BE THE LIGHT

It’s dark and I can’t see

I put out my hand but only the wind clashes

I don’t know why but this place is strange

I’m getting used to this misery

I live like a shadow

Block B – Be the Light.

Day One

“It will be hard before it gets better,” he says and you nod at him, fascinated.

You weren’t willing to be in this place at first, but now you regret it, being conscious of how you look like, of how disgusted you feel about yourself, about life and the sunlight that crashes against your brown eyes and make you curl up as if afraid; it hurtsh You want to come back to that spot you call home – but it’s only a hole where you hide, dark and inhospitable, the smell of spilled liqueur spreads all around and it hasn’t seen a soul since you moved in, three years ago, you count on your skins, fingertips digging until they are touching bones, your head spinning, tumbling inside your skull, burning as if a bonefire you can't soothe, extinguish – but his dazzling presence erases the pain, replacing it with a voice, soft and sweet and caring, that caresses your mind and, for once, you don’t need to be drunk to smile – but maybe alcohol will be less aching because his lips are so pretty, so open and tempting, inviting like a bottle of soju you are not allowed to take a sip of. “In a year you should be clean” he states and you glance directly at him; bright eyes that hold all the expectation that you lack, round and precious painted with a brown that no palette could bring to live; he is better than any painting you have ever seen, pretty and gleaming, the sky must feel petty with him under its realm, soft hair that falls over his pale, milky forehead, eyelids covered in little spots and that crease when he giggles – and he does that too much, but you enjoy it, so you aren’t complaining; you find it difficult to complain when someone like him is around; you find it hard to breathe or to think straight, but you didn’t have your drink yet today, so your head isn’t in good condition but, was it ever been? You wonder, but the answer is on the tip of your tongue, sticking there like a petal and you want to tell him how gorgeous he is but, deep inside you know it would be a bad idea. But all your ideas are terrible nowadays so, where does the problem lay? You don't mind being honest for once. 

“You are so pretty,” you say, lame and ridiculous, fire red blooming all over your face, but he only smirks at your general direction and, for a whole second, he looks directly at you, starings, meeting with your slurred eyes, blinding you with his light. You blink and the moment is broken, the spell that binds you to him disappear just like dew drops under sunshine.  He grabs your hands and they are as smooth as they seem,  blanching under your tanned ones, but it feels right, you feel wholesome and it has been years since you felt a true thing. He holds them for a second that feels like eternity and, when he lets them go, you miss it, the warmth that he has spread over you, the dainty sunlit that comes from his eyes and that makes you feel high without having to take a nip of alcohol – and you also miss the taste of it lingering on your lips, flaming you from the inside, bringing back what you can't get on your own, but his assurance in you lifts the sorrows of your brain, the urgent necessity to drink summits to the drunkenness state he has sedated you with his blinding smile; it kind of feels the same and you wish to be able to bottle this and carry it with you. 

You didn’t want to be here, standing in this place where you are sure you don’t belong, but he talks you down in a way no one else has done and it feels alright; sure, you are still ashamed and the longing itches so hard, making your heart beats hard, loud like a drum, breaking ribs and bones and ripping skin and you feel like bleeding – but he stares at you and your chest thumbs noticeably for another reason you can’t put a name into it – but, alas, here you are, sitting in front of the most alluring therapist, listening to all the tips he has to offer, feeling as bad and depressed as you assume you look – and you regret not taking a shower, the choice of clothes, the fact that you are a mess but, this morning you weren’t thinking clearly, you just wanted it to be over as fast as possible; now you just want to find any excuse, lame or stupid, to hear him talk, to glance at him a little bit longer.

The air around you whiffs with the fragrance of sour, cheap beer and the taste remains inside your mouth, the bitterness grazing between your too white, perfect teeth – and that’s the only noticeable thing about you, the last bit of pride you can hold onto, - but he doesn’t bother, he doesn’t flinch away from you as most people in the streets do – when you bless them with your never welcomed presence – and you are the one who feels hallowed, his voice echoing in the room like fireworks and it’s beautiful, it’s beautiful in a way nothing else can compare; it’s unique and special and you want to be wrapped with it, with a meaning you can’t quite understand but that sounds like a mother singing a lullaby – and, for a split instant you miss your own one but that’s something you don’t want to deal with, it’s something you have deleted with way too much vodka and soju, watering your thoughts and feelings with alcohol, cleaning your mind from all the remaining memories until you hold nothing dear but their names and the colour of their dreams.

He hands you a bunch of pamphlets, carefully putting them in between your fingers, pleading you to read them, even when the Hangeul characters are making your eyes squint painfully, the denotation escaping your slumber mind, but you promise him to go through them and a promise is a promise, even for you for whom words embrace no significance anymore – but he is your only exception, for him, to see him again in a week, you’ll do it, you’ll endure the pain of rehabilitee, you’ll welcome sobriety because that’s the only way to make him proud of you, to hear his honey-like voice and to be bathed in the light that comes from his captivating eyes – even if the slight shade of sun makes you dizzy and brings back a headache that sick you: again, he is the only exception for you now and his spark is endearing, healing, it makes you feel better by making you realize what you need, what you lack, what you have to do. 

The sun turns the hangover into hell, but this is nothing new, you have deal with so many on your own – and you might don’t have to, his voice tells you, and it’s such a nice concept, but you laugh at it, dismissing your own capacity; you know the struggles you have to bear and how bad the booze is needed to face life, even when the money is tight and you can barely make it to pay for the rent: your house hosts more bottles than ramyeon packets and they are the only things you can afford to have hand to eat. Your hands flop into the pockets of your ragged coat and there is a turmoil of thoughts frenzying on your mind and you feel giddy, woozy as if drunk when you have last drunk yesterday – but maybe it’s the residual bits of it swirling in your blood or maybe the reason has an alluring face on its own, you can’t care now, not when your heart is in a rush and your head thinks of all the struggles it knows are to come down to you; you are not idiot, you know the meaning of withdrawal, the high changes of failing as you have faltered your own life  – but you’ll undergo it only if that means an aim to come back to this place, this office you are leaving now, heavy steps distancing you from him and a core that pulls you back to him again as if tied together to this room you have only seen today. 

He has told you to be strong and resist; much simpler to say than to do, you can prove and curse at it, but he knows, he has sworn it would be easier with time; but time is running out of you like sand dropping throw your hollowed fingers. It’s hard to come back home, to keep your body from drowning, from going where you pushed yourself to belong; street bars in the middle of your way, your daily stop where soju is bad enough to kill but cheap enough for you to pay for it and they have seen the worse out of you, that side that only comes out when your brain is dulled and squished with way too much venom, when all thoughts are off and you laugh as if life was easy, as if you didn’t need it to erase the pain of your soul, remove the stains, turning them into colours without a name so you can’t think about them, existent but not quite real because, like this, you can’t see them, blurred and slurred and, for once, you are happy, even if it’s just as fake as any of your smiles.

You have to quit and this is the beginning; your starting point.

You are drowsy with your sobriety; only an hour into it and you are already tired of it, sitting in the torn couch you got from the container years ago and that springs under your weight – and you are so skskin, all the flesh dropping from your bones, nothing to hold it in place, your cheeks hollowed, prominent jawbones and clothes that dance around your frame; but you can’t be ashamed of it when your head holds nothing but another hangover, when you are craving, longing for another shoot, for a glass filled up with the liquid that will bring peace to your inner self again, to shut up all the blame, all the shame, all the pain. But you are so exhausted, the day barely in but you undress, the baggy jeans crashing on the floor, the shirt meeting the texture of the velvet sofa and your back wallow on the mattress of a never done bed, sheets a mess, revealing all your misery, all the nights up, all the throwing up that is still there, the tint dyingd them with dried brown and ochre that doesn’t smell because it's diluted with the rest of the odours from the place – soju and beer, dirty dishes waiting to be cleaned, containers with sticky food that has been good years ago; it’s all sour and depressing but you are so used to, to the disaster your life has turned out to be, to be like this: a drunkard; the good side of things long forgotten, just life crashing your bones, breaking you to the point that you can’t fall apart anymore because there aren’t bits or pieces of you to do so, that you are completely empty and that’s why you have to fill you up with drinks that make you smile again, to be loud and free and it’s not fair, but life has never been and you have accepted it with grace, toasting at everything, seeking for another excuse to have a drink.

You dream about him tonight – when the sun is up and your head hits the pillow, your lips dry and faded, savouring the texture of feathers and the tangy taste that refluxes throw your throat and you cought as if something is missing but you want to keep dreaming, so you press your eyes closed so hard and dark envelops you with its grace, oblivion cradling you like a baby and, for once in a very long time, you believe that, maybe, you can do it, that you can quit it.

But life will test you later, proving you wrong, attesting how weak and broken you are, how deep in sorrow and and misery you are, drowning to have another sip, to taste the alcohol your mind tells you that you need to go on, like a fuel, the fire that will enlighten your heart in evergreen flames, making you feel alive even if it’s just momentary, even if it’s just a pretence. But his name reaches your lips and you will say it loud, scream it so hard, and the pain will settle on your chest, hurting the same but you will be able to breathe, exhale and inhale his essence that you have engraved inside your core and think that, maybe, this will subside, that the aching, the itching over your skin and the tickles on your brain will decrease, his eyes leashing you down to Earth again.

It’s just today, only now, you promise while pouring soju on a glass, drinking it straight away. It’s just a shoot, it’s so harmless – you can drown a full three bottles, one sip won’t hurt, you convince yourself; but you don’t need conviction, you need strength,  you need him.

It’s not enough and so you pour a little bit more because your thoughts are so noisy, so loud; they have to be quiet or you won't be sane, they have to shut the up and leave you alone, so you will drown them if needed. It’s only today, you swear, looking at the pamphlets that lay, forgotten, over the table, reverently, and that you haven’t read yet – they won’t tell you anything useful, they won’t talk to you with his voice and, surely, his eyes won’t be looking at you intensely, believing that you will do it, that you will succeed.

You hit the floor when you are remembering how you have met with him, how disappointed you felt; you didn’t want to be there, you don’t need any help, you can handle; you are in charge. Those were your thought before meeting him – and now, laying on the floor like a doll, lifeless and forgotten and miserable, you still trusting in your capacity, that you are in control even when your body shakes and you puke on the ground and over your own lap, your mouth disgusted and your eyes watery, cheeks flustered; there isn’t a reason to hold back your laugh, you are so screw up.

You didn’t do the call, you were forced, obligated by someone who still cares about you, or so that person has told you before giving you the scheduled time with a reputable therapist you can’t pay off – welfare service will and it’s so appalling, but you hadn’t any other choice, it was that or being kicked out of your place, living on the streets, and the last bits of consciousness has told you to go there, a visit wouldn’t be that terrible and maybe, just maybe, you have a problem.

You don’t, you tell yourself in your inebriated state, curled under the moonlight, head spinning and your laugh reverberating across the room, the walls dancing and the floor under you trembling – or it is you? - and you just want to celebrate your choice, your fateful meeting with an angel, doesn't it deserve a toast? It does, you answer your own question, bottom-up the whole bottle, cheering to the sunset.

When you open your eyes the light hurts you but he is holding your hands and you are on a bed, in an unnamed hospital, his orbs concerned and a worried expression that makes you wish to be dead instead of breathing the same air as him.

Kim Jinwoo is the last name you said before passing out, four empty bottles scattered around you when your landlord found you that evening, crawling on the flat, crying and sobbing and singing out of tone, begging for help, pleading your thoughts and prayers to go away.

And you admit that, yes, you do have a problem; a problem called sobriety and another one named Kim Jinwoo, who wants you to become better and you know that you will always disappoint him, like right now, that there isn't a way from you to don't let him down. 

"I didn't expect anything from the first day" he reassures you and you don't deserve this, his skin over yours, warm and nice and you feel your own flesh raw and clapped, "I told you it will be hard, but I'm going to be by your side. I'm glad you remembered my name and they could manage to contact me. I'm thankful for that; it's something. It's the beginning" and he presses your palm, squishing it gently, assuring you in a mysterious way that, eventually,  you will be alright.