Rain, Forever | Namjoon ☁
⤑ Pairing: Namjoon x Reader
⤑ SUMMARY: Since the lack of rain and the coming of Winter, Namjoon hadn’t been the same. He didn’t seem to smile much and his grin never quite met his eyes. He’d lost passion for everything he once loved. Well..everything but art. Specifically that one black and white watercolour painting in the Seoul Art Gallery that resembles a lonely figure standing in the rain..
⤑ Genre/AU: Fluff + Angst / non!idol Joon + alt!universe Joon
⤑ Warnings: The main component of this story mentions depression and suicidal ideation*, swearing, burglary, suffocation and a sprinkle of magic
⤑ Word count: 7.4k
⤑ Rating: +14
*This story, in no way, attempts to romanticize or idolize mental health issues. I can only say it comes from a personal perspective which is somewhat unique and subjective to every individual.
A/N: A song that touches the crest of my soul and speaks to so many others. I hope this helps, heals and warms many people who, like myself, miss the rain.
☁
“I don’t know whether I should take you seriously or not..”
“C’mon it’ll be fun!”
“You’d better not make me regret this, Kim Namjoon.”
“As long as you trust me, it’ll be fine.”
It was October of last year and you and Namjoon had found yourselves in Haneul Park.
Standing under the shelter of a bleak cafe, he had been tugging at your sleeve, urging you to run out into the open with him. But you hadn’t the slightest clue why you’d want to be anywhere else but under the shelter. It was cold enough in the cafe, but outside it was completely meek. It had been windy yet pleasant just an hour ago, but now the wind was just pelting rain drop after rain drop at the windows.
In a light cardigan and an impractical corduroy skirt, you dreaded the prospect of having to run through the rain to get to your car. You’d taken shelter, narrowly avoiding the rain, and now you’d practically holed yourself up in the cafe after downing two mugs of tea and a triple chocolate cookie. Namjoon, however, was quite the opposite. For the past thirty minutes, his eyes had been glued to the window. Despite his lack of warm-clothes, he seemed more desperate than ever to get outside. While you had finished your cup of tea in just over ten minutes, he’d simply downed his, pouty cheeks sloshing with liquid before swallowing the beverage in one ecstatic gulp.
Now he was standing right by the window to which you’d hesitantly joined him. The rain fell harder that day than it ever had before. Namjoon absolutely loved it. You never quite understood his thinking, but he’d always be willing to explain it to you. He’d said tt was the way the trees moved to the sound, the way the clouds gathered, watched, hovered over you, better than any shelter. It was the way the grass leaned, succumbing to its force, the way the pavement shimmered in its grasp. It was the way it felt to be amongst it all, like an unknown spectator, just a pair of eyes. It satisfied more than any drug could, oxytocin soaking through your pores, melding flesh and bone like a soldering iron.
You wished you could feel just as excited about all these small droplets of h20; you were desperate to make sense of it. Especially when it came to Namjoon.
“Well..I do want to understand.” You spoke, leaning into his pull. At that he only tugged your sleeve further.
“C’mon then, Dew-Drop!”
He walked you toward the door with an overwhelming sense of eagerness. You thought yourself to be mad, but still your hand remained in his.
“So we’re running to the car?”
“Running, walking, admiring the view; whatever you want to call it.” He said, pulling the door open, taking you with him.
“Ah!” You yelped as the first draft of rain lashed out on you “I’d much prefer to just run Joon.”
He couldn’t hear you though, almost dancing ahead. Namjoon was fervent in the rain; he always had been. You remembered meeting him like that, when you used to teach and he came in as a motivational speaker to talk about his career as a musician.
After his speech, you’d been given the duty of cleaning the chairs in the school hall. Eager to finish, you began to stick them out in stacks in the courtyard, and that was when you saw him, far off in the distance, leaning against the rails of the basketball court, rain pouring down his face.
Like the feeling you felt looking at him now, you were magnetized, curious.
“It’s fucking freezing!” You began, clenching at your sides, hopping on the spot “Can we run now?”
“You, miss l/n, are no fun.” He chimed.
“And you’re a polar bear!”
“An endearing term, but i find my pace akin to a cheetah.” He joked “Now chase me!”
Before you could blink, he had bolted across the grass, down towards the car park.
Now, you not only had to fight the rain, but focus on keeping up with your long-legged boyfriend.
They say girls are good at multi-tasking - and they are - they just struggle with things like this because it involves the tedious process of thinking and being sensory-aware all the time; something which lengthy boys like Namjoon don’t take into account.
“A fucking polar bear isn’t this fast!″ You puffed, circling a bed of drooping flowers to further keep up with him,
As the rain pelted heavier, giddiness overcame you. You couldn’t help but laugh, thinking of yourself (merely a few years ago) watching this man, as a primary school teacher, from the playground - almost untouchable, unreal - now encouraging you to chase him, soaking wet, through the rain like lovestruck youth.
“Catch me if you can.” He laughed.
☁
That was three months ago..
Today was March 13th. 2020.
Friday the 13th...
The balcony of your third floor apartment was glowing that day. As you sat on its cobblestone base, dusting your plant pots, you felt the sun cast warm rays on your neck.
Friday the 13th, that one day that came up so seldom, never seemed to hold any negative connotations for you. Every day you felt lucky: to have a quaint little flat, thriving plants, an endless supply of herbal tea at your feet, and of course Namjoon.
Right now you were tending to his favorite small bonsai, gently seated between two lucky bamboo plant pots, shaded by a leafy green hanging plant. You polished its black base, sprayed some water on its soil stones and gently trimmed any stray stalks growing from its arms. Namjoon had called him ‘peet’, an affectionate name that often made you forget that this plant was more an inanimate object than a human body with full-functioning organs. You were often reminded of this when he’d catch you in lengthy conversations, strewn across the balcony floor at night, bonsai leaves tickling your cheek as you tried to lean back further to watch the stars. But these plants were a huge healing tool for you; something that kept you occupied, just as well nourished as them, and excited to see how they’d blossom each day.
Finishing off by cutting the last wandering stalk, you gently got to your feet and headed for the kitchen. Only 11am, you’d had your breakfast but felt slightly parched for a drink. Fortunately enough, when the clock struck 11.10 every day, you’d find yourself coincidentally hunched over a mug of steaming green tea; you knew there was no coincidence, just the pure, unrelenting fact that you loved the warm, floral taste it brought you. It gave you just the right amount of energy each day, and it was always a wonder to watch Namjoon puff his cheeks like a hamsters as he’d swallow a cup whole in one go.
You’d left him asleep this morning, waking at 9am to grab some groceries and sort yourself out. You hadn’t disturbed him since, knowing he was a heavy sleeper and knowing he really needed some rest since working the past few weeks. Night after night he’d been slaving in front of a laptop, attempting to draft and file possible lyrics for his upcoming album. It wasn’t helping that his producer had him on a leash and under a constricting time limit. What could you do but give him the time and space he needed to get things done.
Sealing the kettle and the tea bags, you lifted Namjoon’s mug and carried it over to your bedroom. Approaching the door, you listened carefully for the sound of snoring, aware that waking Namjoon wouldn’t do any good for the level of guilt you felt entering the room anyway.
When all you heard was silence, you decided to nudge the door open and slip through into a darker room.
“Joon, I've made some tea for you.” You approached the bed and placed his mug on the bedside table, anchoring it away from him so he wouldn’t hit it off with his elbow when turning; he was clumsy like that. You watched as he shuffled in response to your entrance, the caramel of his skin sliding against the sheets as he adjusted his neck to gently turn to you
“Mmh Morning.” He yawned, his eyes forming crescent moons as they squeezed shut before opening to clear the haze from his vision. He was a beautiful little shape of a human, shrouded in cosy bedding as he watched you in the dim light.
“You coming out today Joon? I’ve got some exciting things up my sleeve.”
“I can’t..I'm sorry.” He replied, a certain lifelessness in his tone.
“Are you sure? I can make us some cake and we can go to some park. It’ll be nice.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Oh, okay..”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no, it’s fine!” You whispered, bringing your palm to his cheek, feeling its heat coarse through your fingers. “We’ll try another day. Don’t feel bad about it at all. Have a nice rest Joon.”
With that, you slowly turned from him and made your way back out into the living space. You let a sigh wash over you and attempted to rejoice in the fact that at least you had a warm mug of tea ready for you. Swigging it down, you sat in silence, watching the outdoors from the distant balcony window. It was still just as bright outside, much brighter than the bedroom, clouded by dark curtains. You felt sad for Joon, powerless even. How badly you missed even the simple things like swigging tea with him. How long had it been since you’d done that?..
Too Long.
☁
The rest of the day painted itself in a slow and monotonous fashion. It wasn’t unbearable - you got things done - but it all seemed watered into the same actions, the same meaning, the same routine.
It started with finishing your tea, slower than you had intended. Lost in monotonous thought, before you knew it, it had gone cold so you had ended up pouring the remaining portion down the sink. You then went on to finish the laundry, have lunch, check on your beloved plants, read a book, watch TV, yawn and sigh a countless number of times, and take a quick nap.
Before you knew it, the room had darkened and the sky had taken on a delicious yellow tone. Before you knew it, the whole day had almost passed.
You didn’t want to lie to yourself, this is the way the days had gone for the past few weeks. It was just you, the sun, a cup of tea and the rest of the world. Namjoon, every day, had been stuck in the bedroom, occasionally popping out each evening to say hello. Now that was something you had a problem with confronting. You felt it was appropriate for him to get some rest, especially after the few weeks he’d spent finishing up his work. But it had reached a turning point now. One which you didn’t know how to address.
You weren’t too happy about it, but Namjoon was clearly broken. Were you scared to face the extent of his unhappiness? You never wanted to see the one you loved so much feel so hollow. At least that’s how you assumed he felt. You’d felt a similiar emotion before, but never to the extent Namjoon was experiencing. How badly you just wanted to rip the shreds of dread from him like a stuffed toy, or hug him to death and fill him full of love, stitching him back up to like he’d been before.
What could it be that made him feel like this? Perhaps it was nothing at all, just a fragrant aroma of unease that settled upon him - something he couldn’t shake off. When would you build up the courage to ask him? Talking to someone might free him from his bonds, but you couldn’t force him, you just couldn’t.
He had to be the one to make that choice.
Shifting on the sofa and taking a rather taxing stretch, you moved from your napping position and onto your feet. You stepped out onto the balcony, greeted by a golden radiant light, seating yourself on the heated stone floor, your feet nudging blooming plant pots.
You watched through the rustic balcony bars as the air grew wispy and chill around you, a harsh brick wall supporting the stability of your back. The clouds were starting to fade into the distance as stars pushed forth through the air. Was it time for another cup of tea yet? Probably. You felt spurred to go and get one.
“Morning.”
“N-namjoon.” You turned in surprise from the gruff voice to be met with his tall figure slouched against the door frame. “Evening, sleepy-head.”
He yawned in response, ruffling that luscious hair of his that now seemed so tangled through his fingers.
“Come sit down.”
Shuffling, he came to a seated position, one knee bobbing against yours, the other scraping the soil surface of his bonsai. Another yawn again, and his knee was now fully perched on your thigh, his back hunched over, shoulder nudging yours. You watched him as he shook out his tawny hair and took in his features in the setting sun.
“What’s up?” You smiled, your hand resting on his leg.
“Wanted to see you, dewdrop.”
“If you aren’t the biggest charmer.” You grinned in response “I’ve been missing you all day.”
“Yeah..i know.” He whispered.
“Then what’s up? I’m always here for you Joon.”
He sighed, fingers now raking into his scalp. Moon pools, darkened and tenebrous sat under his eyes, his thick lips chapped and his face a starker cream against the fading light. You turned to him, watching more closely, waiting for him to open up, praying that he would just open up.
“If you’re not ready that’s fine, i don’t -”
“No, no..I need to.” He shuffled nervously “I know things haven’t been the same since a few weeks ago. I’ve been pouring all my energy into my work and now I've been pouring it all into sleep and it feels like I've finally used up all my resources - like i’m at a dead end for solace, for what to do.”
“It started a few weeks ago. Things were fine, then all of a sudden, it stopped raining. It was probably just one of those years where the weather just wanted to let up and stay sunny, but for me, it felt like the first. It really did feel like the first time it hadn’t rained. I didn’t know what to do. I was at a loss. All my fondest memories, all my comfort and all my shelter came from the rain - it was a thing I could not deny, and I'm still desperate to get it back.”
“I just..I wish it rains all day. Cuz i’d like someone to cry for me. Cuz then people wouldn’t stare at me. The umbrella would cover the sad face, people would be busy minding themselves. I felt like i just needed to stop, I needed to breathe a little slower because my life and my rap, they’re usually too fast.”
“Yeah..that’s it..”
He let out a strong exhale, letting the air around him encourage the entire earth to fall silent. With that breath, his hand found yours on his thigh, his fingers lacing into your own. A strong thumb pawed across your palm, pressing softly into the flesh, the ultimate grounding tool.
But it wasn’t you needing to be grounded, it really wasn’t. It was him, the friendly giant who had lost all hope and solace to the power of the rain.
“Thank you for telling me. Really thank you.” You squeezed his hand “It’s you i want to protect. If I could hang clouds in the sky and make it rain for you I would..you know that.”
“If only I could find something else to make me just as happy..”
“Hey..” You chirped, a thought springing to your head. “You know i checked on you this morning to see if maybe you wanted to do something? Well..maybe we could go to the Art Museum on the waterfront tomorrow?”
“Okay. Sure.”
“It might help. And maybe we could get a coffee as well and see if we bump into any visiting artists.”
He grinned at you, a sense of adoration and respect filling the lakes of his eyes and the hollows of his dimples. You smiled back, a slow and affectionate grin that you hoped could transcend from your heart, right into his to fix him completely.
“Cool. Well, lets get some dinner on and look forward to a beautiful tomorrow.”
☁
That night, with full stomach’s and a coruscating sunset washed over your bodies, you lay in your bed, arm in arm, the night falling into the next day. You slept on your side, your arms crossed over your chest. Namjoon rested behind you, his stomach against your back, hands set in the violin crests of your waist, his head latched against your neck. Perhaps this was the first time, you thought, in weeks that you’d layn like this. The past few days, you’d been laying in bed alone, or an oceans distance from Joon, leaving him to get the best rest possible without your heat leaching onto him. This felt nice. It felt so much more than natural. He smelt of vanilla, and long nights and restless days. It reminded you of the angel you’d met so long ago.
The only thing you missed was his damp, fresh, rain water scent.
☁
“Catch me if you can.” He laughed.
Running further down the hill of the park, you felt your feet race ahead of you, almost slipping, as you begged yourself to catch up to him. Oaks, maples, alders, zelkovas, and birches all fade into one collective tincture as Namjoon dominated your vision. Despite your distance, his smell, his touch and his colours blocked out all sensory notion and summoning around you. You would not be held by the bounds of nature, he was yours and you were his, and in this race all there was, was blank space and the two of you.
“We’re nearly there!” He yelled again, bringing you from your thoughts.
“I’m -” You huffed. “I’m. So. Close.”
“Ah. So now it is about the race and not the rain. Perhaps you have a newfound love for it?”
In response, you slammed the brakes, watching him as he skipped into the car park, unlocking the doors to your vehicle and climbing in, beckoning you over.
“In your dreams.”
☁
“For this week, to celebrate the Seoul Arts Festival, we are holding a two for one deal for all art lovers. Therefore, your ticket entry to the art museum is only half price! Enjoy your visit.”
The gallery was lit with stars this afternoon. In awe, you walked through the reception and into the main hall to peer at the strings of golden paper in the shapes of stars decorating the ceiling and the walls. Clearly, this week was a week to be celebrated in the arts community.
You hoped Namjoon felt as excited as you to spend this time with him and on such a special day. You watched him, a small smile poking at his cheeks, not giving away whether he was displeased or not. You took the nervous drum of his knee to be the latter.
You always spent a lot of time in each room when you were with Joon. In love with his adoration for exhibitions, each time you joined him, you simply stuck to his side, viewing every single detail of every single painting.
At first, you felt the visits to be somewhat taxing - much preferring living, breathing art such as himself. Eventually, however, you succumbed to his ways - finally realizing that all exhibits were living things with their own lives and stories behind all their individual brush strokes. Like most things, it was him who taught you that, with his silent yet ethereal way of just being and learning and loving.
“Okay..wow, so this is the central room for this real highlight exhibits.” You breathed, Namjoon echoed your awe with a slow nod.
Now this was a room you felt you could really spend hours in. From Eunho, to Hye-Sok, to Eungro, to Jiho, you span around in a flurry of colour as you attempted to absorb the true joy of being amongst all this art at once. You knew Joon felt it too, immediately joining him by the first exhibit to gape at the thatched lines and geometry sitting on the canvas before him. You wondered how long he’d felt this way about the things before him: from paintings, to people, to the rain itself. Had he always been so sensitive and in-tune with his environment? Did he always care so much concerning the life buzzing around him?
After crowding around a few of the exhibits, you decided to head to the bathroom and grab a drink for the two of you. Almost ten minutes in, you’d realized you would probably need a drink to support your long and meticulous visit. Now was the perfect time to head off and grab one.
“Joon, I'm going to grab us a coffee, okay? Don’t go too far.”
“You know i won’t.” He chuckled “This room is way too fascinating.”
Almost fifteen minutes later, and a large queue for the cafe, you hurried back to the central room with two piping cups of pure vanilla fuel. Walking through the doorway, you searched for him in the crowd, but to no avail. You’d told him to stay put, and you were convinced he would do so, but now he’d ran off, almost as if your exit was the perfect opportunity to get away from everything that bound him. It was the perfect inconvenience.
Walking through the room, you decided to take the door to the next section of the exhibit and see if he was there. Entering into a more low lit space, you squinted your eyes, looking for him in every corner of the room. After a short amount of time, you came across his figure, hunched by an exhibit in the far left hand corner.
Positioned diagonally, you could see the features of his face in pure scrutiny. His eyes, wincing, paced back and forth across the painting, his teeth sandwiched between his lip, chewed at it gently.
You’d watched him before like this, staring at paintings, watching life go by on the apartment balcony, tending to his plants, but it had never quite been like this. You stood there for (what?) ten to fifteen minutes, simply wondering when he would stop staring at the canvas..if he would move on. Was he waiting for you to join him? Was the painting simply that jaw-dropping?
“Joon..”
He turned in surprise, immediately standing straight. You smiled at his action, and approached him to look at the painting further. From a distance, in the dim light of the room, the painting was a monochromatic smudge with the tall figure of Namjoon shading its central half. Now, up close, it looked much different.
A figure in a long white trench coat and cap stood in its centre. Beneath him, a flowing stream of black ink submerged the better half of his shoes, meandering forward through the painting and toward a large black hole hanging in the sky ahead. Black arcs of rain shot through the surrounding sky like hasten sparks, falling into the reflection of the figure wavering below in the light of the tenebrous stream. The painting, as a whole, had been crafted in monochromatic watercolour, its brush strokes melting down the canvas like tears to paper. It was a sad yet inspiring vision, you thought.
“It’s beautiful.” He answered, a tear pooling down his cheek.
☁
That night you lay awake for a while.
A long while.
At 9pm, you turned to your side, and slipped out of your bed to sit on the balcony. The weather was tinged with cold, but you brought a blanket to shawl across your shoulders and drape under your naked toes.
You’d tried getting to sleep that night around 8pm. Joon had huddled against the corner of the sofa before bed and downed a mug of green tea, before watching you finish yours, lacing your hand with his and heading for dream-land.
But as soon as you hit those warm, delicious covers, you knew there was something much more pressing calling your name.
Ever since leaving the museum that afternoon, you couldn’t draw your mind from that watercolour painting. Like an obnoxious poster of propaganda, or an inviting store-front display, the picture sat in your mind, a prized possession, and mocked you your entire journey home. You thought about Joon’s face viewing the canvas, the time he spent simply looking at it and the silence and serenity that followed him afterward.
He wanted the rain, he yearned for it, he called for it ever since its disappearance. You only realized this last night, once he opened up to you, but it had made sense. The long showers he took when you were distracted at the grocers and would come home to him singing away to the sound of the running water in the bathroom. The way you would sometimes wake just as he was heading to sleep and watch him kiss the sky goodnight with a certain desperation for the rain to come. Even the long, delicious sips he took of green tea, feeling the liquid wash down his throat and cleanse him of his doubt. It all made sense.
He was waiting for the rain to answer him and it was that singular painting that seemed to pick up his call.
It was that realization, again, on the foot of your balcony at 9pm at night that made you stoop through the house, throw on your shoes and run back to the museum to bring home that painting.
Racing down cobblestone streets and narrow lanes, you found yourself driving all the way back to the museum with only yourself and the headlights of the car to guide you.
All your life, you’d learnt better from the mistakes you’d made and soon realized it was best to follow a calling and take an opportunity when it came to you. Even if it ended up failing. This particular calling was stronger than ever, a migraine in your head, an instinct that screamed that there was more to this painting than what meets the eye. You knew it would help Namjoon.
On special events, the museum closed at the ripe hour of 10pm: in just fifteen minutes time. What on earth were you doing? You didn’t know. You would enter the museum, visit the catalyst that stuck itself in your mind and hopefully the answer would come to you.
Jumping out from the car, you ran toward the entrance, bursting through the doors like some crazed artist, desperate for information.
A man halted you just as you were headed through to the main hall, his gentle touch on your shoulder.
“Ma’am, this gallery is closing in ten minutes time.”
“I-i understand. I just need to take a look at one of your exhibits.”
He nodded, an uncertain look crossing his features “Of course..go ahead.”
And with that notice, you sped walk to the dim lit room without a single thought but of the canvas in your head.
“Good evening, this gallery will be closing in five minutes time. Can all remaining visitors please make their way to the exit on the lower floor. Thank you for visiting.”
With the echo of the final closing announcement following you into the dark exhibit room, you had to make a decision. A dangerous decision.
With no rational thought, plan or hope in mind, you would decide to stay at the museum past its closing time. Searching the room, you peered for somewhere to hide. Unfortunately, galleries never really delivered in this particular apartment, often baring clean white walls and flat floorboards. In your case, frantically scouring the room, you had found an exhibit sitting on top of a white box with a possible way to unfold itself and hide you in it. With urgency, you got to your knees and tugged at the side of one of the corners, digging your nails in, in an attempt to open up one of the sides and slide inside.
And just as if it really was your calling, one of the sides slid open - albeit with a tremendous screeching sound against the floor - but it still very much opened. With that, you were asking no questions, simply bending yourself into a rectangular shape and sliding back into the box, closing the side behind you.
Now to wait.
For a few minutes, you sat in silence, wincing at a cramp in your ankle. Suddenly, you were hearing footsteps and jangling keys announcing themselves in the room. With a held breath, and extreme concentration, you sat rock solid as the steps circled, stopping occasionally to scent out a visitor, and continuing before finally click-clacking goodbye. If there was any time you thought you would be in need of an oxygen tank (surprisingly not in 50 years time) it was now. You were never one to break the rules or to find yourself being ridiculously spontaneous, so this was really a first. You felt on edge, yet devious and buzzing with an electric pulse of energy. It really was time for you to try something new, and for Joon to finally get his dose of happiness.
In a succession of fox-like footsteps, you peeled yourself from the box and made your way over to the painting. You thought, standing still, that the answer of what to do would just come to you.
Certainly nothing had happened straight away, but you were definitely taken aback by the painting in this light. With only the back-up lighting on, a shadow was cast on the canvas before you, washing the monochromatic tone over in a blue haze. Things looked even sadder from this angle, but ever more fascinating. Almost unconsciously, you leaned forward and traced the painting with your finger, letting your palm slide flat against the cold canvas. So melancholy and so mysterious, the longer you stared, the more you fell. Before you could even comprehend your actions, you were again applying another hand to the canvas, feeling its ridges and bends. Slowly, you came closer to it, pushing forward past the small rope barrier to reach nearer in its gaze.
Black, white, grey, it all melded into one in a romantic and tragic spiral of colour. Your eyes fell onto its detail, its strokes, its edges, and soon you couldn’t even tell what you were looking at anymore - simply a puddle of water absorbing your interest, absorbing all consciousness.
☁
“Hello”
“Hello..”
“Are you okay?”
In a buttery, and gooey, and delicious state of silence a voice filled your ears. Slowly you felt your touch, your scent, your taste and everything return to you. You were a warm body on a cold floor, palms clawing roughly at its spongy surface. You were a clouded head, lost in direction, coming to your senses with the figure above you.
Eyes squinting and pleading to open, you heard his voice again. It rang a deep, husky, baritone chill through your spine and reminded you of someone oh so familiar. As you squeezed your eyes open again, everything came into view.
The figure above you was a tall, looming shadow. Dressed in a long white trench coat and cap, with loose trousers and messy black hair, he stared ominously into your eyes, confusion and worry painting the slight lines smudged across his face.
It only took you a second, but before you knew it, you were free of numbness and doubt, standing to your feet and cradling the shadow in front of you.
It was your Joon.
Well, it was him, but rather a slightly altered version of him. A small wedge of his collective person so to speak. In fact, to put it definitely, it was the figure that stood central in the watercolour painting.
And now you were in the painting itself. Standing with him as if you’d never left the house, as if you hadn’t ever had a care in the world. But you most definitely had; in fact, the biggest question shrouding your brain was how on earth did you end up inside the canvas? Was this a dream?
“I’m sorry.” You whispered into his shoulder.
“Hey, hey. It’s okay Dewdrop.” He replied, leaving you frozen with the familiar nickname. “I missed you.”
“Joon..” You mumbled, a hand lacing itself against his collarbone “Hey..this isn’t some weird calling is it? Or some nightmare that will leave me on my knees in penance?”
“No, no. I know this feels weird and I know this was the last place you expected to be in order to help the one you love..but it is. And you won’t be here forever, don’t worry, I just need to explain things.”
“Okay okay.” You nodded, pulling back from him to fully process the situation.
Viewing him from such a close perspective, and viewing the strange yet ethereal world floating in your peripheral wasn’t even the weirdest thing. The weirdest thing was how quick you had been made to suddenly process this all, as if it were foreshadowed in the flecks of your bloodstream.
Always one for make-believe and skipping class in favor of daydreaming dungeons & dragons, this would seem custom for you. And it was in a sense. Crossing that initial bridge of fear and the unfamiliar, you felt strangely calm in this new world’s clutch.
“Y/n? Are you alright?”
“Sorry.” You pulled yourself from your sudden thoughts. “I was just..i’m just a bit taken aback that’s all.”
“It’s fine, honey. Come here, let’s walk.”
In the still slight state of shock, you took his hand and walked. Before, the world feeling silent, you could now hear rain. Long flecks of it smashing against the ground like fireworks bouncing beyond the stratosphere. In some strange way - like everything that had happened to you this evening - you felt calm.
In the weeks it hadn’t rained, you forgot what it had felt like to hold Joon’s hand, to hug him, to really feel him near you. In the early hours of morning, you had missed his warmth, his feathery kisses, his pleasure that was true sin of the flesh. Feeling him here, being next to him now, you had a hope that his more unfortunate, lonesome counterpart would soon be reunited with his true-self again.
“It was a few weeks ago, when the rain halted all action. When the skies fell to rest. A part of me left and found itself here, a strange deity of happiness, an outlier in a world of strangers.”
Looking around, you felt his words. To your left, and to your right stood figures masked with umbrellas, floating in the inaudible wind. Some figures had their umbrellas angled so you could see their faces. Strange features marked the upper half of their torso: hollowed cheeks with eyes sitting in the banks of their flesh, botanical hair, melding into faces, blossoming into sharper spikes. Some figures were full of expression and stories, others were simply black smudges, scribbles atop slouched shoulders moving with the current.
“When it rains, I get a little feeling that I do have a friend. Keeps knocking on my windows; asks me if I'm doing well. And I know that when Namjoon’s at home, writing his music, waiting, he will answer: ‘I’m still a hostage of life. I don’t live because i can’t die, but i’m chained to something.’” Joon responds, talking about the physical side of himself, the man you’ve left sleeping at home, dreaming of the rain. You sense a sadness in his tone, a longing to be reunited with his other half. To make him whole again.
“What can i do? Please tell me?”
“We need to get out of here; but i can’t do it without your help. You need to help pull me out through the other side, to set me free, to help me reach him.”
You take a fresh gulp, anticipating instructions, waiting for an order of where to go, something to help you complete your task. But nothing.
“Where do i take you?”
“Through..through that black hole over there.”
With an unsteady, ghostly white watercolour finger, he points ahead of himself, toward a tenebrous pool of ink, hanging in the sky. Walking with hope, an inkling of dread at your side, you tug further on his hand to approach the crevice, the tear in the seams.
Approaching nearer, you feel your feet start to become submerged in a tar-like substance. Upon looking down, you notice that your wading further out into a lake of ink. But there’s no way out. Stepping to the side to try and climb out of the stream is no use. You are not the floating figures around you, you never will be and neither will Joon; you are simply grounded, falling deeper, yet becoming more assured of the goal you must now reach.
Before you even comprehend it, your right up against the hole, your vision shrouded in darkness and dripping ink, like a fountain from the devil himself. But you know on the other side that there’s the gallery room, and you know that a stone's throw from there, is your home, and your safety again.
“When i count to three, we’ll jump in.”
“Okay..” You breathe.
“Just help me through once you're safe and sound.” He grins, dimples kissing his cheeks.
“Of course I will, silly. We’re in this together.”
“Okay. One..”
“Two.”
“Three!”
The first thing you feel is damp wet sludge, then the tugging sensation of being pulled through a tumble dryer.
The next thing you know: you’re out the other side, and he..
..he’s gasping for air,
tugging onto your arm,
and gurgling.
And - oh god - you don’t think you’ve heard such a sound before, but it terrifies you and leaves bile pooling against your gums.
Against the arcs of rain spilling from the painting, his arm shakes further, fingers gripping so hard you’re afraid they’ll simply shrivel to bone. He’s screaming now, low and hollow and you’re teetering on the decision to just denounce this is a bad dream, pinch yourself and wake up. But you know this isn’t.
You feel you’ve had nightmares similar to this one before. Visions of losing him to a pool of ink, watching him fade into just an image. You’ve tried to imagine life without him, taking long walks and cold showers to prepare for the worst, but you had never wanted this.
“H-elp, PLEASE, he-”
“It’s okay!” You felt breathless “Joon, stay with me, please!”
What on earth would you do if you couldn’t get him out of here? Would the Joon at home you knew so well forever lose his spark? Would you get to try again the next day? Or would the love of your life simply fade away forever..
With that thought you tugged harder, putting all of your energy into the pull. Grounding one foot in front of the other, you leant back against the rope barrier of the exhibit and fastened your grip further up his arm. With excruciating strength, and the need to make sounds akin to an engine revving, you pulled further and further. Further and further, until you could see his shoulder, then his neck, then his head, the waist, the thighs, the knees, the ankles..
All of him.
In an instance, he was falling into your arms, your grip fervent and desperate on him, cradling his body as if he would melt away.
Little did you know, he would melt away if you weren’t fast enough.
“We need to be quick. I’m so so sorry. You need to hurry before i gradually fade; i can’t exist in this world normally as a painting, you need to get to him. Now”.
☁
Racing down empty streets, steering near desolate corners, your car drove with the solid ambition of getting to him.
The longer you rode, the harder you found it to look across to the passenger seat at him. Every single minute, he was fading away. First it was his shoes when you first fastened the seat belt, then his ankles, and now the evanesce was reaching toward his thighs. There was no point in looking a little further or breathing a little faster or thinking a little longer. It was your eyes, ahead, on the road. Just you and the world.
And soon it would be you and him.
Turning another corner, you felt the engine stutter and pool to a stop. With a long, steady breath, you pushed at the pedal again, urging it to move,
“C’mon just a little more -”
But to no avail.
Again you pushed and pushed, just like how you pulled and pulled earlier, but life could only give you so much, it would only give you so much.
A feeling of despair overcame you, throwing you instantly onto the bed of the steering wheel. You lay there silently for a while, face nested against the cold fabric, questioning it all.
Did you do enough? What would Joon think of you? Why were you so hopeless? Did you really think you could finish this on your own?
You had to finish this on your own.
...
....
......
*pit*
*pat*
*pit-pat*
You blinked, lips brushing the wheel in an attempt to shut your mouth and hold your breath.
*pit-pat*
*pit-pat pit-pat pit-pat -*
It was raining.
Looking up, flecks of water were falling from the sky. They were landing like confetti and surging through the air in the trillions. The ground, in seconds, had become a stone riverbed, and the car windows a submarine tanks.
You’d be damned if this rain wasn’t going to turn into the most magnificent storm you’d ever seen.
“C’mon Joon, we’re nearly there!”
With a thrust, you pulled yourself out of the car and up into the rain. Following your steps, he trailed behind you as you stepped out into the cold, exposed to an onslaught of flood.
Out in the open, and with one more step to complete, you took your hand in his and began to run.
If tears were rainy days, you think you’d have experienced a drought. But now, you were crying, crying like there was not enough rain in this world, like there couldn’t ever be enough.
Ushering a melting figure through the torrent of rain, you’d become desperate to reach home. Looking back, you saw the rain was having its effect on him. Every second now, he was simply being washed away.
You turned the final corner to your apartment, readying yourself to rush down a long street to reach the end of it and enter dry-land. To run back home with the risk of turning back and no longer seeing a figure following behind you.
But was it luck, or the final piece in this discombobulated puzzle, that Namjoon was standing right there, at the end of the street, waiting for you?
Now you were running even faster, your legs pacing ahead of the rest of you before you could even think.
Closer and closer and you could start to feel Joon’s grip in your hand fade away, only urging you to hold on stronger.
With watery, shut eyes, you made the final distance and collided with a strong chest, sending Joon forth into his physical counterpart.
Pulling apart from him suddenly, you watched to see his watercolour other-half melt into the crest of his heart. With no urgency, he was sucked in, and you stared in awe as Joon slowly stood straighter, grew brighter, felt happier.
It was a gasp of air that finally brought him back to you. You saw it before you truly felt it: lips on your own like soft, rubbery buds. He kissed you with tenderness, with concern, with desire. Kissing you further, the light poured into you too. You felt it in the way he held your waist, in the way he held your face, in the way he made sure the both of you were never ever ever displaced.
He sang against your lips,
“Please don’t ask any questions.”
“But do keep pouring forever.”
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MY FREEDOM GPS – Departures and Arrivals (Deaths, Rebirths and New Beginnings)
i lifted my eyes and looked to the hills from whence cometh my help, only to discover that my help cometh from within.
As I’ve often asseverated. There is, absolutely, no separation between my life and my art. My life speaks to my art in EVERY way, just as my art informs how i live. My work is driven by a mission and purpose to obtain absolute FREEDOM. i have and will continue to sacrifice EVERYTHING to meet this end. And there is ABSOLUTELY nothing and no one that comes before this cause. That said. My journey (to absolute freedom) has brought me to yet another point of realization. As i now realize that my people are neither BLACK or WHITE PEOPLE but FREE PEOPLE. As FREEDOM is my life’s MISSION and PRAXIS. It (FREEDOM) is my promised land and my Polaris star. FREEDOM is my totem. FREEDOM is my soul and solace! It is the womb and birthing ground of my clan, my tribe, my nation, MY PEOPLE.
“Our sense of “being-in-the-world,” is actualized, or authentically enacted and perceived to the extent it corresponds to, or expresses our desire and ability to shape the world around us. When this process is short-circuited, an inauthentic, or alienated existence is the result. Thus, in a white supremacist society, no such freedom exists.” – Merleau-Ponty
What i am saying is that my journey has now brought me to yet another phase. i have arrived at a new chapter in this mission of absolute liberation. i find myself (One-Man!) standing on new ground. Yet, i arrive at this next level with a newfound resolve, courage, strength, and clarity of purpose that i can’t say i fully understood or embraced before.
i now recognize that the foundation for this journey (this path) was laid out for me long ago. And although growing up as a black child in Missouri i would have a great many confrontations with white racism (particularly racist police). i do believe, however, it was a result of 2 specific traumatizing (life or death) experiences at the hands of white authorities that i would ultimately be awakened. The first of these encounters occurred when i was just 10 or 11 years of age. Officer Friendly (what we used to call the police when we were children) drove up and drew their weapons on my best friend and i. They ordered us to the ground supposedly suspecting that our toy guns were real weapons. To this day i still believe had my best friends father not intervened when he did – yelling to the officers, “The guns are toys and they are only children!” – this story would have had a far more tragic outcome. The second incident occurred a few years later. At which point i was a teenager in high school (around 15 years old). In this encounter white police officers stopped me one day while walking to the 7-Eleven after school. Their reasoning simply being, “You look suspicious.” A bit frightened, confused and at the same time annoyed by the accusation, i emphatically objected. At which point they took it upon themselves to put me in my place. They snatched me up. Slammed me against the car and placed me in handcuffs. Then they put me in the backseat of the police cruiser and proceeded to drive me around while threatening me and reminding me: “We are the police and can do whatever we want to you.” When i again objected and complained that i had not committed any crime. They immediately countered: “Look here boy! You are a criminal if we say you are. It could be very easy for us to charge you with a crime and there’s nothing you could do about it. No one would take your word over ours.” Their threats went even further as they menacingly contemplated, out loud, what to do with me. They let it be known that I could possibly not make it home and that they could simply make me, “disappear”. At which point, i am not ashamed to admit, i broke down like a baby and begged them to let me go. i just remember them laughing at me. And one of them saying: “Yeah boy. you don’t have such a smart ass mouth now, do you?” The entire ordeal lasted for about 2 hours. Once they grew bored and their point had been made they released me. And although i would not began to fully grasp the entire scope of these encounters until much later in life. i believe these early experiences were formative, as it was then that i first realized that i was black and that my blackness was a problem. It would be in these early traumatic (childhood) experiences that, for the very first time in my life, i would be struck with the real conditions of racial existence. As a result i would be – as W. E. B. Du Bois describes in, The Souls of Black Folk – split into, becoming a “double consciousness”. i had essentially been made to “look upon myself through the eyes of others.” It was at this point that i would first come face to face with the alien that is my black objectified being. (Grasping my existence as an alien body in an alien world.)
“I came into the world anxious to uncover meaning in things, my soul desirous to be at the origin of the world, and here I am an object among other objects. Locked in this suffocating reification, I appealed to the Other so that his liberating gaze, gliding over my body suddenly smoothed of rough edges, would give me back the lightness of being I thought I had lost, and taking me out the world put me back in the world. But just as I get to the other slope I stumble, and the Other fixes me with his gaze, his gestures and attitude, the same way you fix a preparation with a dye. I lose my temper, demand an explanation….Nothing doing. I explode. Here are the fragments put together by another me.” — Frantz Fanon
This being that although appearing as foreign to me still nonetheless somehow defined, and essentially determined me and my existence in this world. A world that i had no say or place in. A world that i had no hand in creating. A world in which i would never be allowed to truly live. A world that i would never be allowed to FULLY BE. A world in which i was merely a powerless and essentially nonexistent spectator. A world in which i could not possibly be FREE and therefore could not possibly be HUMAN. Coming face to face with this alien being. i stared directly into its eyes and my entire existence was revealed to me. i saw how ALL that i am had already been determined and scripted…. My story, my life, my love, my will, my soul, my entire BEING had already been shaped and defined. My humanity stripped and nullified. i saw how ALL of these decisions had been made long before i had even been conceived. i saw myself formed out of the spit and mud of history (His-story), i was merely an object molded like cast marble and polished black as pitch over hundreds of years, by “Other” hands.
i had now been exposed to the reality of my position in this white (racially) constructed and dominated society. Realizing that the color of my skin and my appearance had betrayed me as something other. My flesh (beyond my own perception, say and belief) stigmatized and criminalized. i had for some unknown reason been sentenced to life in a prison of (racialized, alienated and essentially dehumanized) BLACK SHAME.
Yet, while these earlier experiences had made me aware of my condition as a racialized being. In those younger years i hadn’t yet developed the sight and mind to fully grasp the grand scope (root and nature) of this condition. But my eyes had been opened nonetheless. Ironically, i believe, the white policemen’s actions did not have the desired effect or impact they thought. I’m certain they thought they had taught me a lesson and put me in my place. They thought they had broken me. When in fact, they had actually awakened me. They had also freed me from the paralysis of fear. As whatever fear i had – after those white officers had ordered me (as that 10 year old child) to the ground at gunpoint – was essentially left on the back seat of that police cruiser, by that 15 year old teen. i just remember from that point on something had changed in me.
Time and time again in subsequent encounters i was confronted by that alien being. Initially i would just internalize it. i would even try to ignore, deny and dismiss it away – to no avail. But this eventually gave way to anger and then contempt. i would develop a deep hatred and mistrust towards ALL white people. A fuck it bomb detonated inside of me. i told myself that i would not capitulate to this being. From that point forward i would NEVER again be silenced. i would NEVER allow myself to be reduced to a powerless victim. i would fight this being with everything in me. i would not submit. i would get free! i think it was then that i had actually discovered my voice and power. As it was then that i initially began to SCREAM! Yet, this voice first seemed to have emerged without a truly conscious sense of purpose or direction. It was simply driven by pure, raw and visceral; anger and hate expressed in the rebellious activity of my youth. i believe i was testing, preparing and essentially honing my newfound weapon. In those years i was all rage. No longer would i try and convince white folks that i had a right to exist – call me a ‘NIGGER’ – i would show them i existed. In those years i would confront and attack ALL white people and their institutions – even the police – wherever and whenever. This would many times lead to physical altercations. As a result i would often find myself jailed. But again, this would not deter me, if anything it would only serve to fuel my anger and embolden me.
Yet over the years, out of this rebellious anger would arise a deeper sense of clarity and purpose. i slowly began to comprehend the true objective nature of my alienation. That is to say, i had began to recognize how the racism to which i had been exposed had less to do with the actions of racist white individuals and more to do with a social structure and process – rooted in a historically reified racist schema. Hence, i started to comprehend how my racialized and objectified being had been formed, shaped and fixed as a result of conditioned behavior arising out of social relations –evinced in the racist actions of these particular individuals – with extensive historical and institutionalized roots. i then understood that these racial encounters were mere symptoms of an inescapable paradigm made manifest in a concrete, living and all encompassing (socially, institutionally and historically reified) fact.
Once armed with this clarity, i was able to find purpose for my anger. My ENTIRE life would be dedicated to the act of absolute liberation. i would set out to transform the conditions of my racialized existence by sublating white power and the entire white world upon which it stood. i would hereby become the living (active) embodiment of white negation. i would not be invisible. My blackness would not exist in a dormant and passive state - it would not ask permission - it would not accommodate or compromise - it would not be tamed or refined - it would not obey - it would not make appeals for peace, justice and equality - it would not play the white man’s game - it would not stay in its place. My blackness would not measure itself in accordance with white standards, nor would it answer to shame or guilt. My blackness would not beg for white acceptance, validation or recognition - it would not establish itself as a moral plea (BLACK LIVES MATTER).
For i now understood that my objectification, as an established fact and natural condition of nonentity in a white supremacist constructed society, could not be altered through moral pleas. (No more than the dead can convince the living that they are alive, nor a chair can convince a man that it is something other than a chair.) As only the living can confront the living. To paraphrase Hegel and Fanon, self-consciousness only exist – “in and for itself” – to the fact that its existence is recognized by another self-consciousness. Just as a man is only human to the extent that he can impose his existence on another man and thereby gain his recognition. Only the (active) self-determining subject can – by confronting and transforming the material conditions of its objectified being – assert and establish the absolute truth of its existence in the world. Thus, in order to change my condition, i would first have to assert myself as a ‘BLACK MAN’. Establishing myself in this (white) world, not as a supplicating – essentially invisible and subhuman – thing, but as a very real, imposing and disruptive FACT. My blackness would not be a mere noun or adjective. My blackness would be a verb. A shank! A pistol! A IED (Improvised Explosive Device)! A battling ram!
Yes, those early confrontations (at the hands of “white authorities”) would actually turn out to be the first and most essential keys needed to unlock the doors of my racialized prison – initiating my journey towards absolute liberation. You see. This first door would be that of SELF-REALIZATION. Once this door was unlocked there was no turning back for me. i could no longer resign myself to a condition of alienation. No longer would i be able to conform to white constructed (defined, prescribed and described) categorizations of myself in this world and therefore i actively took up the charge to emancipate myself. By asserting and establishing myself as an active subject – as opposed to mere object of an external Other. i was then able to bring into being my own self certainty. Establishing my own truth by transforming the world into my own object (through action) and as such making it subject to my will. As an active (living and breathing) negation of white supremacy i was effectively disrupting and transforming prevailing social relations. And thus creating and bringing to fruition a true outcome of joint becoming and recognition within the context of race relations. It was at this point of realization that i was able to finally give name to my anger and purpose. As a black man asserting my own claim on the world (i WILL FREE MY FUCKING SELF!). Through my creative praxis and living activity i would remake the world in my OWN image (one action at a time). My black existence had served as the catalyst for my self-realization. My self-realization the catalyst for my struggle. My struggle the catalyst for my rebellious activity. My rebellious activity the basis of my life’s mission (absolute liberation)…. It was this truth that ultimately gave rise to One-Man.
“Without the formative activity, fear remains inward and mute, and consciousness does not become explicitly for itself. If consciousness fashions the thing without that initial absolute fear, it is only an empty self-centered attitude; for its form or negativity is not negativity per se, and therefore its formative activity cannot give it a consciousness of itself as essential being. If it has not experienced absolute fear but only some lesser dread, the negative being has remained for it something external.” – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Yes. i was born a prisoner but to escape this prison i realized that i would have to die (negate and sacrifice it ALL) in order to be reborn. Hence, i became a fugitive and outcast. My crimes would be my pursuit of FREEDOM. (i am a runaway in a society of SLEEPING SLAVES.)
i am liberating myself of ALL shame and guilt. i am actively challenging and interrogating “HISTORY”. i am defiantly rejecting ALL social mores in order to set my own course and define myself (ABSOLUTELY and COMPLETELY) on my OWN terms. And while the “Othered” sleeping slaves acquiesce to and embrace the story of themselves as told by their slave masters….
While they seek their masters validation – desperate to see their names and faces (painted on white walls and monuments) in the annals of history…. i am writing my own story and building my own monuments.
While they remain content speaking the language of their masters…. i have been crafting my own language.
While they answer to the names that have been assigned to them…. i have named myself.
While they – ignorantly embracing and speaking to notions of freedom and humanity that they have NEVER truly experienced nor DEFINED THEMSELVES – essentially accept and apotheosize whiteness as the ultimate measure and arbiter of their freedom and humanity…. i ACTIVELY work to define and secure my own freedom and humanity.
Again i say. i am aware that i was born a prisoner – enslaved to the condition of my (black) racialized existence. i also know, however, that before i was made a black man i was born a MAN. i know that i am the living manifestation of freedom. i know that i – just as ALL “Human Beings” – was born with the agency to shape the world with my own hands in accordance to my own vision and will. And i know that it’s the trauma of immediate black racialized existence that has served to quicken me to this (my own) TRUTH and set me on the path of self-emancipation.
But of course there are many layers to freedom. It is a life long endeavor after all. And as such the deeper you go – as more is revealed to you – the clearer things become. But what is also true is that the journey grows more arduous and onerous – as the test and challenges grow more frequent and difficult – the further you go down the path. It all comes down to how far you are actually willing to go. For me this journey is ALL or NOTHING.
Yet, just as my black existence would serve as the basis for (One-Man) my journey towards self-emancipation. So would blackness reveal to me the true certainty of my SELF becoming as a FREE MAN. As perhaps there would be NOTHING more telling in regards to the disruptive, negating, and transformative impact and agency of my work/actions (towards absolute liberation) than the often emotional, and even violent, responses and reactions that One-Man (the living manifesto of my liberation) has conjured up in other BLACK individuals. It is from this perspective that I’ve come to recognize just how much my self-becoming (my liberating and self-emancipatory activity) serves as a powerful negating and abolishing threat to existing race relations….
(RUN NIGGER! because you are not one of us because you’re an outsider you do not talk, walk or act like one of us you have no roots here…
because you threaten to break these beautiful chains… .
because you reek of something foreign you are simply too strange for us you’re a weirdo a circus freak yes, you belong to those pallid people they should have you they love to collect strange things after all – For Whites Only)
Again, it was as a result of personal experiences (with black individuals) that I’d come to truly understand how my work was perceived in the eyes of black people and the “NEGATIVE” impact that my self-emancipatory activity has, not only on whiteness, but also on blackness. But (yet again) the greatest of these revelations would come by way of 2 specific and personal encounters. Whereby, as a direct result and response to the work, my blackness would be brought into question. Yet as it would turn out these incidents as well would have a very significant, transformative, enlightening and revelatory impact. As they would serve not only to validate the work, but also to quicken in me a deeper sense of clarity and purpose; instigating a profound breakthrough and new turning point (Points of Departure) for me and my mission. Mind you, the first encounter would actually turn out to be the inspiration for the action i would perform in Italy (For Whites Only). While the second, occurring upon my return from Italy would have more of a definitive (both confirming and affirming) impact. In both of these incidents, however, i was charged (either directly or indirectly) with the crimes of “BLACK” betrayal. In the first (although scathing nonetheless) the charges, veiled in umbrae and delivered under the guise of friendly and constructive criticism, were much more implicit. It was in these moments where it would be first revealed to me that (due to my work and actions) i had essentially been othered by black people. It was here where I’d first be made aware that even in the eyes of my “OWN” people, i was perceived as an alien and outsider. “There is no help for you… . You are a floater and have no REAL roots in the black community.” It was here where I’d be made aware that my work and actions had somehow placed me outside of blackness. i began to recognize that my self-emancipation – too incomprehensible (strange and weird) for “BLACK” standards – was ultimately regarded as some strange white artsy type shit…. “You are a black man who paints his body and runs around naked in the streets doing weird shit. Yes, they [white people] … absolutely eat that up.” It was in this moment that it would first be made clear to me that my freedom was ultimately (disdainfully) perceived – in many black folks eyes – as an act of selling out to whiteness…. “After-all, that’s who your REAL audience is [white people] and, let’s face it, that’s who your work actually resonates with. I think those are your TRUE supporters. Not to mention they’re always desperately looking to get involved and take on a needy black cause.”
Yet, whereas, in the first encounter these charges (against my blackness) would be far more suggestive and implied. In the second encounter however they’d be violently asseverated (explosively direct and explicit). That is to say, in the first encounter my blackness had merely been charged; yet in the second it would essentially be convicted, sentenced and executed. The charges in this encounter would also cut deeper as they would come from an individual that i had (at the time) deeply trusted, respected and confided in. An individual that had claimed to truly support my work and mission. And while (to be quite honest) i must admit deep down i had long questioned if this person actually harbored some unfavorable feelings towards me – because of my work and views. i (for the most part) however just chose to ignore and deny it. Not fully comprehending until later their clever use of projection as a subterfuge to express their true (hidden) feelings. And while there would be a great many of such projections. This one in particular would impact me the most: “It’s just my observation but I feel like your work and messages challenge black people in a very uncomfortable way. It makes them question everything they’ve come to accept and know as true. Your actions pose a challenge to the normal order and function of things. Because let’s face it, you’re different and this makes folks scared. Therefore they’re not able or willing to understand you beyond what they immediately see. Because we all know when folks are confronted with something new or different. When they are faced with something that threatens or challenges the normal order and takes them out of their comfort zone, their immediate reaction will be to attack it. They will want to destroy it.”
And it would be in this context that, hearing their (later) words screamed at me in a subsequent confrontation, EVERYTHING would finally be made crystal clear. As their words, although fomented by a mutual disagreement and spoken in the heat of anger, still nonetheless revealed long held, suppressed and deep seated feelings of animosity and disdain…. “Go to the white motherfuckers! That’s who you love! That’s where you belong! I’ve always known this! Take your ass to them! That’s where you REALLY want to be! We’re too BLACK for you!” What was even more telling however was the basis for this anger. It would be the reasoning for which accusation and guilt had already been established well before the actual conflict that would give rise to the spiteful and inimical words themselves. It would essentially be, nothing other than, the result of their own (self-professed) “insecurity and jealousy” (of me and my work) that my blackness would ultimately be brought under attack. At the end of the day it would all come down to the fact that i was now perceived as DIFFERENT. (“It’s because I think he has changed. Something happened to him in Venice. He came back different.”) Yes. At the end of the day it was simply because i was different. It was because i was actually getting free…. Because i had grown and evolved beyond the form of mere caterpillar and had now taken flight with the butterfly wings of my liberation. Because they had not the courage to sprout their OWN wings. They had not the courage to liberate themselves. Because as (alienated) subjects and slaves to blackness they remain trapped in the prisons of their (Othered) racialized and objectified existence – which ultimately determines them.
However, it was in these encounters that i would again find my true self. Because it would be in these moments that everything would again be made clear and brought full circle for me. It was in these moments that i RE-MEMBERED myself. i remembered that my struggle was not to be a “BLACK” man but a FREE MAN. Yet sadly, it was a result of these encounters that I’d also come to realize that TRUE freedom (in the BLACK mind) was STILL essentially deemed the property of whiteness, and as such its pursuit ultimately perceived to be a white endeavor. Thus my self-emancipation had not merely posed a threat to whiteness but it was also seen as a threat and affront to blackness.
What both of these confrontations had revealed to me was the true reciprocatory nature of black racialized existence. As i was now made very aware how we in fact reproduce (hence enslave) ourselves as expressions of the objective relations of a white supremacist society. It is the fact that our objectification is not only externally imposed but it is internally reproduced. However, by ACTIVELY asserting myself as a conscious black subject in the world i have in fact disrupted the social relations that reproduce the conditions of my black objectified being. Yet as a result of this activity, i have also transformed myself into something new. i have transformed myself into an active manifestation and personification of freedom. As Noam Chomsky posits, “the essence of human nature is man’s freedom and his consciousness of his freedom.” Therefore as a conscious and active manifestation of freedom i am no longer existing as a “BLACK” BE-ing but am now asserting and establishing myself as a new man, a new BE-ing for SELF! i am henceforth establishing myself as a HUMAN BE-ing.
NOW ASSERTING MYSELF AS A HUMAN SUBJECT RATHER THAN A RACIALIZED OBJECT….
In the words of Jean-Paul Sartre, “Humans are not objects to be used by God or a government or corporation or society. Nor we to be “adjusted” or molded into roles – to be only a waiter or a conductor or a mother or worker.” And here i might add, BLACK or WHITE (for that very same fact). “We must look deeper than our roles [our labels, our appearance] and find ourselves.”
It is now clear to me that BLACKness – as a determinant unto itself – has its own limits and is not a FINAL destination. And while blackness was my beginning it could (nor would) not be the determination for my end. For my course is set towards absolute freedom. And true freedom requires the negation of ALL BLOCKS (race, gender, sexuality, politics, religion etc…). And again, such a negation requires the relinquishment of ALL stability – that is EVERYTHING we now uphold and recognize as natural and true. Mind you. What i did not understand until now is that this negation would not simply necessitate the abolishment of whiteness (a white constructed and dominated world) but it would also ultimately require an abolishment of blackness. And although i still hold true to the belief that black liberation holds the seeds (it is a key) to human liberation. i have now come to a deeper understanding as to what this ACTUALLY means for me in the context of my (self-emancipatory) journey towards absolute freedom. i now clearly see how a true liberation from whiteness also brings about a liberation from the conditions of (black) racialized existence. Therefore black liberation requires a liberation from (and ultimate sublation of) blackness itself. It has been this ultimate breakthrough that has awakened me to the reality that i am no longer a subject to “blackness”. Recognizing that my racialized and objectified “BLACK” BE-ing is essentially reproduced through social relations that are arbitrated between (both) blacks and whites. And that it’s this socially perpetuated call and response that takes on its own independent form reproducing (and essentially corporealizing) my alienation in the (Frankensteinian) social structure and construct of RACE. No. i do not have to obey or answer to blackness. For it is as a direct result of my OWN activity – the self-awareness that inverted my condition as an alienated object muted and trapped inside myself (as a BE-ing for an OTHER) to a self-activated and conscious subject (a BE-ing for MYSELF) – that my objectified black existence (as condition directly dictated and mediated by white supremacy) was obliterated. Hence blackness no longer determines me. It is i in fact that NOW determines it!
What has now been made plain is that the challenges posed by those recent confrontations (and individuals) were essential test. Because in the end both would serve as harbingers, marking the coming of a new me. Both were profoundly significant in instigating an even deeper awakening in me – signaling both my departure and my arrival to a new level. They showed me that i no longer had to be circumscribed to the prison of racialized existence. They showed me the alienated relationship that black people maintain with this white dominated world. The alienated condition that keeps us existing as slaves and subjects to “blackness”. In this regard our objectified being is perpetuated by our own “activity”. It is a result of institutionalized and socially subjugating (racially instigated) relations that foster our sense of inferiority – which responds to and is dictated by external forces that we perceive to be beyond our power to overcome. Thus we come to apotheosize and reproduce objectified blackness as an intrinsic and normal state of BE-ing – “I don’t have to do nothing but stay black and die!” (Of course in a world founded and constructed on white supremacy, blackness is indeed intrinsic.) Sadly, as we’ve come to believe that we cannot be ANYTHING other than “BLACK”, we are essentially validating the white world by asseverating that we cannot be anything other than that which we have been NAMED and MADE to be by external white hands. Which is to ultimately say that we are STILL nothing but the lowly, alienated and inhuman property (objects/things) of white masters.
“Slaves and dogs are named by their masters. Free men name themselves” – Richard B. Moore
As we ultimately see ourselves to this racialized end we essentially negate and capitulate our self-determining agency, as FREE beings (object makers) capable of creating and shaping the world in our own image and according to our own will – which is to say, we essentially surrender our humanity. And instead we are reduced to (“BLACK”) objects/things who’s existence responds to, and is determined by an external Other. The idea of which is concisely described in, ‘Fanon and the Theory of Race’, as we maintain an alienated and hence inverted relationship with the world and ourselves, our “self-determining agent is turned inside out, and [as a result] the object creating human being exists as an object that is created by another subject.” Thus we are ultimately reduced to function and exist as slaves to our (racialized) appearance – as it is essentially a (external) white gaze that composes, defines and determines us. ALL that we are, achieve and aspire to be is a result and response to this fact. Thus our activity – as “black” beings – is merely an extension of white (racially constructed) expression, for it serves to validate and perpetuate as opposed to negate and annihilate this white world and the construct of race upon which it stands. Yes. EVERYTHING we do (as black people) we do under the foremost consideration and recognition of the white gaze. It dictates our EVERY move, and our ENTIRE sense of BE-ing. It’s this condition that keeps us beholden to and preoccupied with (inferior/shame induced) notions of “BLACK” pride, dignity and excellence as measured on the basis of racially identified achievements (again, expressed in response to the objective relations of a white dominated society) – e.g., First ‘BLACK’ President - First ‘BLACK’ astronaut - First ‘BLACK’ brain surgeon - First ‘BLACK’ Harvard graduate - First ‘BLACK’ Academy Award winner - First ‘BLACK’ golf champion - First ‘BLACK’ prima ballerina - First ‘BLACK’ Ms. America - First ‘BLACK’ Annie - First ‘BLACK’ “Fine Artist”- First ‘BLACK’ garbage man etc…. And while we measure ourselves (and our progress) by these standards, it is such thinking that actually serves to validate the conditions of our inferiority and dehumanization. As it establishes and validates blackness as a state of being that exist in subordination to whiteness. It is for this very reason why i constantly say and believe, that black people have no real clue as to what freedom and humanity TRULY is. For we – existing in an alienated condition – have surrendered our humanity and thus our freedom to this (“black” racialized and objectified) thing-hood. So for us – as our self-determining agency has been muted – humanity and freedom is that which can only be defined and thus essentially granted by the white Other/Master.
Therefore, humanity and freedom for the “black” man must always be measured in accordance to an established white standard. Which i believe is exactly what Fanon meant (in Black Skin, White Masks) when he wrote: The black man wants to be white, the white man slaves to reach a human level.
Furthermore, this statement also speaks to the fact that blackness nor whiteness are intrinsic properties of human nature and condition. But they (blackness and whiteness) are in fact, intrinsic properties of race – a man-made construct – the products of learned and conditioned behavior arising out of social, historical, political and institutional power relations. As such, race – with its inherent character of racialism – by design stands antithetical to human nature. For it negates the possibility for mutual recognition and thus precludes us from bringing into being the true universal consciousness (One-Man) necessary for the actualization of absolute (universal) freedom and humanity. It is by this regard that both black and white people alike are enslaved by race. And it is also for this reason that i again put forward my belief in black liberation as a key and tool for (true) human liberation. For TRUE black liberation cannot be a movement that’s determination is to usurp and replace white power. Although black liberation first requires the negation of whiteness as a means to – while disrupting and essentially extirpating the socially reproduced dynamics that give life to and perpetuate alienated and objectified conditions within the racial construct – establish a balance of joint becoming (and recognition) within the context of race relations. However, true black liberation also requires the liberation of black people from the conditions of racialized existence itself. Thus (i reiterate) black liberation also requires the absolute sublation of BOTH whiteness and blackness (or as Hegel puts it, the absolute sublation of both “master and slave”) alike – hence abolishing race itself. As it is only then that a true universal consciousness can be brought into being, a consciousness that allows us to recognize and re-member ourselves (that is, bringing into unity a universal human consciousness) as TRULY free HUMAN BE-ings. And it is by this very same fact that as long as we continue to uphold and remain beholden to ANY and ALL determinations (THE BLOCKS) we ALL (Black, White, Brown, Beige, Red and Yellow) remain slaves, trapped in this prison of socially constructed and perpetuated dehumanization.
Now fully understanding that blackness is not a burden that i have to bear. Nor is it a container that i must accept and circumscribe my being to. i do not have to be content in “blackness”, excusing myself to remote and delicate corners of the world. DAMMIT. i AM THE WORLD!
That said. As ONE-MAN i hereby announce my departure and arrival to a next level. i aim to abolish ALL BLOCKS. i will LOVE and FUCK who i choose (man, woman, white, black or other)! i will masturbate and cum in holy books. i will strip naked in churches and temples. i will spit at all authority and institutions. i will defile monuments. i will curse (both) MASTER and SLAVE! i will tear down walls. i will invade cities, states and countries. i will push limits and cross boundaries. i will spread these seeds of revolution. i will negate - negate - NEGATE! And in the words of Fanon, “He who is reluctant to recognize me is against me.”
LIBERATION is my RELIGION…. FREEDOM is my GOSPEL!
#iAmNegation
Photo by: Gim Gwang Cheol
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