killed in response;

my rattling breath against the respirator and my mottled skin against yours: not even close.

When my hospital bed was vacated and you fulfilled   that new purpose I bestowed upon you will you finally shed your grief-stricken throat in realizing just how little time we had together   just as I prayed for you to do so too?

After all we that endured?

in September 2024 these feelings seemed eternal. i begged in my dreams / in my journals / on the hot side of my pillow so that I could repent the feeling of regret coating my insides away; of what if I was centered instead, sure of myself instead; if I cried out while I was lost in that haze... In 5 Years, let this wound cauterize - please, my hands were shaking.

humane, always-degrading memory: it took me 4 months. repentance not through mulling my mistakes in my head. not through magical thinking (time travel my preferred fantasy) to know better in the past so that my present could be without this lesson. but through action, present. through articulating this knot in my chest. through closing the gap of [my hands with yours][the wall I made to protect myself][ambition and action].

i wrote a prayer for my 24th year. Let me trust in that certainty that you won't avert your eyes. my bleeding hands, not grotesque, but proof that I could sob in your embrace. i didn't believe in it when I wrote it. How strange that marking and etching this formless want made it real to me. how I constantly forget this bit of personal knowledge and have to learn it again.

after Toeti Heraty

Let us settle down, love. No more heartbreak. The rice cooker has always been turned on. The rice tender and warm. I don't forget, in this version of my life. Neither do you.               Malam tidak menggebrak masuk melalui halaman (jika kita bisa memanggilnya halaman) belakang, tetapi menyelinap dingin di atas linoleum menguning, membawa tenteram & bukannya ancaman-ancaman belaka.1 

We leave behind the jagged edges of ourselves. 

Ayo kita tanggalkan belati diri yang terpaksa ini.2                                     jati diri

/

autotranslation:

1. Night doesn't break in / through the backyard (if we can even call it one) / but slips, frigidly by, on top of the yellowing / linoleum, carrying tranquility & not / mere empty threats.

in this one, his heart doesn't stop. or his death

unavenged. in here we are the gods who cradle him

in our limbs, too flesh a thing who bears pain like a calling,

like it is what he is built and smelt to be. and it is. and how bruising

our song was. he was a stone yet we awoke him. somehow

his heart was there and we just let it be. we both thought

he was unmovable. then he let the pain go through his tendons.

They forced me to take it off.

I'll wear it again.

I was wrong.

This was my fault.

You both were right all along.

I should've stayed quiet and knew you were right all along.

All of these songs thematically reference each other. However, both Dark Clouds and Swimming Pool are directly connected through the phrase "수면 위 세상" – the world above the water's surface.

먹구름 (DARK CLOUDS) (soundcloud / genius ENG translation)

in dark clouds, taeyong invites the listener (and in extension, himself) through “this letter” he has written to "look at the world reflecting on the water's surface (수면 위로 비추는 이 세상을 봐)": a reminder that it's okay to take a breath and not only tirelessly move through life. to look at the sky once in a while, where the whales swim, where the stars give light.

taeyong has used this whale imagery before: "Now the size of my heart is a real whale / The shark in my mind is no longer there" in long flight. his compassion and understanding has surrounded him more so than the negative feelings he has had – this kind of thinking has allowed him to give light to others! and he isn't wrong at all.

the alternative title for dark clouds was also “whale” 

he explicitly talked about this mindset change in his vlive too! 

to look up is to have the ability to float and see yourself in a bird's eye view. to know where you stand, and what you're going through in the grand scheme of things. most of the time, the hardships are temporary. to look up gives you perspective. "너도 알잖아?" he asked us – you knew this, didn't you? i knew. i just needed a reminder.

but to be able to do this does require your own effort – it's not merely the simple act of having perspective, you have to internalize it, believe it. "dark mold grows and i can't nip it in the bud [...] / now i face it, i scrape it down, kick & shout / but this is even more painful (싹을 잘라낼 수 없는 검은 곰팡이가 피어 [...] / 나 이제는 마주봐 흠 그래 긁어내려 발악해도 / 이건 더 참 괴로움)"... the process of healing is painful. but better to cut it out when you know if you let it grow, it will only fester. you have to know yourself that surrounding yourself only with your negative emotions will only bring you under the surface, so much so like you've swallowed water – you're drowning.

SWIMMING POOL (soundcloud / genius ENG translation)

what i love about this song is that it isn't the prequel to dark clouds, it is the continuation. i think taeyong made the deliberate decision to release swimming pool after dark clouds – "i will show you the other side" [of the water's surface], “looking at a different world from the one above the water (수면 위 세상과 다른 세상을 봐)” – in order to show that healing, of recovering, is not a clean, linear narrative. you have days where, even after being able to look at the world with bright eyes, all you want is to shut out the world and curl up, lock yourself "inside this frame i made (내가 만든 이 틀에서)".

there is comfort in a bad habit, of knowing and executing your self-sabotage. "Sometimes negative thinking can act as a safeguard that keeps us from the hard work that optimism requires," dominique mkhonza wrote. taeyong in swimming pool knows this all too well – he's tired of running, of making the effort. it's so hard.

"sitting alone in a swimming pool that has no water": this is what he said this song felt like. in verse 3, he has the imperative to drain the water out in this pool he made: it won’t change anything, because it's filled with nothing but “욕심”. 욕심 is a really nuanced word: naver dictionary describes it as "excessive desire", and in context it can either mean greed/ambition/aspiration. an aggressive desire for something. having a lot of 욕심 isn't bad – that means you have something to seek and work for in life– but there are times when you feel like you're only "satisfy[ing your] cravings ([너]의 갈망을 채우기)", just a selfish goal.

this song offers no resolution, either. because when you're in the thick of this, nothing seems to be able to pull you out the deep end – not from others, and certainly not from yourself. it is an honest, bare reflection of what this time of self-isolation feels like.

BLUE (soundcloud / genius ENG translation)

..is not an explicitly connected to dark clouds & swimming pool, but in every other sense it very much is so

his maturity and self-awareness really shines in this. this is a comfort song: not to us the listeners, but to himself too. he knows exactly how to pull himself out the waters now, which was a resolution that was not offered in swimming pool: it is not to isolate your heart, which is the misguided advice he got from other people:

Some people call me a fool Some people say I shouldn't try to understand others Yet the resentment would confine me And keep me from getting out of it, no

누군가는 나를 바보라고해 누군가를 이해하지 말라고해 원망은 날 옥죄어 이 곳 헤어나오지 못하게 하는건데도 no

without sharing your heart with others, all you are left with is a void of your own making. so, taeyong implores: “i hope you show it to me, it won't be embarrassing / [... to] dive in the blue with you, [to] pour it all to me (내게 보여주기 안 창피할테니 / [..] 모든걸 전부 쏟아내)” – he’ll do the same, too.

LONG FLIGHT (MV / genius ENG translation)

i thought dark clouds & swimming pool was a strict duology, but as i was searching for where taeyong has referenced "whales" before, the entirety of long flight's lyrics just bloomed before me and made me realize it was saying hi, i'm his first released work in this series! :)

long flight is definitely connected with dark clouds, or at least conceptualized with it in mind or vice versa, due to taeyong singing the demo during his long flight release vlive! :3

when i first listened to it, i thought the "This is enough(충분해) but I’m still starving baby" line for the chorus was funny and sensual, especially towards the romantic interest he's talking to in this song. but then, it is followed with:

Wanna go up much higher hey So I can touch the top of the sky So I can take in the entire world [...]

Wanna go up much higher hey 하늘 위까지 닿을 수 있게 [...] 세계를 담을 수 있게, mmm

so, having the realization of how much the phrase and concept of 욕심 means to him, i now have the understanding that long flight's lyrics, in its entirety, might also underwent the same alteration process that baby don't like it (나쁜 짓)'s lyrics went through - there were a lot of revisions in its lyrics to make it err, for the lack of better word, "palatable" to the GP. this made the themes of long flight less coherent due to the romance aspect being shifted into it. but that's what words can do: have multi-interpretation, and this still worked in context. 

but i want to honor what the original intention of these lines might be. "it's enough, but i'm still starving". & there's nothing wrong that. to take, to give, to the world so much - if we can find a balance in this process, that's all we can ask of existing.

extra notes:

since he still hasn’t released the official lyrics, this is an analysis based on transcriptions. still, he’s since said that he really appreciates the interpretations, & i will honor that today! hehe

i love how he provides the opposite element, fire, in dark clouds. it cuts through the image he’s painting: the way its intensity makes his feelings flare and bloom in his heart, in comparison to how calming and soothing everything else is. that it reflects in between his blurry eyes – burns red & bright, representing that his negative emotions aren't the only thing defining him. the intensity of his ambition is also what drives him forward – something that keeps him focused, grounded. i think taeyong is a very grounded person: he acknowledges his ups & downs, and that they're both part of him. he isn't always one-or-the-other. his emotions don't define him. he's come to this conclusion after a long, arduous journey – and i'm so happy that here is where he has arrived to.

taeyong is a deliberate, conscious, serious artist. he does a lot of self-referencing across his body of work; he knows what themes and imagery pops up and constantly uses them in order to drive home the narrative he wants to tell. the air (sky)/water (pool) comparison was 100% deliberate too, & it's kinda obvious so i don't think it needs to be expanded here LOL

i knew he is an amazing artist, but with this analysis my awe and respect only grows and expands. i am so inspired by how sure he is of his craft, & so, so excited to see what he wants to share with the world next.

💌 from my march[?] newsletter

and tells me that it's okay to cradle hope            the way someone picks at their scabs.

i never thought of myself as a god, but maybe,            laughingly, a prophet. destined for anything else

other than this–other than glimpsing lustre            yet never owning it. i wanted my hands

to wring cerebrospinal fluid to understanding,            my name a gasping breath to all the girls pulled

into too many directions. my name: immortalized in textbooks,            in literary canons, in nebulae. hope, a strange,

viscous thing–gripping me the opposite way my mother            sharpens reality into a knife but guts me the same way

my grandma let her do to her stomach. history silent in its violence:            the way three generations sleep in one bed

and never acknowledge the hurt bruising below their diaphragm.            yes, i admit, i'm choking on all these visions of the future

and i, unlike a prophet, selfishly reach out to the one            where i am destined for greatness and the others

drop dead around me. i'm holding the bludgeon. and i, unlike a god,            don't have the hands to scoop the blood back

into their glittering bodies. but the knife does its job, twisting my insides            to see blearily into the future–a cold reality.

i am no seer. god, i wish i were. i wish my hair            could be twisted into a crown and we could all

call it a day. but hope is a blister that tells me            to never let go. but reality tries harder to open up

an exit wound, and tells me that i'm a monster            for letting my inferno swallow the world to roaring ashes.

but this is a pipedream i disguise as fate–            i'm willing to scar for it. my chest is a cage

i'm rattling out of. girls with sharp ambitions must dull themselves out            until they can touch anyone without skinning them alive.

(2017)

after fka twigs’ meta angel

                               ]  i don't want to be the version of myself that looks hopelessly[forlornly up, waiting for the world to take her away. [                                      ] yes i wish i didn't have to tiptoe through life knowing what sliver of happiness i have can be so brutally stricken down. but that doesn’t mean i only have things that i can't control. i have a lot of power in my hands. i can pick up that arrow and kill that girl in the white. not out of self-hatred or bitterness, but so that we both can move on. i forgive her. of course i do. how could i not, when i know of everything that she went through? 

                                       but i don't need hands that don't flinch when it touches fire. i don't need a girl that waits for death to whisk her away. i need mouths that speak and hands that do things, protecting herself and the people she loves. that can draw boundaries. i'm sick of waiting for a miracle, when my muscles haven't moved a twitch. 

i don't want the mirror to scream where did i go anymore.

trying to get back into the groove of it (transcription below)

my remix of chiara situmorang’s poem alexandrite was published in utopia: a remix zine (mixed by jessica ginting)! head over the link to savor the beautiful works for this theme <3 

[alt text below]