Poetic Prose - Blog Posts
"We cannot read the darkness. We cannot read it. It is a form of madness, albeit a common one, that we try." - Maggie Nelson, Bluets
why won't you text me back? christ, tell me, is it really that hard? it won't take long, i promise. just one short text. that'll do. i'll be fine. just "one sec", just "wait a bit", just "hang on", just "text you soon", anything, anything at all. i'll take anything. i'm used to it. it's you, after all. i'll do anything for you. i'll forgive each and every one of your sins. the last text you sent me was thirty eight minutes past midnight. it is now ten minutes to one. where are you? where did you go? are you asleep already? you would tell me if you had gone to sleep, right? you always do. every night i get a text from you saying "go to sleep, goodnight, till tomorrow". nine minutes until one. i'm starting to become paranoid. why did you leave me like this? i need you like oxygen. it's getting hard to breathe. you still haven't texted me back.
~A Hollow God and His Quiet Devotion~
Human mind is the scariest thing of all.
He’s known this for a while.
There’s something about the way a person can laugh while breaking, smile while suffering, pretend while decaying. It’s horrifying, really. The mind’s ability to rationalize its own undoing. To keep existing even when everything inside it is burning down.
Gojo Satoru is no exception
He is the strongest. The untouchable. A divine existence trapped in human skin. A god, they say, though he would laugh at the irony of that title. Because what kind of god is constantly running from his own mind?
He wears a mask, not a literal one—though the blindfold, the sunglasses, the casual grins serve their purpose—but a mask made of distraction. A personality so large it drowns out anything real. Gojo is insufferable, overwhelming, a force of nature that never stops moving because if he does, he might have to listen to himself.
And yet, here, now—alone, in the quiet of his apartment, with you—he is something else entirely
Not a god. Not a teacher. Not a man with the weight of the world on his back.
Just Satoru
-----
The first time you noticed the difference, you almost didn't believe it.
Gojo is affectionate in a way that makes people uncomfortable. He leans too close, speaks too loudly, touches too freely. His love is an inconvenience, a joke, a spectacle.
But in private, it's different.
He doesn’t tell you he loves you. He doesn’t have to
You see it in the way he waits for you to enter a room before he does—an instinctual need to ensure your safety before his own. The way he lets his head drop against your shoulder like he’s finally found something solid enough to rest on. The way his fingers hesitate at your wrist before sliding down to lace between yours, like he still can’t believe he’s allowed this
Gojo Satoru, the strongest man alive, loves you in secret.
Not because he’s ashamed. Not because he doesn’t want the world to know.
But because love—true, real, terrifying love—is something he doesn’t know how to perform.
-----
"You’re quiet today," you say, lying beside him.
The lights are dim, the city hum outside muted by distance. His apartment is too big for one person, but not quite big enough to contain everything he refuses to say.
"Mm," he hums in response, gaze fixed on the ceiling.
"You’re never quiet."
A beat.
Then, a breath of a laugh. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
"It’s not bad," you say, shifting closer, feeling the warmth of his body through the thin fabric of his shirt. "Just… different."
He doesn’t answer right away. His fingers play with the hem of your sleeve, like a nervous habit, like he needs something to anchor him.
"Satoru," you press, softer this time.
He finally looks at you. No blindfold, no glasses. Just bare, unguarded eyes—the kind of blue that makes the ocean look dull in comparison.
"I don’t have to be loud with you," he says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.
And you understand.
Gojo Satoru exists too loudly, too overwhelmingly, because that’s what the world expects from him. But with you, he doesn’t have to be anything. He can just exist.
No expectations. No performances.
Just silence, and the steady rhythm of your breathing beside him.
-----
Gojo does not know how to need people.
He has spent years pretending otherwise—being the center of attention, the life of the party, the one everyone looks at but no one truly sees.
And yet, in the moments that matter, he is always alone.
He was alone when Geto left.
Alone when he cradled Yuuji’s lifeless body.
Alone when he stood at the top of the world and realized there was no one there with him.
So when he lets himself rest against you, when he presses his forehead to your shoulder and lets out a sigh so deep it shakes something inside of him—he isn’t sure what he’s doing.
Is this what it means to trust someone? To be seen?
He thinks it might be.
And that scares him more than anything else. Because if he lets himself have this—have you—what happens when he loses it?
What happens when he loves you so much it becomes a weakness?
What happens when the world, cruel as it is, takes you away
(He doesn’t know. And he doesn’t want to know.)
So instead, he holds you a little tighter.
As if, for once, he can keep something.
As if, for once, he won’t be left behind.
-----
"You’re thinking too hard," you murmur, running your fingers through his hair.
He huffs, burying his face against your neck. "Maybe I just like your neck."
"Sure, Satoru."
A beat.
A laugh. And then, quieter—"You’re not going anywhere, right?"
The question catches you off guard.
You pull back slightly, just enough to see his face. There’s a lazy smirk there, but his eyes—God, his eyes—betray him.
"I’m not going anywhere," you say, with the kind of certainty he has never allowed himself to believe in.
He watches you for a moment longer, like he’s memorizing your face, like he’s searching for something—some proof that you’re real, that you mean it.
Then, with a sigh that sounds almost like relief, he lets his weight press fully against you.
Gojo Satoru does not pray.
But in that moment, he closes his eyes, exhales, and hopes—hopes that, just this once, the world will be kind.
That, just this once, he won’t have to be strong.
That, just this once, he won’t have to be alone.
And with your heartbeat steady beneath his palm, he almost believes it.
Almost.
-----
Human mind is the scariest thing of all.
Because it can trick you into thinking you’re untouchable.
Because it can make you believe that love is a weakness.
Because it can convince you that no matter how tightly you hold on, you will always end up alone.
But as Gojo Satoru drifts to sleep, his hand tangled with yours, he wonders—just for a moment—if, maybe, he was wrong.
I'm already hating all that is around me without knowing what I'm exchanging the love for.
Recently, ambition has been blurring my lens. I'm constantly looking forward to what I'm potentially building and neglecting the treasures of my present. How easy it is for us people, to weigh the flawed but existent present against the ideal but imaginary future and deem the former unworthy of appreciation.
Exchange of Smiles. (:-
Recently I met a friend of mine. The kind of friend you just share a long, good conversation with. I expressed my disdain for how little I smile at strangers now. She shared with me that, her smile is her biggest asset at her workplace. And I vowed that despite the creeps I may sometimes encounter, I will try my best to smile. At everyone and everything. The smile that just says ''I'm glad this moment is happening''. Today as I sat down in the park to make a brief note about my calming morning in my journal, I heard the sound of rushed anklets. A little girl, as little as four years old, walked amidst both her grandparents. She held hands with her grandparents as she walked. But her hands were too short and legs too tiny. The jingle of her anklets on her tiny feet trying to catch-up was such a sight, alongside their calm and synchronized pace. This was a moment that was important for me to remember. The pure simplicity with which it gave me an odd yet comforting joy. And that's when I caught the grandmother's eye and gave her the brightest smile. As though to thank for the moment she co-created. And she smiled back at me. This exchange of smiles for me was a way to convey my gratitude someway, somehow- as she generously let me make this new space in my conscience to hold this moment- of which she is the owner- oh so dearly...
`` War. . . ``
We talk about war a lot.
We talk about war, racism, poverty. We talk about death and every negative thing about history. And that's important. If we didn't remember it, we would be doomed to repeat it, wouldn't we?
But it seems we never talk about the peace.
We don't talk about times of peace, of comfort. The soft moments. The other half of what makes us human. We don't talk enough about art, about life. What was an average person's life like back then? They had families and favorite colors. They were just like us. Human.
Yet all we talk about is war.
`` Everything . . . ``
I want to learn everything.
I want to learn the secrets of the galaxy and the mysteries of the ocean. I want to know all the ideas that could become the technology of tomorrow and all the thoughts that shaped our past. I want to learn every language, both alive and dead. I want to play every instrument, I want to read every book, I want to listen to every song. I want to learn every intricate equation of math and every technique of physical art. I want to write and draw and sculpt and dance and sing. I want to talk to people from all around the world, learn of their cultures and their lives. I want to go to medical school, law school, culinary school, and trade school. I want to work small jobs and large jobs. I want to save lives and preserve them.
I wish I could do everything. . .
`` Can't I Have Both? ``
I want a big life.
I want to be a doctor, and I want to save lives. I want to laugh loudly with my friends and take up space and explore and run. I want to be a bit too ambitious and I want to be productive. I want to live big and loud and happy.
But I also want a small life.
I want to wake up early and drink tea. I want to sit by a window where I can look out over the forest as I read cozy mystery books. I want to bake my own bread and make flower crowns. I want to live small and soft and happy.
Can I have both?
`` Curiosity. . .``
Curiosity, really, is so human, so engraved into our brains that it's hard to escape yet somehow we lose it so young. What happened, what changed that we no longer feel the yearning, the need to know, the need to answer all these questions we ask ourselves. What happened that we no longer ask these questions?
. . . What happened?
`` Existence, Really. . ``
Existence really is wonderful.
We exist on this planet and we can think and sing and laugh and create. We can learn and explore and dream. We can *live* and that's a concept that is kind of hard to grasp, really. But maybe that's the point, maybe human existence is so complex and emotional and simply amazing that is is beyond words, beyond comprehension, even
And it really is wonderful, isn't it?