Amongst your restless waters, I slumber.

Dripping June, petrichor, dark horizon;

It pains me -- serenity, cold weather.

Front of a post office, I stand alone.

Rain -- relentless, forlorn -- erstwhile letter,

As soon as the sky clears, will I go on?

Miles away, will my poetry reach you:

He was a curator who speaks softly about springtime dreams, flowing stars, maple trees, and Vincent Van Gogh, he’s always loved the constellation of Canis Manor and drawn Killua Zoldyck on illustration boards using pencils out of boredom, he owns a gallery which houses 40 paintings, with 3 barely hanging on the wall.

Who am I to know about pastels and easels? About canvasses and paints? I might have made an impressionist artwork if I am too educated about it, I can’t even use a protractor nor a compass, can’t even comprehend your horoscopes and introspections, all I can do is measure lightyears through my poems, watch September pass by in a jiffy, and adore Don McLean.

I can’t understand the gray in the strands of your hair neither I can stay by your side, because the artist that I am isn’t enough to decipher your abstraction.

Still… I can write about your gestures, silly remarks, and the way you walk on willowed roads…

Haven’t visited your gallery in a long while now…

I wonder,

are the three paintings with dandelions in them

still hanging barely

It feels as if I’m walking on a pathway full of wilted azaleas, and the northern mountains look like the darkest landforms I’ve ever seen… This place looks like the local market I’ve known, it’s just that this used to be where your footsteps camp, where your stories linger – the footsteps and stories of a poor boy who picks up thrown balls for a living. You dyed your hair last night, and I don’t know how hard everything is for you, I can’t be good enough for anything and everything even after getting a bachelor’s degree, even after turning 21. I am still that kid you yelled at and beat up for unknown reasons, and I’ve been living my life finding the courage to pursue my earthly desires, and yet… I can’t be capable enough…

because my heart’s not strong enough to build your empire, to build my capital city, all I know is to write something only I will consider poetry,

because my mind’s not strong enough to memorize the entire Pi chart and the atomic mass of every element, I am not genius enough to be a scientist, not talented enough to be a superstar, not good enough for a writer or a human resource officer…

I, too, want to help this family, pay for utility bills and other expenses, I, too, am tired of unemployment.

At the end of the day, all these times,

I just want to be the best son

a poor man who used to pick up thrown balls and now drives a garbage truck for a living

I’ve come to know Yoo Seung Ho through two dramas: Remember: War of the Son and Ruler: Master of the Mask, this young man captured my eye and my heart and became my downright most favorite Korean actor to date, I’m going to watch his movies soon and will wait for his future endeavors and shows.

Today, you’re a year older and I wish for the accomplishment of every of your heart’s simplest and grandest desire. Hope you’ll be a bigger star but will remain grounded with feet firmly planted on the ground. Without you, Yoopies are incomplete. You’ve got the brightest smiles, and I hope they’ll last forever. Happy Birthday, our dear Seung Ho! Keep on smiling! Saranghaeyo!!! Fighting!

On these pensive yet busy streets, a multitude of stories were told by the sound of my footsteps, I’ve sighed thousands of ironies long before Icarus has fallen, I’ve known traffic jams and jumped endless puddles, lost metaphors and imageries and found them again after a day or two on the very same spot where your silhouette made love to a once shadowy sky… Can you remember? It was the dimming light from a leaning streetlight that held the sincerest poetry; you looked like a surrealist painting, I was always fond of your architecture, have always adored your unfinished smile and the scars on your arms.

I’ve run after your fading afterimages on these quietly thoughtful streets, listened to the tranquil humming of my collar bones, waited for dandelions to bloom, read good books and written poems, done the very usual things I always do.

But these pensive yet busy streets, as quietly thoughtful as they always are,

Like the moon, I don’t have enough lucency… How am I supposed to shine without you?

Wounded and pained, I still write poems for you… I’ve chosen to be vulnerable to you like a pond with rippled waters and a still life painting barely hanging on the hallway.

My metaphors burn my tongue before I can ever taste them, but it’s a waste to spit them out… They can be asteroids that will someday hit me and form fizzures on my core.

You are my sun, you conform its rays, destroying the ozone layers, trapping greenhouse gases – Wait, I’ve had enough of science lessons already.

But you really are my sun… in the most poetic way, you light me up making me a sunspot-filled road

and a dandelion

changing the perspective of this dark world.

Once in a while, you’ll meet someone whose iridescence is enough to take the sorrows of this world away…

whose brilliance will blind you, but you’ll still choose to look at…