When an artist finds out that he's produced his million seller, the piece of human creation that will propel his name into the papers and television screens for morning coffee drinkers to remember and recognize, he rejoices.  He drinks and celebrates and stretches his fingers out while people around him, those who didn't recognize his success before, congratulate him with teeth-clenched flattery and gentle pats on the back.

They find delight in the present, in the fact that what is happening now is what makes them happy.  Their today is more important than the fall of the success that might happen tomorrow, but most of all, more important than the yesterday that got them there.

Art—the form of expression that acts as solace for so many people, yet too arbitrary and free-form to others. Art stems from passion, inspiration, and the need to speak without a voice.  To me, art is keeping alive what you may have wished to have forgotten before.

The day at the studio is long and tiresome, but, I am producing art.  And art takes time and skill and practice.  My mind and eyes work with the camera while my heart is filled with thoughts of Jongin.  These thoughts channel into the tips of my fingers and into the camera's light.  The director's face darkens when he notes that the new recruit is missing today.

But it's all right, because light and darkness are exchangable.  One can always take out the other and with Jongin on my mind, I know which one will come out first.

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I meet my match on a Friday night when I decide to take time away from the photography scene to intoxicate myself in the most stupid of ways.

I enter a timeworn nightclub, a haven of pulsing bodies and dying hearts where I stand in the center and try to forget it all.  Sweat and alchol swim through my fingers and out my eyes but it's a strange kind of drunkness and I relish in the feeling of not knowing where I'm going or what I'm seeing.

I order my fourth glass as I watch the lights drowning in my irises.

He sits two tables away from me but I don't notice him until he gets up to dance.

I watch him slide his hand up the leg of a female in red -  his bronze fingers drawing plains across white vallies bathed in the color of blood.  The music seems to get louder and they dance for a long time.

I realize that the way my eyes see things is almost arbitrary compared to the way things really are.  I don't see just red, but I see maroon and crimson and scarlet all in one.  I don't see hands, I see human and flesh and blood and tears hidden under bone and skin.  I don't see Jongin, I see angel with death for smiles and memories for wings.  

The way I think of him must be completely absurd, too.

But then I realize that this is what artists do.  We watch and learn and bring to life the smaller details that maybe others never really see.  We color things in a sense of right and wrong (usually wrong), and we channel these senses into our public displays of life.  We think crazy thoughts and do crazy things and call it art. It's what I do, at least.  And yes there's pain involved and yes, people look at you like you're insane.  But if insane didn't exist there would be no Picasso, no Beethoven, and no man on the moon.  And insane is a little different for everyone.  Maybe it's watching your dog dig a hole in the yard, or watching impressionist art tutorials online at four in the morning.

It's all okay.  It's all art.

But then I wonder why we choose to let these details matter, knowing that one day, they'll stop mattering in the complicated expanse of existence, and we'll be just another name written in another book.

He steps away from the floor and towards me, eyes fixed on my face and hands - the origin of my so-called art.  He approaches, step by step, until he looms over my chair and we're face to face.

These encounters don't seem foreign to me anymore.  Jongin disappears and then appears when I least expect him - it's a routine now.  

The music aches around us, and the air is dark and hot.  He leans forward until we're inches apart, eyes locked.  And smiles.