Reflective Writing and Poetic Musing by Condemiang + Stories About the World

1. Prices keep rising one after another, layoff news continues to spread—and with the bitter cold returning, a chill wind blows through people’s hearts. 2. May this be a year of understanding, embracing, covering faults, forgiving, and loving without end. 3. There is a price to pay for maturity. We only hope the time it takes is short. How long we have endured,  holding our longings close to our chest. The feeling of sinking deep into the abyss. The first path is always unfamiliar,  and feels endlessly long.  But still, music stays right where it is,  watching over me, comforting me. 4. Under a shaded wall,  a young boy sits.  He quietly gathers the sound  of piano drifting over the wall from the neighbor’s house.  “The Maiden’s Prayer.”  Forgetting even his hunger,  he lets the sounds  gently pile up in the glass jar of his clear soul.  After some time,  he slowly turns back to...

  I told my two friends to meet me at Exit 3 of Hongdae Station—without even knowing where that exit led. I hadn’t decided on a place, and the only number that floated into my mind was 3. Rushing out of the exit, I was greeted by an unwelcome rain—an early evening drizzle on a late summer Saturday—that began to torment my glasses. And when my glasses suffer, so do I. Wandering aimlessly in search of a place to settle, I finally found it: a small craft beer bar with a terrace, where travelers sat watching the world go by. Beside their chairs were backpacks, resting for a while—each one heavy with the burdens of life. Like them, I too took a seat in one corner of the second-floor terrace. There I watched the pink sky—so much like my own heart—above a row of quietly glowing storefronts, trees that stood tall without stealing the spotlight, golden lights scattered like brushstrokes, and cars and people weaving through it all. A street scene, just right in every way—just red enough, jus...

A resting place where my soul may sit or lie Where a gentle shadow lays its steady trace Day or night A story I can lean on and listen always One who holds within Like brushing leaves from a bench Even if it be but the lightest burden of passing time I long to run to you to lift it away O Thee

Love of my life, I'm here, just a little distance from you. I can smell your breath, and I can hear your smile. Look at me—just for a moment— before you burn out. You, the endless whisper of my life. We cross the one-third line, from time to time. I rushed out to see the sunset—pure gold after the pouring rain. And to see your face. And to breathe you in.

The day after the loud, crashing rain poured down, under the scorching blaze of the sun that replaced the rain, the sky was so clear and beautiful, as if mocking the world. After finishing work, I rushed out of the office and struggled to get to the Han River as quickly as possible, but the heavy streets of Seoul, crowded with people and vehicles packed in like crates, did not allow freedom of movement. Inside the car, I was in anguish, watching with a heavy heart as the golden sunset wilted away. I like the center. Not leaning to either side—and sometimes, only once in a while, leaning slightly this way or that—that kind of taste. But now, the bridge that would hold such balance must be too dangerous, right? Sweating profusely, I hurried along to Banpo Bridge. The beautiful sunset had already passed… And yet— The traces of the sunset mixed with the clouds and the sky, and the clumsy decorations...

When the ups and downs of life cast shadows upon our souls, and even countless joys flicker like city lights in the distance, too far to touch— O you, with just the sight of your back turned, no, with only your shadow, I can dispel the gloom. For your trace, nobler than rest, remains.

Where have all the trains gone? Those massive bodies that once thundered down the rails— their roaring presence is nowhere to be seen. — A car's thought — Where have all the cars gone? Those swarms that once flooded the roads day and night— their restless wheels are nowhere to be found. — A train's thought —

O you! My distant, far-off name— Only now do I wish to part from you. It is not I who leaves beyond this window blurred with tears, but you who lets me go. With no one to send, no one to leave, suddenly it departs— and vanishes without a trace. In this formless space where we have no true being, we are dreaming of an emergency escape. O you! My long-held name—

The spire towering above, and the cross— they no longer meet the eye with ease. Soaked in the shame of sins past, present, and countless still to come, committed in the name of "Holiness," O crimson cross, you dare not show your face while the sun still shines. Not with Your blood, but with the blood and tears of those You longed to save— those frail ones to whom You gave vision and mercy— you are stained, O cross. The days when the first place of life was truth—are gone. Gone are the dreams, the philosophy, the fervor. What remains is a hollow shell, lodged within the fourth, the fifth place of life— fitted to myths long drawn, and crude prophecies patched together. Will He come when even the final sliver of truth can no longer lift its head? The spire towering above, and the cross— even scouring the sky, they cannot be found. And in the nakedness left behind by all that has been stripped in the name of “Reason,” O white cross, you do not return—even af...

The flags of all nations, tucked away in the distant folds of my memory, waited—weary in the shadow of a corner. They once stirred the air with excitement, drawing children—ever thirsty for new delights—into the rapture of a day called Sports Festival. The sky, the flags, and the cradle of students still too unripe—they all hold the setting sun within them, divided by a single invisible border. Slightly less than a third—and yet, because of that, perhaps the sky I sought to paint came to occupy a space larger than I ever imagined. Only now, at last, can even my meager care brush past those hands that once strove to make those flags flutter. The setting sun, at times, reminds us of the border between today and tomorrow.