Voices of the Ribbons©.

PR15M: Serendipity By Ink   Losing somebody close to you is always going to feel like losing a part of you. Losing a twin is like losing half of you. It doesn’t just tear a hole in you, it tears you in half and leaves you broken and incomplete and empty. Losing Ice was like looking in the mirror and seeing only an empty space, and that’s scary shit! The peculiar thing about being twins, however, is that it’s true what they say. There’s an inexplicable connection beyond what science or reason can explain. I think there was some Nazi psycho during the second world war who experimented on twins trying to prove it but I really don’t think it’s as simple as that. It’s not something you can measure or define. It just is . I knew, I always knew, that Ice wasn’t dead. Wherever he was, I was convinced I could feel him, a shadow in the back of my thoughts, a silhouette behind me, waiting for me to find him. On my own, I was powerless. I was six when Ice and our friend Taehyun were take

Why K-pop? By Tai I’ve done my best to address this on so many occasions. Badly, I feel. Truth be known, although K-pop certainly dominates my playlist, I’m not exclusive to K-pop. I have Chinese, Japanese, a smattering of Arabic, and several other languages, some of which I can’t even identify. Admittedly, Korean and Chinese (only because many K-pop artists also sing in Chinese and a lot of C-pop is modeled on the Korean industry) remain my predominant favorites. Why? It really isn’t all that complicated. I don’t like Western music. I don’t like being distracted by the words. I don’t like the themes. I don’t like the culture associated with Western music (perhaps why I don’t favor BTS, even though this apparently makes me an anomaly in the world of K-pop fans) and I don’t like the lyrics. What I love is K-pop. I love the unceasing pursuit of perfection, in performance and execution. I love the vocals, the visuals, the choreography, the sheer artistry. No, I’m not attracted to

PR15M: Whispers of Distorted Truth (Uncredited)   Pulling the door shut behind him with a carefully controlled click, older brother Jianjun paused with the handle in his grasp and released a long, slow breath. “Fuck,” he said. “True,” younger brother Liwei agreed. “What’s it been? A year?” “At least.” Jianjun withdrew his hand from the door and rubbed sweaty palms on his thighs. “What’s with the old man that he can’t get over it already? One of them’s dead, can’t he just accept the other one is, too?” Liwei lifted his chin in silent acknowledgment of the closed door. “You know that’s only half of what this is about. You screwed up and now both of us are on the list. You know as well as I do that succession was never guaranteed, never mind without the old man’s support. And now look at us.” “You’re blaming me?” “You went too far. You should never have targeted those damn boys. You knew how he felt about them.” Jianjun glanced at the door and scowled before rolling h

PR15M: Mirror Image By Ice and Ink Ice Morocco. It had taken me months to get there. Months of challenge and repeated near-disasters and close calls. I had no identification and no money and no experience of living on my own. I lived on my wits and I winged it and, eventually, I entered Morocco after talking my way onto a fishing boat far from where I’d left Master, and Tae, behind. I had no idea where I was going or why. I was simply following what I guess you might call a combination of blind instinct and faith. Morocco. I couldn’t even recall whether Tae and I had ever been there with Master previously, though I had a vague recollection that maybe we had been. I could only pray Master didn’t have anyone there now who might recognize me and therefore I did my best to keep my head down and my profile even lower than I’d already been keeping it. I was little more than a rat on the streets, foraging what I could and doing my best to survive. It was the music that drew me. It w

Myth ``` By Ice (of PR15M)   In the darkness I held onto the light Not knowing what it was Not knowing it was your precious face In the darkness When I thought I was alone Your hand was always there Fading memories Ghosts of my past The scent of you Summer erased by fall   Don’t leave me Don’t let me forget the touch of you Don’t take from me the promise of our love Please, don’t fade into myth, into myth Into the bottomless abyss of forgotten love   In the night I waited for the dawn Hoping once more for you To place your hand in mine   Don’t leave me Don’t let me forget the touch of you Don’t take from me the promise of our love Please, don’t fade into myth, into myth Into the bottomless abyss of forgotten love   In the night Aching in the cold absence of you I was blind to your warmth A frozen flower Aching for a touch of the sun Your love my destination Waking me from the neverending nightmare That was lo

From Darkness By Soldier   Our minds are a maze with no map. We stumble without bearings, compass, or map; in darkness, in the cold, and alone. No guide, no destination, and not a fucking clue. Hopelessness consumes us and it seems easier to crawl under a convenient overhang, curl into the fetal position and quit than to continue to move on and keep fighting. Fighting is exhausting. It takes strength, determination, courage, and purpose. Without purpose, without a destination; what’s the point? We were there. We stood in the center of what appeared nothing but a vast wasteland and wondered Why? Tattered remnants and ghosts of the past clawed at our feet and writhed about our shoulders. The past became the present and we were lost in it. The voices echoed and our own voices were lost in the babble. ‘ I am but an echo in a crowded room ’. It was all that was left. Psychedelic, kaleidoscopic, technicolor nightmares infiltrated sleep. Exhaustion became the key feature of every brea