Emogry

A storm blew through my life last week. It uprooted the emotional stability I had always prided myself for and triggered sweeping mood swings for days. In fact, even now I still find myself oscillating between wounded hurt and snarling rage.

A relationship of mine has been irreversibly changed. I was accused of being cold and uncaring, and the person in question threatened to sever ties. I was completely blindsided, having believed that what we had was something indestructible--only to discover that this person had been unhappy ever since we first met.

Nowadays, anger dominates my daily mood.

I am angry that this person had bottled their grievances against me for over a year without ever confronting me directly, instead designing little "tests" to see if I would pass until an accumulation of "failures" convinced them that I was a lost cause.

I am angry that this person, after finally telling me how they truly felt, refused to take any step towards making amends and repairing damages, saying that they didn't want to set themselves up for disappointment and get hurt again.

I am angry that this person, after all this time, expected me to be somebody that I fundamentally am not.

I am angry whenever I recall all the poisonous, harmful barbs that they threw in my direction during that fateful conversation, likely because I didn't react in the way they expected me to--because once again, the reaction they wanted from me was fundamentally at odds with who I am.

And yet, when I wake up each morning, the immediate emotion that strikes me is not anger. It is sadness. Because the truth is, I cared deeply for this person the entire time. And I am hurt that they never saw this, instead letting their doubts fester for over a year. I cried, because after all this time, someone who I thought was close to me really never understood me at all. I cried, because I realize now that we have never seen each other eye-to-eye, and I have my doubts that we ever will.

I have seen my fair share of romantic relationships, despite never becoming entangled in one of my own. Back then, I never quite understood exactly why couples would seem to prematurely call it quits. Countless times, I saw salvageable situations that were left abandoned by one or both parties. Though this isn't the story of a break-up, I now understand. I have been sick and drained of this emotional turmoil; now and then, I find myself thinking about how much easier it would be to just give up and let it all go.

In Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Akiva discovers that he can draw out the source of magic from the pain of his old wound. When I first read it, I saw a metaphor for writing. For me, the ink begins to flow when I am able to draw from my own pain. It is how the story of the water horse first arose, and it is how this blog was first born. The one thing that keeps me pushing forward is knowing that I can turn my pain into art. 

Black

 

The color of my heart is black. It was burnt to black, just like that 

If you ask me what happiness is 

When this life is done, maybe when this love is gone 

If you ask me what happiness is 

You'll smile out under the sun, but I'm always on the run

-- "Black" by G-Dragon ft. Sky Ferreira

My ex-roommate was a huge fan of G-Dragon, but I've never jumped on that bandwagon. I suppose it's a combination of several factors. For one, the androgynous image has never particularly appealed to me. My biases have always been towards the more masculine, particularly with voices. I still don't really like G-Dragon's voice--it's too whiny for my tastes. Moreover, we've already established that I may be drawn to "bad" images, but deep down, I like the nice guys. The Badass One, with his shyness and good manners, fits this to a tee. Conversely, I've spent the last few years watching G-Dragon getting in all sorts of trouble, from his lame excuses about "accidentally" smoking weed to posting a black-face photo on the Internet.

I'll give him credit for being a prolific producer and composer. Obviously, there was a reason why I started listening to Big Bang in the first place. But I have to admit that I think most of my favorites are from their older albums. I tried giving G-Dragon's new album "Coup d'Etat" a try, since I've been hankering for some new music recently. The title track ("Coup d'Etat") didn't worm its way into me--partly because I got irrationally irritated by the way he pronounced his French. "Crooked" had a rock n roll feel, and yet I still didn't like it. I think I listened to "Michi-GO" once and never bothered with it again. Don't bother asking me to explain why I didn't like these songs--music is such a intuitive thing that I don't think I can really dissect why I end up liking or disliking a song. I was totally unmoved by G-Dragon's comeback singles, but I was totally hooked on Seungri's "Gotta Talk to U" from first listen. Unlike everyone else in the world, it seemed.

Then, about a week ago, I saw a video of his live performance of "R.O.D" with CL (whose "Baddest Female" single, in my opinion, was devastatingly disappointing), and I thought, Hey! I like this song way better than the other songs he released as singles. So I decided to look up the other songs and found myself sticking to "Black." I particularly like Sky Ferreira's version--something about her voice just strikes an emotional chord for me more than Jennie Kim's. I just kind of wish this song had a deeper male voice instead... oh you know, just a certain someone...

You called, Sophelia?