{허전해} ☽ born again pessimist

“no one can stand "a" but you. and you're the only one "a" fucking care about”.

🐳🐳

the sound of his voice is a specific kind of quiet. it’s the sound that found me on a night when the world had become a silent, closed door. i remember the night i had taken pills to end all of that, a handful of them, with a certainty that felt like the only truth left. in the thicket of that silence, where no one else was, his live stream was playing.

he was just talking, about his day, about a song, about nothing in particular. his words were not grand. they were simple. they were about perseverance and small joys and the weight of existing, but also the beauty in it. he spoke of being tired, and it was the first time i felt someone might understand the specific texture of my exhaustion. he was just there, in a box of light on the screen, when no one in the physical world was.

i started waiting for him. every episode of "chan's room" became a point on the calendar, a place to anchor myself. i would count the days until sunday. i would type in the comments section, my words lost in a flowing river of other messages. i never expected him to see them. it was the act of sending them out into the space he held that mattered. typing “i’m trying” or “this helped me get through today” was a way of placing my fragility into a community he built, a community that felt safe. “sorry, chan, i didn’t want to vent today, but you’re the only one i could do so” - that how i started each comment.

he became a constant. the stability of his presence, week after week, the comfort of his scratchy morning voice or his tired rambles at night, built a floor beneath me. he did not save me in a single, dramatic moment. he saved me by being a recurring one. he saved me by existing consistently, by showing up, by talking about the struggle without flinching, making my own feel less monstrous.

he means the steady hum of a computer fan and a voice from across the world that told me, without ever knowing my name, to stay. he means the reason i am still here to write this, in a world that is no longer a closed door, but a room he helped me open. if i ever could say him something, even one sentence, i’d definitely go with: “chan, thanks for saving my shitty life”.

happy bday, channie.

우리 찬이 생일 축하해 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

from the stained, smudged window of the second-floor lecture classroom, his gaze — blurred with the boredom of a seminar on ten principles of economics — drifted over the uninspiring view that had become the backdrop to his intellectual captivity. directly opposite, standing like a grim defender, was a block of flats, a stark and unyielding railing made of cold metal painted black, with large glass doors leading to the tiny balcony where, if you tried, you could see a distorted, greyed-out version of the university itself. each balcony was a beige stone platform with a fragile, ornate fence that looked like a carbon copy of the others, and they held nothing but the ghosts of quiet nights. on some, a plastic chair was folded against the wall; on others, a forgotten bicycle tire lay flat and useless. but on one, several floors down, there was a splash of colour, the only defiance against the crushing monotony. it was a cascade of withered red flowers, perhaps geraniums, their petals now the texture of battered velvet and the colour of old blood. they clung with a kind of desperate vitality to the railing, each leaf a trembling fist against the inevitable, as if afraid to let go and join their brothers on the pavement below.

beyond the stark geometry of the flats, the land had its own, sadder life. a bunch of overgrown bushes, once a proud fence, was now a tangled mess of dark green and messy brown, their leaves already dusted with the mud from the nearby road. among them were the skeletal remains of summer blooms — flowers that had bravely flashed with colour just weeks ago but were now bleached and folded. their vibrant yellows and purples reduced to a memory under the harsh, metallic light of the early-september sky. this was not a gentle transition into autumn; it was a swift, merciless displacement of the last happy reminders of a warm, so familiar summer, which didn’t want to forget at all. the wind, when it gusted, carried a bite that spoke of coming frosts, and it knocked at the window frame near one’s ear with a soft, persistent whine. the whole scene was framed by a sky the colour of cornflowers, a vast, unbroken expanse of cloud that promised neither the pouring rain nor the false hope of sunshine, only the weary, indefinite continuation of the term. he found himself mapping his own internal state onto the landscape: the rigid, imprisoning structure of the flats was his syllabus, the dying flowers his own fading enthusiasm, and the vast, indifferent sky — amorphous future that stretched out before him, filled with a profound grey. it was a perspective that didn’t just reflect his misery, but actively worsened it, each dying leaf a silent confirmation of his own stagnation.

i hate being touched, skin feels tight, and body is tense. but as i lay on the bed, crying from the lack of warmth, all i could think about was being held in her arms.

there is a creature they see, a rough-cut thing of splinters and scorn, and they have named it well. they call it asshole, they call it jerk, and the words fit the mask so perfectly they never think to check for the face beneath. they see the slamming door, but not the hand that trembles on the knob. they hear the corrosive remark, expertly aimed to maim, but are deaf to the silent, screaming algebra that calculated it — a preemptive strike against a rejection that feels as inevitable as sunrise. i am my own first victim, and they are merely collateral damage in a war i am fighting against ghosts they cannot see.

my language of care is silence. my act of devotion is a steadfast, unyielding presence. but the world does not trade in such quiet currency. it demands loud, performative love; it requires the easy poetry of appreciation spilled freely from the tongue. my tongue, however, is a ruined city, its bridges burned long ago in a different war. the words are there, but the passage for them is blocked by the rubble of old betrayals, the landmines of trust that once exploded and left everything cratered. to speak them would be to step onto that fatal ground again, and my soul flinches backward, choosing the safety of solitude over the risk of that devastation.

and so the creature grows, fed by their valid disappointment and my own impotent regret. i am a prisoner of a history i never chose, performing a pantomime of coldness for an audience that cannot know the script was written by absent hands. i see the hurt i cause, and that hurt becomes another brick in the wall, another reason i am unfit for the gentle, open-handed commerce of human affection. i am sorry, endlessly sorry in a vault of my own making, but the apology is just another thing i cannot say, another failure to be added to the ledger. they see a monster, and i see the man who failed to tame the shadows that made him one, and we are both, in our own ways, right.

the night is not a blanket, but an expanse; not a solace, but an auditorium for the mind’s own echo. in the hollowed hours, when the world has shrunk to the four walls of a room and the faint, persistent glow of the clock, insomnia takes root not from caffeine or clamor, but from a deeper, more intimate silence — the silence of an absent breath beside your own. each minute stretches into a corridor of thought, and down each one walks the ghost of a loved one whose warmth is a memory that chills the present sheets. this wakefulness is a vigil for a presence that isn’t there, a conversation with a shadow on the ceiling, where every remembered laugh sharpens the edge of the current quiet.

it is the body’s rebellion against the solitude of the heart, refusing the mercy of unconsciousness when the only thing to hold in the dark is a pillow, and the only thing to find in the stillness is the shape of what is missing.

unbearable

⭐️⭐️⭐️

we drink the poison our minds pour for us and wonder
why we feel so sick?

sitting on the 5th doubled lesson finding yourself totally oblivious in where you are and what you are supposed to do, staring at the window and hearing mesmerizing sounds of falling drops. turned head towards the window, eyes locked on the blurry gray sky, shaking leaves, on the streaming rain, causing chilly air even through the window. eyes shut now - focus on the sound. refreshing.

👼{삶} yang jeongin - 양정인

liberosis — n. the desire to care less about things.

to figure out a way to relax your grip on your life and hold it loosely and playfully, keeping it in the air like a volleyball, with quick and fleeting interventions, bouncing freely in the hands of trusted friends, always in play. the desire to breathe deeply, without dwelling on the experiences of others, your own failures, or the mistakes that cost you a ton of tears and stress. the aspiration to be enough, despite your own success. to be loved simply because of existence, and not for pleasing others. but it doesn't work, does it? you always end up being hangdog and out of place.

👼{삶} kim seungmin - 김승민

altschmerz — n. a sense of weariness with the same old problems that you’ve always had.

the same boring issues and anxieties you’ve been gnawing on for decades, which makes you want to spit them out and dig up some fresher pain you might have buried in your mental backyard. the pain has turned into tiredness, which has appeared as an oppressive boredom, turning every moment into groundhog day. it's become too boring, but it still worries you. as if you're still in that autumn that killed everything alive in you, shattering into pieces, but over time, clumsily picking it up again, wrapping the healing wounds with groggy tape. has it been a while since you felt anything?

👼{삶} lee felix - 이필릭스

jouska — n. a hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head.

a crisp analysis, a devastating comeback, a cathartic heart-to-heart — which serves as a kind of psychological batting cage that feels far more satisfying than the small-ball strategies of everyday life. like chess, projecting all possible outcomes, choosing the best option but preparing for the worst. come face to face with all your fears, grievances, insults, and regrets, trying to avoid them, not letting them take control over your sick mind, to remain yourself, to become a winner. what the purpose? the conversation is over, you're screwed, you're hurt again. why couldn't you think it all through earlier?

👼{삶} han jisung - 한지성

rubatosis — n. the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.

pounding, which tenuous muscular throbbing feels less like a metronome than a nervous ditty your heart is tapping to itself, as if to casually remind the outside world: “i’m here, i’m here, i’m here”. beat piercing the chest, itching the brain, making you cringe with the sensation of everything and nothing at once. time freezes, and the focus shifts from the world around to a wildly pounding, irritating something, generating anxiety and panic spreading through your body. limbs feel weak, and everything around becomes unbearable. too much. will anyone notice the sudden shift?