hi, darling. the only poetry books i’ve ever owned are by rupi kaur. i’m not one to remember poems by heart, i’m more of a lyric rememberer myself, but i found one of hers called ‘self-love’ that i think you might like. i don’t know if i subscribe to the loving yourself notion but caring for yourself is important. although petals are pretty, i do hope you won’t morph into one just yet. take a breath, drink some water; if you can, go outside, if you can’t, just look out the window; move your body a little, stretch. your mind will follow. the poem goes:

first / i went for my words / the i can'ts. the i won'ts. the i'm not good enoughs./ i lined them up and shot them dead / then i went for my thoughts / invisible and everywhere / there was no time to gather them one by one / i had to wash them out / i wove a linen cloth out of my hair / soaked it in a bowl of mint and lemon water / carried it in my mouth as i climbed / up my braid to the back of my head / down on my knees i began to wipe my mind clean / it took twenty-one days / my knees bruised but / i did not care / i was not given the breath / in my lungs to choke it out / i would scrub the self-hate off the bone / till it exposed love

hope it’ll help you. much love🤍

that. means so much to me. i do really enjoy writing the difficult, touching stories because it feels worth it. i like the melancholy and the complexity, but i also enjoy finding the beauty in the small things, the bittersweet stuff. i have much more to say about the hard things in life than the easy ones. there’s a satisfaction when a story that actually means something to me manages to touch another person, maybe even bring them to tears. recently i’ve written more stories just for the hell of it, without a deeper meaning, but they don’t matter to me as much. my favorites will always be the ones my heart was in fully. lodestar, flames to ashes, firefighter arson being some. thank you for finding beauty in my stories (and for the follow). i’ll keep your words in mind the next time i’m struggling to write something with meaning. those stories are usually the most frustrating to write, but the most rewarding in the end. thank you, seriously🤍 i’ll think about this for a long time. much love and take care!

i am So glad you brought this up because that whole moment was just… starting from the fact that yeonjun could recognize taehyun by his knock and had a feeling it was him to the fact that he forwent saying hi and instead just went with a joke about how he was dressed so he could instantly segue to touching his arms. and it’s not like he only touched his biceps either, he went all out. like. this is the behavior i exhibit with the friends that i secretly have crushes on but what do i know.

i didn’t think about lodestar until you mentioned it but that scene does appear: you are so right. i was more thinking about forgive me and the way yeonjun opened the door with a question, knowing it was taehyun… but anyway, i love these little moments. i love taejun.

i did very nearly cry when i read your message. thank you for all the kind words.

writing ‘in yeon’ was such an odd experience and that might be why it feels dreamlike. i did write the story for chands and i was going to gift it to her, but i missed the timing by a few days :’) throughout, i just tried to embody some of the nostalgia that she has perfected in her writing.

i do think she left a huge void in the writing sphere, no one can quite capture the feeling of falling like she did: the uncertainty and all the niche ambiguities.

it’s funny, i suppose, cause chands and i didn’t talk much at all, but she has this way of making you feel like the most precious human being and that’s what you’re getting when you read her stories. i don’t think i’ve ever known someone quite as gentle as her.

i’m thankful you dropped by with such lovely words. i’m lucky to have such a precious reader. take care🤍