Work Text:
"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out… I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."
— Sylvia Plath
outside, the thunder rumbles low.
the angels are bowling, jungkook! don’t be scared, honey, they’re just having a little party. they need to have some fun and let loose too, right?
the ink of his pen releases a long, black line across the paper. it looks harsh, final. he’d been going for smooth and languid, but it looks stiff. he sighs, his mood well past frustrated and settling into despondent. he crumples up the paper in his fist and tosses it in the corner with the pile he’s been making since this morning.
never throw anything away you make, jungkook. nothing is inherently successful nor is it a failure. that’s not what you should have in mind when you make it. just do, and it will come to you. sometimes the steps you take to get somewhere are just as valuable as the end result.
bullshit, jungkook thinks. “bullshit,” he whispers, his unused voice cracking under his breath. his vocal chords sound like they’re caked with dust. he feels like dust.
when he’d chosen art as his major, he felt like he was being brave. he was finally doing something just for himself. something people told him would be too hard, didn’t have a great success rate, didn’t pay well. “it’s not about the money,” he had told them. “it’s just what i want to do.” he’d started off strong. he felt like nothing could hold him back. even in the classes where professors cared more about critique than content, where they made him feel like there was a wrong and a right way to do art, whatever that was, he’d stayed strong. he’d kept going. he graduated, found a job at a printing press to pay the bills while he worked freelance, nailed a few small exhibitions.
but lately… nothing. suddenly nothing. he thinks too hard, or not enough. his hands supply too much pressure or too little. he can’t find the balance anymore.
jungkook gets up to stretch his legs and to rinse the day’s grime from his face in the bathroom sink. he looks at himself in the mirror. he’s pale. his eyes are glassy and distant, like he’s looking through himself in the reflection on the spotted glass.
jungkook thinks about artists and authors he knows. how the art that people said was “good” came from places that weren’t so much. he thinks about vincent van gogh. his ear. his brush strokes—small, meticulous... but when you stand back, it looks soft and easy again. a gentle static. only upon closer inspection do you see the painstaking detail. the effort. the chaos.
he thinks about anne sexton. she wrote about erections and abortions and suicide. people said she was groundbreaking, they said she talked about the things no one wanted to talk about, laid herself bare. after she died, her daughter said, “my mother abused me,” and she printed those words in a book so people couldn’t ignore them and pretend like they hadn’t heard. jungkook studied anne sexton’s work in a college poetry seminar, when he thought for five seconds that he might be a literature major. no one mentioned the abuse. he found out about it later, when he googled her name to find a poem he'd read for class that he wanted to show namjoon. “a confessional poet,” they called her. but she had secrets. jungkook can’t read her poems anymore. now they all feel like lies.
he thinks about francesca woodman. the portraits she made of her own ghost, haunting a dirty room, shielded by wallpaper and dilapidated wood. her dad said she hadn’t gotten the funding she’d applied for. her family said they’d let their guard down.
there are too many to name. too many people who made things that only became relevant after they were gone. too many people who just disappeared too—unknown, unwanted. all of these people, who tried to cover up messes with colors and words and others asked, what does this mean? and were shocked to hear an answer so unpleasant.
he can feel his breaths getting shallow. calm down, calm down. it’s okay, you’re okay. isn’t that the problem, though? that he’s okay? does he have to break down even more in order to make something worthwhile again? could he survive it?
maybe good only comes from bad places.
maybe he has to be sad to make something beautiful, worth remembering.
temporary
temporary
it’s all temporary.
he thinks about every artwork he’s ever looked at in a museum. how they only last as long as they do because someone at some point decided they were worth keeping and taking care of. but despite that gentle care, they still fade and discolor.
one day the chemicals will break down. the vinyl will crack. the pages will yellow. the spine will break.
what’s the point what’s the point
all life is suffering, but there are reasons to live.
jungkook thinks about the records he collects. about the enamel pins on his backpack. about the posters he pinned to his walls. about the books he hasn’t read and the songs he hasn’t listened to and the art he hasn’t made.
surround yourself with things that make you happy, jungkook-ah. it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. if you like it, embrace it.
everything changes though, hyung. i can spend all of this time building a nest, but one day i’ll leave it. i can’t take it with me. i can’t take any of this with me. i can’t trust that anything i leave behind will last.
worth isn’t always measurable, jungkook-ah. sometimes you just have to trust yourself. trust that what you’re doing is enough, that your instincts are good. sometimes it’s not about other people at all. sometimes it’s just about you, about what you want. and that’s okay.
the cold water hitting his skin wakes jungkook up a bit.
sometimes i’m sad too. really sad. but that doesn’t mean that none of this is worth it.
the flower sitting in the vase on the coffee table is not going to last forever. eventually, it will wilt. the storm has moved on, and the early evening sun is shining through the window, silhouetting the veins in the petals like a dense road map. for a moment, the beauty he finds there makes him feel sad. jungkook could preserve it—could fold the flower’s petals between the pages of a book. let it leak it’s colors to stain the words around it. the dried petals and leaves pressed flat like that’s the only space the universe can allow them to occupy anymore. too harsh a caress, and the petals would crumble.
but—
when jungkook sits back down on the floor, he looks at the blank page in front of him and thinks, for the first time in a while—fresh. not empty.
—there are possibilities.
sad,
tired,
lonely,
but not alone. jungkook thinks about his friends. he thinks about namjoon’s dimples. about hoseok’s round cheeks. about jimin’s crescent eyes that curve with happiness. taehyung’s boxy grin. seokjin’s squeaky laugh. yoongi’s gummy smile.
his family.
maybe it’s not about me, though, he thinks. not really. maybe it’s about… us. about how we fit together, about how we clash and mesh and comb through all of this mess. maybe it's about me and how i fit there. how they made room for me, how the world gave me this place that's just mine.
jungkook picks up his pen. he looks at the flower. he draws it how it really looks, to him, not how he thinks it should look. the first stroke feels like an exhale, the next like the first deep breath he’s taken in a while. laughter rings in his ears.