Europa

You can't stop anyone from loving Europa
Astronomer gazing at her fragile surface
Her flawed beauty, her cracking elegance
Won't you try to find Europa?

He has made the several thousand observations
Each and every calculation has added up
Beneath ice and snow there is an ocean, he's certain
Won't you try to see Europa?

In the piercing sunlight her frozen face glitters
Quiet and unchanging, so superficial
In exasperation he determines this is his fate
Won't you try to meet Europa?

In this vast and dark universe, she is so pale and alone
Deep beneath the surface, she sleeps
His efforts are noble, but if the ending is painful
Won't you try to know Europa?



Dedicated to chance connections.
Sincerely,
-A.K.

Late

Your cold form trembled in the frigid blue air
But I made your eyes fill with silver fire
I ask her; do his eyes always twinkle so beautifully?
Like burning winter starlight, breathtaking, and so far away

The sunset, premature and quiet, has arrived alone
And the raw air claws at us; it tries to consume us
In this deserted world of empty souls
Your eyes are warmer than the long forgotten summer.

-A.K.

I turned nineteen a few days ago...

I turned nineteen a few days ago. It's the first birthday in a long time that I have spent feeling happy and not cried or some such thing. As evidenced by other posts on this blog, in the past few years I have gotten into a cycle of having a miniature midlife crisis before my birthday, but for some reason this year I have just developed a post-birthday shut down.
It could just be my seasonal depression coming back, but I can't help but feel like the proximity to my birthday has something to do with it.
It hit me today that so much has changed about me since I began the journey of this year of life. Normally, on my birthday, I spend some amount of time thinking back to the many years previous, but today I contemplated this past year in particular.
I distinctly remember desperately and yet reluctantly wanting to be eighteen. Publicly I told my friends and family that I was very excited to be eighteen, but I don't remember if I actually was. To add to that, I do not remember at all how my actual birthday went last year. It's a fuzzy blur of many birthdays past, so I hope I will be forgiven for forgetting everything except for the birthday wishes I received on Facebook.
But yes, anyway, I wanted to be eighteen, despite what extra responsibilities could be and inevitably would be attached to that age, since I would be a legal adult in the United States, and that was a big deal for me.
I believe I was seeking the approval of others, or some kind of acceptance. I'm not even sure about my motivations now that it's been a year.
At any rate, I should have known that turning eighteen was a whole package. The past year of my life, looking back, has been one of the most emotionally draining I have ever experienced.
I became so incredibly depressed during that winter and I still slip into bouts of depression today. Friends I considered "not on such good terms" back then do not even speak to me now, as expected. Yet, between two people who once flirted with the idea of love, only terse words, thinly glossed with the ambiguity of internet communication, are exchanged, and yes, it makes no sense why. I traveled to Korea again, an experience that was both exhilarating and challenging, as many relationships changed and evolved while I was there and gone from home. So many of my perspectives were questioned during that trip; concepts such as age differences, affections, love, independence, intelligence, tolerance, and race were all thrown at me from so many angles. Now that I'm at U.Va, I continue to be brought to ponder my stance on these things, and it can be difficult to understand what my answers are, or how they might change with the next experience (don't worry, I still plan on being a conservative when I graduate, guys ;)). When I arrived home, my parents went on a trip to Europe, and I was to take care of my younger siblings. I received a lot of help, but realizing that it was harder than anticipated and I was totally incapable of looking after them on my own made me question my earlier assumptions about readiness for certain things in life.
Not the way to start your first semester of university. Not the way to deal with a relationship crumbling before your eyes for no apparent reason. Not the way to end the third quarter of your first "step" of adulthood.
In the end, I survived the last leg of eighteen, though I went through many phases of indecision, fear, and excitement to get to where I am now. I can only hope this year will be less demanding of my emotional energies, but I don't really know. In the past two days of being nineteen, I've felt the roller coaster ride still rumbling on in the back of my mind, completely immune to my deep desire for some consistency in my emotional state.
Hence, I'm trying to stay off of Facebook. I have four assignments due before Thanksgiving Break, and that's a lot. The negativity on social networks is overwhelming and the amount of time wasted through such networks is mind-blowing.
So, in order to NOT feel like I am forever alone without a boyfriend (because you guys never know how much you want one until you've almost had one and he's gone, trust me), the world is going to smithereens (because Facebook trending and my dad practically tell me the same thing when I get online-feminists are crazy, more people are dying in mass genocides, and no one knows how to properly spend their invisible money), and that media is the only answer (because DramaFever's page pops up in my feed and tells me that YES, the face of that Korean beauty is the DEFINITE ANSWER to my next homework question! Wait, what?) I am staying off of Facebook.

Enjoy your next birthday, everyone. Don't be like me and get depressed, and then dump all of your problems on the few readers of your blog.
Off to get that Linguistics degree,
-Argentia Krystofel

To Someone I Don't Know Well

Oh, and you've probably got everything
That's what I think as I glance at you again
From the corner of my shy eyes

But it probably doesn't mean anything
Or so I tell myself as I shift my feet again
Try to shut my nervous words away

Somehow in one of your mystical ways
You've made my face flush like a frosty rose
Warming slowly from the inside like this

Even so, it will not matter in just a few days
You can be a pleasant, bright autumn memory
In that way, I set out to preserve your bliss

Reactions are so easily misinterpreted
And every word from your mouth is sweetened with honey
If I could only stand in that moment a bit longer

Thank you, finally the fog has lifted
I can see the sun shining overhead, the day is so beautiful
The blood in my veins feels alive, I am stronger




-Argentia

Time Lapse

Ah, from this side, yes, that angle
Your face looks so good these days
Have you changed something?

Your style is nicer than before
Like you feel relieved about something
Hm, you should've done this earlier

Or are you growing out your hair?
Yes, perhaps that's it, the gentle waves
In that free-flying fashion, so reminiscent

Well, anyways, that's how it is
A biased observer says you must be well
Actually, better than was expected.

-A.K.

힐링 (Healing)

But there is yesterday, when he is far away, and I'm sitting in the warm library listening to Andrea Bocelli, and his sweetness to me is like the sweet lemon green tea I'm drinking. The spring sunlight, reflecting across the walls and all of the books in the room, dances about in a game of hide and seek. A game like the one he plays, coming around sometimes to dance across my heart as if it is the golden title of one of those bound books.
Oh, yes, there is yesterday, when I am bent over my desk in the deepness of the late April night, window cracked slightly. The scent of blooming flowers from the garden below drifts in with the soft breeze; and I imagine this is the kind of softness his cheek must feel like. I have unearthed my art, so long forgotten in the push and pull, drag and drain of this world, and steadily I sketch, cut, paste, color, whilst a beloved indie song whispers in the background. I smile, filling with warmth as the future glimmers in the distance, and I think, for that instant, I connect with him in some way.
Yesterday, yesterday, yesterday, when the muggy May morning dawns gray and bleak like the expression I had when I heard that news. I almost cried, and avoided the thought; a day when the smallest flicker of hope was put out by the pouring rain of "it can't be helped". All of the celebratory congratulations seem quite misplaced when I consider this, his fate. 
Yesterday's noisy night, spent in one place, watching the empty black sky, and listening to his slowing breath and slurring words as he gently dozes off, the early to bed, early to rise type. In a startled moment he murmurs foreign words and I wonder what he has said to my voice awakening him. Drunk on the sadness, frustration, confusion, my lips form words, but I cannot remember all that I said. An impulsive venture, a gamble, filled with the type of honesty that is felt only on the windowsill of the cardiac ward at two in the morning. The kind of heartbeat that races and slows with conviction.

And that was yesterday.

Untitled #8

Synth-filled tracks with their deep, thundering beat
A chilly black night and a frozen heart to re-heat

That familiar smell, those pretty words permeate
Vodka burns, possibilities abound, thoughts deviate

Flat lands, winter weather, the frozen city, plains
The light of dawn, strange words, the cross, new names

Too many politics, oh, the rap music, and the swears
But we question: does it all matter when someone cares?

Nights of summer, I returned to them in memory
And to this day, I only see you, there with me

Through all of the gray smoke, your gray shirt
Oh, if our eyes meet, would you pick me first? 

Mixed music every night to help me sleep
Sometimes I'd smile, sometimes I'd weep

Act, sing, laugh, dream, do it all while you still can
In the time warp I warn you, oh, ghost of this man

You're twenty-four years old and you live in paradise
And one day, you'll lose it all when you roll the future's dice.

-Argentia