barleyjoose

[barleyjoose]

Post Morning’s Wake

Spring always comes home first to Morningside,

That first flood fractures open Ms. Dami’s (once Ms. Rene's) doors,

beating—keh-tun-kuh-tun-cuh-hush—off each rusted, rickety hinge.

Everyone here knows, the final sigh 

of solid form’s lingering bones

fallen to time’s indifferent course.

That doe whose stride marked the old pinestead

has cleaved its own tracks, each one halved now.

And I think, how hilariously cruel, to meet loss before learning its name.

You’d understand what I mean, when you find 

the songbird tree we carved our names has

evicted once known tune to those shrill cuckoos.

In the forlorn eve this town sinks swifter to time,

Mother Dawn plunges a new infant’s skull into greedy shores. 

Better baby dear learn betrayal from us, than a stranger turned love turned inescapable. 

Against firecrack waves, the daughters of rain 

chant fallen god, any god

protect her, protect her for we can no longer.

And from those primal howls erupt first poppy flames,

with promise to bleed open a new burning sky.

Flesh spreads to make sense of itself so it feeds, I feed, it feeds,

before summer scorches clean our terrestrial sun.

And you are reminded again of that

Birth(,) too(,) a violent thing indeed.

[barleyjoose]

writing is a fun hobby they said. it helps you understand your thoughts with more clarity they said

[barleyjoose]

hello am fellow perceiver, I enjoyed your writing! what's bori :0

hello hello thank you for the perceiving and kind words!! bori (보리) means barley in korean. barley tea's been a comfort drink of mine and it's got this baseline nutty flavor that complements practically everything :D would highly recommend

[barleyjoose]

bori blog intro

One year from now, all contents of this blog, till the end of the year 2023 (should we make it that far), will be removed.

Writing’s made a reappearance in my life again. Our relationship is a tenuous one. Mostly because my reasons for fancying it have changed over the years. My childhood was a solitary one confined at home and in my loneliest hours, written word offered comfort in a time and place where I felt I had no one else.

In school, I received enough recognition of my writing that allowed me, for the first time, to feel like I was a real person taking up actual space. And it felt damn good. To hear your teacher read aloud your Catch-22 essay projected on the classroom walls and go, yes, yes. You get it. In erratic scribbles, I mocked and mourned Doc Daneeka’s erased existence through his falsely documented death. And for a few minutes, I indisputably existed.

Soon afterwards (usually simultaneously with your first Praise), you are introduced to the concept of Value. What makes your work original? What is the story that only you can write? What’s the point of what you’re making? Is this book/essay/show/movie/person worth your time? This is when I started experiencing an emotion that wasn’t quite fear, but a resignation I thought would at least protect me from answering those questions.

In university I studied computer science, a major that I have no academic enthusiasm for, beyond whatever passion a person can have towards paying rent. With the right company, one summer software internship earned enough money to pay my remaining tuition and housing costs for the next school year. And dear God, did I suck at it. I failed to procure the grades required to declare the major and only gained acceptance into the program through an appeal letter I wrote. Funny how life works, right?

Still, I did the thing and managed to crawl my way out of college with a CS degree in hand. I struggled so much with my CS studies that I had no time left to explore my personal interests. I don’t think regret is the right word for this compromise. I was reluctant to take out loans, and I don’t know if I would have been able to confidently finish university at all without studying CS. I was even fortunate to find CS communities and friends whom I cherish deeply. But I do envy people who spent their college years taking classes that further developed and challenged their personal curiosities.

These days I’m mostly afflicted with a sense of nostalgia. I read my old writing sometimes. It’s awful. But there are phrases that I can pinpoint as moments I was growing into myself. And I say this as someone who now has the financial foundations to say so, but if I’m going to be bad at something, it would be nice to fail at something that lets me feel like I’m growing into something.

At this point, I am not sure what role writing plays in my life anymore.

———————

Art is difficult because there is a desire, a necessity even, to acknowledge the observer.

I reassured myself for the longest time that I write for love of the craft and not for you, the reader. But to tell you a secret, every word I write, I think of you. In public. In private. And it is for this reason I adore you. I also loathe you for it. With a seething viscosity that seeps the back passages of the throat. Even as I write this, I imagine who might you be and what you’re looking for here and what you will take from these words I give you.

Does that make you feel special, my faceless darling? Do you feel properly romanced? Seduced, even?

So why this year-long blog? Lately life has felt like I’m just existing between people. I see who’s there, move and weave between these people, and exist in whatever space remains. This has been a common pattern in my life, I’ve noticed. I don’t think it’s necessarily good or bad. At its best, this life encourages an openness to other people and their livelihoods. But I’m exhausted moving around and would like to occupy the space to sit and be myself. In a way, writing carves for me that tangible space.

I also have not been taking my meds. It might be that. I also saw Unus Annus retrending on Twitter recently. It is mostly that.

I still cannot confidently tell you if Unus Annus’s name is also meant to be a sex joke. I say that with utmost reverence. But the thought behind making something that only lasts a year fascinated me. I avoid publishing my work primarily because I fear how this one snapshot will be available for all the world to access and perceive. I’ve published articles that lack the nuance of a me who’s experienced a few more years of life, and though I don’t regret publishing them, I fear how someone will interpret my work without understanding how much I’ve changed.

But that fear has also stopped me from sharing my life with people whom I do want to share it with! And they exist! You, for example! There are challenges to the temporary nature of this blog, but there’s also a freedom that I’m looking forward to sharing with you. I want to share my writing with you without feeling burdened by its lifespan. The one year limit is a reminder that whatever I post here is a reflection of who I was and what I did this year — nothing more, nothing less. And that short existence still can hopefully mean something to you and me.

I am a chronic editor. I reread text exchanges months past their receipt date for fun and examine how well they communicated their intent. I've already edited this post and will definitely do the same for whatever else gets posted here to better explain what I want my words to convey. But I want to keep this blog as a partial glimpse of whoever I was in 2023, and that will hopefully counter the need to constantly recalibrate myself. And just. Move on.

There are caveats to this approach that I am considering and more than unlikely unconsidering. I don’t know how successful this blog’s temporal intentions will be. I can’t guarantee that I can successfully erase this entire blog’s existence. As much as I doubt someone will care enough, there’s screenshots. Word of mouth. The archive machine’s entire existence. The Internet is a terrifying domain of unknowns, and every day I live in fear and gratitude that I have no clue what this hellscape (affectionate, derogatory. slight bias for the former) will produce.

But it’s fine. We’ll figure it out.

The goal is to not write of you, to you. But it also is. To write is to demand someone’s time and ask that they see you.

There is a timed intimacy to written language that serves equal portions horror and allure. It comes with the self-centeredness of it all, I suppose. How sexy of it to do that.

———————

I’m going to avoid writing about writing like this for now. I find that excessive navel gazing into your craft interferes in your ability to actually partake in it. And for once in my life, I don’t want to overthink it and just wish to scream words into the void. Writing is already a bizarre hobby by nature. Isabel Kim wrote, “Writing is staring at a page or screen and hallucinating vividly or maybe not even getting to do that and you are mostly sitting lonely in your apartment and typing out words on a screen.” This might explain why most of my life just feels like one big hallucination.

Funnily enough, that quote was from a post that Isabel wrote on why she herself writes. So I guess I owe some self-reflection if I want to justify hallucinating for increased hours.

These days whenever I think about writing or any art, I keep revisiting the same question. What reminds me that I am alive? I'd like to tether my writing around that question, whatever angle I read it that day.

If you are here and I shared the existence of this doomed (intentionally or unintentionally, TBD) project, this indicates that I am somewhat comfortable with you witnessing me falling off my rocker, so to speak. Congratulations! Condolences! Whatever cocktail of the two that suits your tastes.

If you found this by happenstance or through word of mouth: I actually don’t know. (This will be a common theme). Enjoy the show, I guess. Tickets for future showings can be purchased at the door, if this one piques your fancy. Most likely I did not share this with you out of respect for your time and energy, but you’re also welcome to join us.

To be serious for a minute, though. However you arrived here, with or without invitation, I’m sincerely grateful for and humbled by your time and presence. You can thank my vanity for that (half a joke). Just leave me a little note saying you visited. My vanity will thank you for it.

If anything, I think that’s the captivating facet to publicity. That through this online medium, these words will reach people whom I wouldn’t have even considered, and the prospects of that discovery are both seductive and frightening.

What I gleaned from this reflection is that I am inexplicably drawn to things that make me both horny and afraid, ideally for the same reasons. Many kinks that previously made you go ".sorry, what." start to reveal more clarity through this lens, don't you think?

Are you entertained yet? Whatever the answer: good.

Here’s to the ride. See you in a year.