It was years back and it was resurfacing from the murkiest waters that filled up Kyungsoo’s battered mind. If he were to be asked to think back to what happened ten years ago, he’d be throwing himself into a well, its depth a conundrum – it’d be asking him to dig his heart out of his chest with his bare hands. His only memory of the accident was the image of a car coming from the wrong directions, its headlights flashing lights in the distance and the piercing, horrendous sound of fervent honking. And the next moment he heard the crumbling of metal, and above all, the crumbling of lives before his consciousness fell prey to the fragility of humans.

He spent a month or two in the hospital as a eleven year old child slipping in and out of consciousness, the team of doctors constantly rushing into the public ward as the adults gave him sympathetic looks. The unfamiliar faces were his only guests, no one came for him. And it was only after seven days that his head functioned properly, his memories and thoughts coming back in gushes, in waves – and he drowned in the fact that his parents were dead, and the attention he had been getting wasn’t just because of his injury but the fact that the adults pitied him, they felt sorry for him – and this angered him as he grew up. He wasn’t someone that needed the attention and care of others; people always say that children who were exposed to such trauma either collapse, like a jewel being shattered into several petty fragments or they get stronger, coated with the finest quality of strong metal – and he fell into the latter. And at this moment years later, he felt like he was about to crumble.

He slammed his shivering palm against the glass panel as he tightens his grip on the envelop in his hand. It took some time to surface but the doctor’s words weighed over his thoughts – they were an additional burden on his shoulders as he felt his eyes turning moist, the soulless eyes turning red. He twisted himself to lean against the panel and slumped toward the floor. It was too much to take perhaps, he wasn’t as strong as he wanted to be. Staring in the distance, he ignored the eyes of the public. He knew that they were probably looking at him with pity, again. After these years of fending for himself and staying strong, he was back to square one. A pitiful boy who needed love and care from people he had never met, a weak soul who couldn’t keep himself together. They call it aphasia, a disturbance in the formulation and comprehension of language due to damage to the brain tissue areas responsible for language. It took some time for his to develop, and over the years these disgusting things made their way through his head, working their way into his weakest spots – and it would eventually cause major hinderance in his ability to comprehend, in his ability to speak, in his ability to write. He scoffed as he recalled the past few weeks of what he thought was usual writer’s block, the manner in which he often had difficulties putting the words together, the times when he needed Lay to pause and let him think before he could converse normally; it made sense, finally. And he would be back to the empty shell he was years back, the one which didn’t know how poetry worked, didn’t know how the languages worked and flowed so flawlessly – he’d forget these things, he’d lose them. As a tear trickled down his cheek, he heard the sound of soft gentle footsteps beside him.

“Soo hyung.” He looked up to see Lay standing before him, his eyes b with concern, “I know what happened so save the effort.” As Lay sat down beside Kyungsoo, he felt the sense of security of being around him return, the things that he thought they’d long lost. And perhaps that was when it dawned on him that throughout the five years that they spent together, as he wrote poetry for this boy, the devilish things were running through his thoughts too. Perhaps if they weren’t there, he could’ve written better things.

“I don’t-don’t know what I can do anymore.” He couldn’t. Writing was his life, something he was sure he loved more than himself, “If I can’t write, there’s honestly nothing that I enjoy anymore – you know don’t you? How much I-”

“Love poetry.” Lay finished his sentence for him before sighing and placing his arm around his shoulder and squeezed it gently, “Yes I know that. But they have therapies and if it does fail, your communication problems can be dealt with by introducing props or such – and if you’d like to write poetry I could help you.”

“Its severe aphasia Yixing, its the kind that can’t be salvaged. Maybe it can, maybe it would’ve been possible to treat it if I got it through or a brain tumour but it isn’t the case – I’m just going to lose all of this that I have right now, the only outlet I’ve got and I’ll just be a burden, a moping empty shell, a ing soulless human – and by then I’ll just hinder you, I’ll trip you over constantly, I’ll just drag you down and make you frustrated from time to time because by then I’d be frustrated. And maybe when that happens you’ll get tired and need a breather; You’ll need time for yourself, I can’t possibly love or even live if words can’t flow in my head. If I can’t even think of how to form a simple sentence in my head how can I even function?” Kyungsoo found himself shivering in Lay’s arms as Lay kept silent for a few moments.

“If you can’t write by then, I’ll learn for you. I’ll learn to write poetry or whatever, I can try and I’d be more than happy to help you improve – its possible, if you have props or things you can write with – you can write your messages out, draw them out, or use props or simply take your time; It gives you difficulties, that’s true, but it can’t strip you of your worthiness.”

“But it is, its digging into the core of my body – you know what they say about people being onions and how they have nothing but layers and layers that wrap over each other and complement each other to form a strong core; but when something goes wrong, when one goes out of position, when the formation gets too sloppy or perhaps when something pries it open you get air, lumpy space, nothing; its like the person gets dissipated into thin air just that his layers are still left limp on the floor.” Kyungsoo felt himself being drained of his energy, and before he lost his most treasured strength he wished to use it to its fullest.

“You have some time. Before you lose it entirely so treasure it for now and when you really start slipping away we’ll think of something. When you lose your strength entirely, tell me. I’ll be your voice and head and hand and whatever you need.” In moments like this, the way Lay fumbled and blurted anything that came to mind was simply too adorable; yet it wasn’t enough to calm the younger boy down as his shoulders continued shaking uncontrollably as he lay in his arms, his hands curled up into balls as a frown remained imprinted on his forehead.

As the two of them sat in silence in the living room of their apartment, the ceiling fan whirring in the night, Kyungsoo ran his fingers over his poetry book as Lay sat uneasily in his work chair typing the words out for his report in a softer manner. He didn’t wish to aggravate his entire condition in the sense that typing fast would just remind him of how he could still write freely maybe – and at times he wondered why it had to be Kyungsoo; why did someone who loved poetry and writing to such an extent have to have such an illness? It didn’t quite make sense did it – at times he wish he could take it for him, if he could’ve been the one who was sick.

“You know, before I lose my ability to write and speak properly I want to write more.” Kyungsoo’s hoarse voice breaks the silence as Lay turns back to face the boy who is sitting cross-legged on the sofa, his book and notes sprawled out over his legs as he reaches out for a pen lying on the table, his eyebrows creased downwards as he concentrates on every word he writes. Lay loved seeing him write, the entire feeling of someone being in love, truly in love with something. The kind of burning passion that surpasses anything, surpasses words. People say they love things, but they end up grasping on them too hard and eventually they let go – but when it came to Kyungsoo and writing, they flowed together in silence, their paces adjusted to suit each other. When inspiration came, his poetry was churned out piece by piece of quality work in a short period of time; and when the ink ran dry, it would take weeks to return despite his frustration. It was that simple, the harmonious cohabitation of human and words; and thinking about it made Lay appreciate this boy even more. The way he wrote just seemed so perfect, the emotions and angst seeping through the paper to form clear pictures in the minds of readers.

“I’m done.” Kyungsoo lifted his head after twenty minutes of sheer concentration as he met Lay’s eyes and smiled gently, motioning for him to come over.

16^th July – Silence.

(So the entire aphasia thing has come true and for some reason it hit me hard even though it was in my list of possible problems that’d arise in my life after the entire episode with the accident. It’s been something that haunted me and I guess its back once again. I’ve given up on fighting against it and having Yixing around is just something that’d make me even stronger I hope. Not being able to write will be more than painful, in fact it’d be something that’d make me crumble but perhaps if silence is with him, its much more bearable than I’d imagine it to be.)

I used to associate your presence

to the brightest of chrysanthemums in their

 beauty, their ebullient glamour

similar to the warmth and comfort

your embraces brought.

But then they would say : Foolish child, chrysanthemums

are donned against fragile tails of black scarves.

Perhaps I’d settle into uncertainty,

a split second of insecurity –

a quiet meltdown into foam left in the

wrath of wind and its ice cold clutches.

But

/pat/

A gentle touch,

you had been endowed with geniality

and dear sincerity;

a rare gem, a precious soul,

a wonderful gleam of light in the shadows.

I would be willing to sink into an eternity of silence,

if it was to be shared with you –

above the waves of judgmental thoughts,

below the spiteful gazes

amongst the vicious whispers.