May 02, 2014

Dear gravity,
it seems I have no choice
but to fall into you
as I have no wings
to keep me suspended
 

Dear gravity,
you shift
towards the sky,
and therefore
you become
the wings
that take me high

Dear gravity,
it doesn’t matter
where you are,
because like a hidden treasure,
i will always find you

Dear gravity,
like shore to the waves,
like twelve to the clock’s hands,
like sky to the stars,
like north to the compass’ arrow,
you’re home to me

Dear gravity,
I’ll be weight

And dear gravity,
I’ll be here,
no matter the wait

It seemed like falling back to earth, to the ground when I realized that I was already independent enough. I practically had no one with me, and I figured I needed company from time to time. Facing my reality first thing in the morning made me grasp the fact that I really had nothing.

To be completely honest, I was tired, and I had no idea what made me exhausted, because it seemed like I was doing nothing.

I went to school regularly, and felt that it was a thing to do to keep me sane. It felt like a responsibility to fulfill, as if I was doing others a favor by doing that: waking up early and attending my classes, when to normal people, going to school was like breathing. It was routine, part of their everyday lives.

Meanwhile, I felt like losing myself a little more, that is, if I had more of myself to lose. I missed having myself.

When I walked into my past apartment complex, it felt like coming home, only I was coming home to just the memories, and to the scent of the white hallways that were once my playground.

Home had stopped being a place, I realized when Mrs. Song opened her door for me and wrapped me in an embrace so warm the feeling lingered even after we’ve parted.

“You’ve lost weight!” Worry dimmed her features. It felt like looking at Mino, somehow, except his mother had fair skin.

“Have you not been eating well?” She asked worriedly, and I knew giving her an answer wouldn’t satisfy her so I let her continue. “You should come here more often.”

“Thanks for the offer, mother,” I hadn’t realized that the term had never felt so strange leaving my tongue. What had changed exactly? “I probably would. I miss mom’s home cooked meals.”

She dragged me deeper into their living room, shelved by minty green walls and wooden furniture.

“Where is Hanbin?” I wondered aloud as it was almost dinner time and he didn’t seem like he was home yet.

“He’ll be home for dinner,” mother said as she disappeared into the kitchen while I sat on the light brown leather couch.

Hanbin was a top notcher, last time I checked. Unlike other students though, he wasn’t forced to go to after school academies to further study into the night. It was like his price for being a good student: freedom.

“Did you know that he and Minho wrote some songs together?”

My eyes perked up just in time to see Mrs. Song sit beside me and the weight on the couch shifted.

She wore a permanent smile on her face and it was like her make-up. It lit her up, made her seem approachable which she was. I couldn’t remember ever feeling shy to come to her.

“Mino didn’t even tell me that he and Hanbin have made up for good,” I said, words leaving through smiling lips.

Mother rose an eyebrow up, and queried, “He didn’t?”

I shook my head in response.

“Music fixed them together, I guess,” Mrs. Song turned away from me and faced the black screen of the television, her shoulder length hair falling on her shoulders. “I knew that Hanbin had always been fascinated with music, but unlike Mino, it took him a little late to realize,” she faced me then, a little smile cradling her red lips, smile lines creasing around her brown eyes.

“Hanbin was too engaged with studying.”

“Then, mother, is it fine with you that they’d both pursue music?”

“Very. I mean it’s their life, they can do whatever they want, like whoever they like.”

I averted my gaze away from Mrs. Song then, but I felt her eyes on my face as if she was trying to read me. Mrs. Song was a person who could see, quite like Mr. Dong.

“My son has liked you from a long time ago, even before you had a crush on him,” she offered, as though it was something trivial.

My eyes widened in surprise, and I could feel my cheeks burning.

“When I’d ask him about his day, your name would roll out of his tongue repeatedly,” she smiled a bit teasingly.

“Mino…he told me about it the day he broke the news of his draft notice.”

“And…?” Mrs. Song urged me to continue, and I just shrugged my shoulders off.

“He took it back,” yes, though recently he told me he loved me, but Mrs. Song didn’t need to know that.

“Why would he do that?” The question seemed like it was directed more to her and not me, eyebrows knitted together, eyes unseeing. Her eyes landed on me then, and I felt that she had something to say as she opened .

“How did you react?”

How did I react? I had remembering to do. How did I feel?

“I was torn,” I gave her an answer after a pregnant pause, albeit a lacking one for it needed more words: I was empty, dumbfounded…I had nothing to give him back.

Mrs. Song’s gaze was penetrating, as though she knew there were still words left unspoken, and I felt the need to say more, explain more, but I just didn’t.

I stared at her back, and her fixated eyes on me made me feel like covering myself in blankets so she wouldn’t see through me. But Mrs. Song always saw, and so it was stupid of me to think this way.

With the cor