What is it you would like to say?
 Say it, for this is the world’s end.

A poem about death shortly after the anniversary of losing my wife's closest friend.

How could I worry about me?

I am now struck— Struck by how much I loved her, And how through all the years, I never once said, I love you.

I laughed with her. Supped with her. Took her cookies. Listened to her. Suffered next to her. Dreamed of her.

But—like my flesh and blood, I took her for granted— This woman who gathered me in, Through three decades and five, Sometimes as son, Sometimes as brother, Sometimes as a wise one.

—

Now, it's 3:30 a.m., Adrift in the emptiness of a parking lot 
I hear the distant whistle Of a night train crying Through the wind.


The clack-clack-clack Rolling in the dark Carries me back Where these sounds once Wove themselves into her walls.

Vibrations signaling I was trapped— Not in fear, But in refuge Walled from a worried world For just a few minutes more.

How I wish now— I wish I could be trapped one more time, Just for those moments. Not long— Just long enough to say:

Thank you.

I love you.

#poetry #death #confession #storytelling #write #100daystooffload

2025-04-26 09:39:17

“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”
 — Thomas Campbell

You may recall my forlorn farewell to an old friend from a few days ago. DE lived in Dust Meridian for nearly 20 years. Before that, it was two decades in the South Pacific and another ten in Southern California. He’s a mature man in his mid-sixties, so it came as a surprise when he pulled up stakes, sold both of his homes, and headed to the other side of the country.

He says it’s for his wife’s health. The allergies here in Dust are brutal for many. On top of that, years ago, she suffered a stroke that left her speaking with what sounds like an Icelandic accent. Her heritage and native tongue are Peruvian. She went from sounding like a southern girl to something ethereal and ancient—almost elvish. Like someone installed an Old Norse filter on her voice.

I thought she was faking it at first, but it’s a real thing. Foreign Accent Syndrome. Rare, but real. The result of a traumatic brain injury that causes someone to suddenly start speaking with an accent from a region they’ve never even visited.

In her case, it even shows up in her writing. She spells things phonetically now, based on how she hears herself speak. It’s charming, honestly. But also a constant reminder of how fragile the brain is. That same stroke could’ve left her unable to communicate at all. That would’ve been a terror.

My own sister suffered a hypoxic brain injury—lost her short-term memory, and now struggles even with simple tasks. She’s aware of her limitations, which might be the cruelest part. It occasionally lends itself to moments of levity, but mostly, it’s just tragic.

As for DE, I don’t doubt his reasons—physical or mental. His wife or his own. From experience, I believe the lifestyle and mentality here in Dust Meridian takes a tole on anyone with sufficiently curious or robust intellect.

That sounds harsh. Like dummies thrive here. Apologies—I calls ’em like I sees ’em. There are many fine minds here, many dear souls. But there are also plenty of fantastically difficult situations. My own family not excluded.

So no, I don’t blame DE for the move. It’s exciting. I’m a little jealous, if I’m honest. Not that I’d pack up three trucks and drive 1,500 miles to West Potato—but the idea of a fresh start, a new landscape, is tempting. Then again, he’s lived in three other vastly different places. Why not make it four? He’s tapped all four compass points while he still can.

My brother-in-law, RLW, volunteered to be part of the cross-country convoy, hauling DE’s belongings to his new home. That’s significant because RLW is the same man who buried his wife—my wife’s sister—just sixty-nine days ago. A partner of 45 years, gone in an instant. Snuffed out like a candle in the rain.

When talk of the trip started, RLW had big plans. He’d trailer his motorcycle behind one of DE’s work trucks, help with the move, then spend a few days exploring West Potato. From there, he’d kit out the bike and ride west—through the Northwest, down to the Pacific. He talked of revisiting places he and his wife had seen, and discovering new ones. He didn’t say it aloud, but I suspect he meant to scatter some ashes along the way.

But as time wore on, the plans shrank. Late spring snow made the northern routes dicey. Then he nixed the coast. West Potato lies just beyond the Continental Divide, and soon enough, he cut out any idea of leaving the mountains at all. By the time he left two days ago, the month-long journey had been trimmed to a week.

A few hours ago, he texted that he’ll be back in Dust Meridian tomorrow night. Yep. Thirty days of freedom and healing, whittled down to just four.

There and back. Turn and burn.

His son, SLBY—the boy (a man in his thirties, forgive an aging Wolf)—tells me he thinks his dad just misses home. The quiet of the road was heavier than expected. That makes sense. My nephew wants his dad to get out and see new places, to build memories without her. A critical step in healing.

When I speak to RLW, he says it’s his son and grandson who are nudging him to come back. He can 'hear it in his voice' that if he was back, they would all be happier. Home is big and lonely and his son misses his family. Doesn't like being without his core. His people. His comfort zone.

Essentially, they are both arguing the other wants to be together again. They tell me what the other wants. But really, they're telling me what they themselves long for.

SLBY the boy has told me more than once this last few weeks that he can’t stand being alone. He’d grown used to the bustle—his wife, his son, his parents, all under one roof. They live in a mobile home, so sharing space really means sharing.

Constantly.

With his mom gone, dad out of town, wife at the chiropractor, and the boy at school, SLBY finds himself alone on a rock hurtling through space at sixty-seven thousand miles per hour. Working from home means his only company is the blinking cursor on a plastic display.

He’s admitted, with surprising emotional honesty, that he cries often. This from a man who, just a few years ago, was all whiskey, beer, and bravado. Guns and guts. Today, the bottles are dusty and the guns live in a safe—a large one, granted—but they’re just objects now.

SLBY has become the kind of man who can acknowledge his pain and grow through it. A shock, honestly. But a welcome one.

His father, RLW, has also cracked open in ways I didn’t expect. Always the quiet, stoic one—he now speaks freely about how much his wife meant to him. That she was his light. His purpose.

And being retired is salt on the wound. 10 years ago, he would at least have a job he had to contend with, coworkers and daily business to get back to. But now? His only obligations are those which he chooses. A full plate with his spiritual family, but that can be shelved much longer than it should be. Leaving him in self-inflicted isolation.

Since her passing, he sleeps maybe four hours a night. He cries often. I imagine these moments are private—the kind where your ears roar, your eyes burn, and you fight to contain the flood so others don’t have to feel it too.

Every time we’ve spoken since he hit the road, he’s mentioned that he can’t stop crying. Triggers are everywhere. A song. A vista in silence where she would have commented or asked to pull off and take a picture. The absence of agitation at his driving (the way he jerks the wheel in little increments). No one stuffing the door panel with trash.

But mostly—silence.

An imagination haunted by 16,425 sunrises and sunsets together... and all that is in between—the subtle golden rhythms of a life shared. Every small moment now echoing in absence.

My God, how do you move on from that?

Patience.

Patience and tears. And prayer that God will intervene and part that ocean like he did for Moses.

I told him as much. “It’s good you’re blind with tears. You probably need to really cut loose—and that’s hard to do with a seven-year-old always around, or your son who’s dealing with his own grief. I hope this trip gives you some catharsis. That it helps you begin to heal in earnest.”

Grief is the price we pay for love. The greater the love, the higher the cost.

Three thousand miles in four days. And tears, door to door.

Luke 22:1-6 Now the Festival of the Unleavened Bread, which is called Passover, was getting near. And the chief priests and the scribes were looking for an effective way to get rid of him, because they were afraid of the people. Then Satan entered into Judas, the one called Is·carʹi·ot, who was numbered among the Twelve, and he went off and talked with the chief priests and temple captains about how to betray him to them. They were delighted at this and agreed to give him silver money. So he consented and began looking for a good opportunity to betray him to them without a crowd around.

Mark 14:1,2 Now the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread was two days later. And the chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to seize him by cunning and kill him; for they were saying: “Not at the festival; perhaps there might be an uproar of the people.”

Mark 14:10,11 And Judas Is·carʹi·ot, one of the Twelve, went off to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. When they heard it, they were delighted and promised to give him silver money. So he began seeking an opportunity to betray him.

#essay #travel #memoir #loss #death #biblereading #100DaysToOffload #Writing

2025-04-11 09:35:00

Long poems are easy to write, hard to read.

Short poems are easy to read, hard to write.

Which is better Depends on which you are.

Writer, or Reader.

Lover, or Loved.

#poetry #storytelling #write #100daystooffload

Orig Pub: 2025-04-27 12:26:52

https://hypocritepoet.ghost.io/writers-paradox/

From a strange dream that didn't make any sense

I stopped one afternoon at the edge of an industrial district, where the wind carried the scent of scorched foam and saltwater. A foam manufacturing plant rose like a blank fortress, its walls echoing with pneumatic sighs. Inside, I met a man who shaped the bases of jet skis — sleek hulls resting in a cradle of styrofoam and memory.

He wore a sleeveless leather apron and eyes full of rusted patience. I asked him what he did, and without a word, he showed me — pressing molds, trimming edges, balancing hydrodynamics with the touch of a sculptor.

Then, as if this were part of some ancient rite, he handed me a lump of metal and said: “Make a spoon.”

I must’ve looked confused.

“From Roman-era black brass,” he clarified, his voice like the scrape of steel on stone. “Then take it to be forged.”

I set to work. But my hands were not ready. The brass resisted me, slipping through my fingers like forgotten knowledge. I shaped it poorly. Bent it wrong. When the kiln cracked and smoke rose, I panicked.

I ran.

Down a long and dusty road — it might’ve been 287, though roads in dreams have no mile markers — until the air shifted and I found myself again at the factory gates. I returned in shame, clutching the deformed relic of my failure.

He took it from me, studied it.

And then… he nodded.

“It is a good manufactory,” he said. “And this is approved.”

I didn’t understand the test, or why it mattered, but I left feeling as though I had been initiated into something older than jet skis and molten brass. Something etched into the very act of making.

#writing #dream #100daystoOffload #journal

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

We’re in the long, strange chapter of recovery after an illness. My wife—my fair maiden—is better, but she’s not well. Emotionally, spiritually, we’re both limping. Her recovery has been strange. I think it’s the depression.

Last night was a bad night.

Dark moods confuse everything: Am I feeling bad because my body is fighting a virus, or because my brain chemistry is distorted?

With her, it’s always difficult. A friend once described her personality as mercurial. That’s an accurate assessment. When she got sick, it leveled her out. She felt bad, yes—but there was a consistency to her thinking and behavior that was almost comforting. You knew where you stood.

Now, in recovery, I’m back to guessing. What will give comfort? What will support? I don’t like the phrase walking on eggshells to describe her—but I haven’t found a better way to express this moment-to-moment calibration of what works and what doesn’t.

Late in the afternoon, I notice her crying. A friend has texted: “I love you. What can I do?”—and she finds it touching. The tearful reaction is new. She isn’t emotional this way. She only cries under tremendous stress. A really bad fight might do it. Otherwise, never.

But this is the kind of crying that comes from deep depression—the kind that arrives unbidden. The kind you can’t just deep-breathe your way through. You have to let it happen.

I offer some words of consolation. A little back rub. I’m camped at the wall of her anxiety, shouting up what few things I think might help her feel loved.

A little while later, I suggest we go to the café bookstore for a change of scenery. We’ve been tossing around ideas for a children’s coloring book about ducks in space. I suggest we go sit in the space, chat, and draw. She agrees.

On the way, she floats the idea of the park instead.

It’s 94º.

I balk—but I acquiesce. Because what else do you do when someone you love asks for comfort, even if it’s wrapped in confusion?

It’s aggravating—no explanation, just a venue change. Resistance to what we agreed. But I know she’s feeling unstable. So maybe this is what she needs. I don’t think so—but I’m only trusted when she agrees with my decisions.

“No, no, no... we can go to the bookstore,” she says, when she can tell it makes me unhappy. But after all these years, I know what that means. If I don’t make a left and find that little lake by the museum, I’ll hear about it later.

And as it turns out, I’ll hear about it later regardless.

The park is too hot. She’s mad because the van AC is disabled after I left the lights and fans running for a week. I counter: had I known we were going to the park in ninety-degree weather, I would’ve charged it. She rebuts: if I had told her more clearly the AC was off, she’d have worn shorts. Counter-counter: had I known she wanted the park, I’d have suggested we charge the battery and/or she wear shorts.

The sparring of warring partners. Like a reluctant dance of swordplay. I don’t love confrontation, but I seem incapable of avoiding it.

It’s not a fun time.

This goes on for hours, as conflict does. Not a big fight. Just a slow, frustrating simmer. I probably make it worse by finally realizing this is neither a problem I can solve nor a fight I can win, so I switch on Yes, dear.

Yes, dear is a subroutine that runs on my processor. It just lays down and lets it all happen.

Eventually—around ten—we get down to the core of it.

We tell each other: 'I don’t feel loved'.

Funny, those kinds of admissions. We’re both surprised to hear it.

I’m shocked, honestly. I’ve been bending over backwards for months—trying to be who she needs. Failing, of course. Wrestling my own demons, yes. But trying. Hard.

For her part, she knows communication is a weakness, but doesn't understand how important commendation, acknowledgement, support, and trust are to me. Words of affirmation. I need a cheerleader.

It morphs into conversation about others—how people around us have mostly moved on from our grief, how little support we’ve received, how often we feel outside the circle. The system. The circus. Whatever you want to call the club of friends we used to trust.

Not all of them, to be fair. We have a few who are truly invested. But most stay at arm’s length. It’s frustrating. Especially when you know how many sacrifices we’ve made. How much of our life we’ve put on hold for others.

This isn’t just a passing cloud. It’s a realization.

We’re living in the dark.

And then, it gets worse.

She tells me that during a visit earlier in the day, her mother and sister—rather than offer any comfort—chided her for the house not being cleaner. (That’s on me, I’ve been on clutter control since she got sick—laundry, dishes, floors, everything.) Then her mother, rather than offering compassion, comments on my wife’s dark circles and implies that maybe I’m abusing her.

Because she looks tired. From being deathly ill.

And that—that—is why my wife was crying. Why she was erratic. Why she seemed “crazy.”

It carried me back to a day in early February when two 'friends' came under the pretense of offering support for the funeral we'd had 5 days earlier but instead pursued an inquiry about acts in my past. Grilling my grieving wife about how she felt about it. What she knew. Explaining what I was supposed to be.

We had asked for surgeons, what we got was two monkeys with sticks. And today, we thought two allies were warming our couches, but it was really two pin-less grenades.

And now I’m livid.

Now I want to punch someone. To lash out. To abuse and break and rage. All of that violence that I shroud in love and kindness and the message of God's word that I think is chemically diluted with holy spirit is suddenly collating into that hideous creature that claws it's way out of my psyche at the worst moments.

But the one place you can never insert yourself is between your wife and her family. I don't know if this is true for all cultures... but it certainly is with her people.

It shouldn’t be that way. We are one flesh. But I think only death will sever this unholy connection.

My wife admits: after the deaths of her father and sister, “the best part of my family is gone.”

The relationship is so toxic that her sister berated her, insisting she show kindness to the woman who was given our seats at the funeral in February. A lifelong family associate. A textbook narcissist. The same woman who was repeatedly unfaithful to one of my closest friends, her former husband. Forgiven at least six times. Since then, more of the same.

Her business. We don’t want to live her life. But we don’t have to accept her manipulation and belittling either.

And yet—for some reason—my wife is being told we have to.

W t F

I’d be fine with just being angry. But this emotional burden keeps putting me in the crosshairs with my best friend.

And I don’t know what to do.

To be a better man. A better husband. A better friend.

Endure. That’s what.

Sometimes people just feel like destroying something beautiful.

And I think we are beautiful.

In spite of her failings. In spite of mine.

People love us. The better the people, the more they love us.

I can’t think of a clearer indicator of doing something right than that.

But maybe I’m wrong.

I’ve been learning about my pathological need for approval.

How it’s tied to a lack of affection and love as a child. So maybe I just see the love of others as evidence that I am worth loving.

Which makes it worse when I don’t get it. When I’m not celebrated. When we’re not accepted. It weaves itself into everything I say and do.

It’s like others define me.

Including—and especially—my wife.

This is a hard road.

I knew that losing her sister would change her. That losing her father—the one man she trusted—would destabilize her.

But knowing something will happen isn’t the same as knowing how it will manifest. The ways it changes.

So all I can do is endure. To 'mule'.

Support her. Shout up from the wall those things you say to someone in pain.

Because I love her. And I hope I can help.

But it’s a heavy load to bear.

Last night was a bad night.

But I’m determined to make tomorrow a better day.

Update

And it is a better day. I struck out early without my partner and lacking a appropriate sidekick, I forwent my daily walk in the ministry for the mundanity of vehicle maintenance.

Her midday arousal did come with some negative energy, but a fine lunch and a visit to the art supply store seems to have restored vitality and sanity. Maybe she just needed some retail therapy?

She did comment that this is the first day in nearly three weeks that she is feeling near normal again.

And her and mom kissed and made up. Good for her. I won't hold my breath for the apology.

I leave you not in sorrow, but in solemn hope.

WIWL

Dangerous thought, this.

#essay #memoir #journal #100DaysToOffload #writing #depression

an instant expanded to pleroma

I am getting fuel.

A train horn blares across the street. A fighter jet screams overhead. The traffic from the interstate roars.

It is the choir of industry.

The concrete at this pump is blackened, pocked with baseball-sized voids. A fire in the recent past. I look up and see flashes of a rusted corrugated roof through the gaps between the train cars. Beyond the fuel pump a bright white metal building has been half stripped to its bones by a windstorm some years ago.

The tapestry of labor.

As fuel starts to pump, the pungency of gasoline washes away the acrid smell of burn that clings to the ground and pillars. This dominates my senses until a cloud of odor from a passing cattle hauler wafts over me, flooding away the petroleum haze.

The incense of toil.

I get chills at how familiar it all is. How this particular combination is a blueprint of the place I am from.

It is equally inspiring and debilitating. To know profoundly this combination of things unlocks something in me. To acknowledge it isn’t daffodils and saffron, violins and laughter on the breeze.

All of the sights, sounds and smells appeal to me in a sad way. A boy born by a distorted world.

Of this cacophony of experience, it is the odor of cattle that gives comfort. Perhaps that is its organic source. The one thing closest to what life was supposed to be.

Only in less distilled portions.

I used to hate the smell of cattle trucks. Now, it reminds me of Home. Reminds me of the country. It represents a time of life that was simpler, if not easier. When happiness was easier to find. Or at least Hope was.

It was a time of life when there was the illusion of more potential. More to look forward too. I feel like I’ve reached a place where there is only one hope left.

And I can’t get there except through patience. I can’t force it, I just have to wait.

Older hopes felt like places I could go, people I could see, things I could do—or learn to. But those have all either been done, they are gone, or they are just beyond my grasp.

It feels like now in life that nothing will bring satisfaction. There is no escaping who I have become. My perceived momentum. All I can do is tolerate.

I miss the smell more when i’m someplace busy, like the city and I pass a truck.

A lot of people think it’s gross. It probably is. All that cow poop and dander.

I don’t know—it takes me someplace. A place that doesn’t exist anymore.

And probably never did.

But I wish I could go there anyway.

#childhood #essay #memoir #journal #100DaysToOffload #writing

Discuss...

Little memories eddy in the endless flow of the river of time.

Tales from the Big Blue House

I have a fuzzy memory of my first tricycle. It’s the only memory I have of it, but it comes back every time I see a red tricycle on screen. We watched Captain Ron yesterday and I was transported back fifty years as Martin Short absentmindedly moves a tricycle out of his driveway and into his neighbors yard.

A Radio Flyer Red tricycle. It probably looked like yours—red with white pinstriping, a white seat, and red-and-white tassels fluttering from the handgrips. A gift from my parents, assembled over the course of a few hours by my dad.

In the memory, I’m standing beside our big blue stucco house in the driveway at noon on a spring day. I'm 2 years old. My mother and father proudly encourage me to try the new toy. I excitedly try to pedal but struggle with how much effort it takes. I get my first lesson in physics and the power of leverage.

Likely, had we lived on a typical suburban street, the tricycle would have worked wonderfully on the paved driveway and wide, empty concrete roads. But we lived in an industrial part of town with a dirt road and a gravel driveway. Little-boy me is relegated to pedaling across the lawn or along the dirt road.

It works well enough on the large porch we have, but I grow tired of small circles quickly. I was the kind of child who would wander off into the surrounding streets as soon as I was ambulatory.

There are a few stories of strangers discovering me loose in the wild and figuring out where I lived based solely on how little human settlement there was in the area. The most famous of those stories is the man who returned me after seeing me sweeping the median on the state highway about four blocks from home wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.

Perhaps I have the soul of a gypsy—or a hippie, ditching my clothes was another of my early habits.

But having wheels, I had nowhere to roam.

Not to be deterred, I quickly figured out that the step between the rear wheels was there so you could simply stand behind the three-wheeler and push— not unlike how scooters work. It went from tame to exciting. Especially if I could con my little sisters into sitting on the seat while I pushed them.

Skinned knees and elbows were a given, along with the occasional embedded pebble—and most definitely grass stains.

It was my first wheeled conveyance. White spokes and a chrome fender on the front wheel.


I don’t think I’ve ever owned anything quite as sweet.

Its fate, like that of all children's toys, was to eventually be forgotten. It likely went as hand-me-down to my younger sisters who would eventually forget it as well. At some point, it ended up cluttering the yard, the once bright white spokes spotted with rust and the formerly handsome tassels long-since broken and faded.

In time, it was harvested and repurposed as a welder dolly. Arc welders are just metal boxes with a hundred pounds of copper wire wound in them to charge and discharge high voltage to be wielded in the merging of metals. A simple tool, but very difficult to move with ease. My engineer-minded father devised a small cart from the remade tricycle. Its only visible trace of childhood was the pair of rust-tinged white spoked wheels.

The welder was an anniversary gift from my mother. An odd one, but practical. I can recall the red case and Lincoln logo with a large ribbon around it and a big blue bow sitting on the table. In hindsight, I wonder how she managed to hoist that up there.

My father still has that welder, I saw it last week. The wheels have long since gone the way of the rest of the trike, only a memory. Like so much else in life. Things and moments intended not to last—but to build us. Time repurposes us—not discards, but reshapes. We don’t become tools, exactly. We become something finer: expressions of what we’ve weathered. Not playthings turned practical, but potential turned to art, to beauty.

One day, my own son or daughter will have their first tricycle. I hope it carries them not just across lawns and porches—but into a memory they'll return to decades later. One even sweeter than mine.

#childhood #essay #memoir #journal #osxs #100DaysToOffload #writing

Joy Division – 1980

I was first introduced to Joy Division long after they become New Order, but was hooked with the first electric sounds of Regret from New Republic in 1993.

I would only learn later of the DNA Joy Division injected into the new iteration of the band.

After a friend recommend the biopic ‘Control’, the whole tapestry made sense.

Won’t Curtis be surprised to see the legs his music has grown.

Love Will Tear Us Apart

When routine bites hard And ambitions are low And resentment rides high But emotions won't grow And we're changing our ways, taking different roads

Then love, love will tear us apart again Love, love will tear us apart again

Why is the bedroom so cold? You've turned away on your side Is my timing that flawed? Our respect runs so dry Yet there's still this appeal That we've kept through our lives

But love, love will tear us apart again Love, love will tear us apart again

You cry out in your sleep All my failings exposed And there's a taste in my mouth As desperation takes hold Just that something so good just can't function no more

But love, love will tear us apart again Love, love will tear us apart again Love, love will tear us apart again Love, love will tear us apart again

Unentered

He didn’t have a name For the invisible garden That pulsed and pulled And breathed restraint

They orbited like stars with forgotten names Seen through the World’s glassy eye

While storms hummed In their hearts Wondering of it was Dream or if it was real

Fragments of whispered Words and glances held in secret The echo of voices from Rooms never entered

Two worlds collided And long ago answered But invisible voices have Replaced indelible passion

The cruelest hunger Is love denied, passion stayed Living with responsibility And knowing consequence

Loves ending in ruin Though ruined already Long before they met They hoped for radiance anyway

To make the ache holy And a best life better How could this be love If it rents lives asunder

Not from hate But from the weight of guilt In the realization of how Beautiful they were together

When the tearing comes — And ends in silence and closed doors — They knew there was love

In the secret, sacred parts of them And that would have to be enough.

Thank you Ian.

#poetry #music #osxs #confession #essay #memoir #journal #osxs #100DaysToOffload #writing

Discuss...

Ooh, come with me – To the fields

There is a power to sleeping together. Not sex. Just the presence. The comfort of simply being with someone—unguarded, no pretense, no protection. One of the most beautiful things I can imagine is trusting someone enough to sleep beside them. Completely exposed. Entirely safe.

Lately, I’ve been camping on the floor of my studio to give her space to heal. I don’t mind. I can sleep anywhere. I only need a still spot and a quiet mind—then I’m out. But I miss the presence. That simple communion from existing with another.

Today, I’ve reclaimed my ledge. Waking here is delightful.

The void is warm and comforting this morning. White noise hisses gently from the smart speaker. The waning gibbous night-star is nearly gone, and the drawn curtains make the room a perfect inky black.

Fresh sheets—soft, smooth, unsullied by sweat or oil—wrap around me. They’re blue, speckled with little sea creatures. It’s like I’m submerged in a kingdom of kelp and coral.

The jellyfish whispers a joke about an embarrassed whale and the sea’s bottom. An octopus tickles me.

Just inches away, a giant sleeps: soft, rhythmic. Shhhh, shhhh, shhhh. An occasional snore buzzes like a faulty wire.

A far-off train horn drifts down beneath the waves of drowsiness—long bleats, like a giant lost sheep longing for its mechanical mother.

I woke from troubled dreams. I was talking, but no one listened. The louder I spoke, the smaller I became. Like Alice drinking the one drink that makes you small. Finally, the size of an ant, I gave up in exasperation and floated away like a dandelion puff.

Then I was flying like Superman. Lois was with me—listening. The spokes of my flower-body broke away in the wind until I was no longer a person, but a painting on a museum wall where I would listen to people talk about me and how I made them feel but I just hung there and wondered when the patrons would ask me how I felt.

I’ve been stolen, rolled into the shape of a boy, hidden beneath this sheet of fish and seashells.

It’s not so bad, being stolen art. I don’t want the world to see me. I don’t think they’d understand. (“Iris” plays in my head.)

I know they wouldn’t. I’ve opened my soul to the world and been met with curiosity—but never comprehension. Like scientists examining James Cole in 12 Monkeys, intrigued but out of their depth, studying a man unstuck in time.

I’ve been reading about being heard. About how God listens. How He hears us—but we must adjust our expectations. We don’t always get what we want. Not right away.

Which—I get.

We can’t expect everything. Nice vacations. Fancy meals. Big houses. These physical pleasures the world pines for. But what’s harder to accept is the denial of a sound mind. Of warm friends and family.

Jehovah doesn’t test us with evil—He cannot be tempted, nor does He tempt. But He permits challenges. Not maliciously, but because His will must be done in heaven and on earth. Unless we’re involved in that directly, He’s not dispatching angels to wrestle anyone.

But wrestle we do.

With one another. With life. Mostly, with ourselves.

Still, it’s a wonder to do something—anything—just to make Him proud. Like a child showing a mother the worst drawing in the universe.

But her heart swells, not at the quality, but at the offering.

Imagine God’s celestial refrigerator, covered in our fumbling masterpieces.

“One day, you’ll be an auteur, my child,” He says. “Don’t stop. I save everything you’ve ever made for Me. And I love them all.”

He says this to me.

He says it to you.

Moist ache smudges the cotton beneath my cheek. I squeeze my eyes tight; my ears roar with emotion. I breathe in—deep, steady—hold—and out again. Gentle. Controlled. I fold the tremble in my chest like a broken wing, careful not to rouse my bedfellow.

How I miss her. Her warmth and softness. Only inches from me—but a universe separates us in the morning. It always has. But especially this past year the morning chasm stretches us into myth.

I am most alive in the smallest hours here before dawn and into the early day. Her clock is inverted by at least half the day.

After the longing dream, her comfort would be a mercy. Her presence, a balm. But when I reach out she shrinks and evaporates like the morning dew.

It isn’t conscious. Not cruel. Like the mimosa that folds at the slightest vibration, she wakes and retreats. Later, she won’t remember retiring to the couch. Only that she was uncomfortable.

When the world runs too hot, too cold—or too anxious—she seeks change. Precious things are like that. Fragile things.

The callous must fracture, or find their own way to soften.

The distance weighs on me. But there is more to it than just some couple who grew apart. He in pursuit of his hobbies, she invested in feeling whole or distracted.

I have known for decades: my delicate half carries deep traumatic scars and an incomplete set of communication tools.

Her anxiety is not a wall I can scale—only one I can comfort.

Yes, it rends me to live here outside the wall. But are not knights sworn to serve their liege no matter the cost? I am counting on a fairy tale.

One day, the spell will be broken and the city gates thrown wide, welcoming me into the secrets of her heart and giving her the capacity to bear mine.

Firesides are for patient contemplation. So I burn as long as required. Warm against winter, waiting for spring. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the reward.

I am learning to adjust my mindset—to be more in harmony with Jehovah’s. To cultivate humility. A sound mind.

Peter is a good example. You remember when he denied Jesus three times. Jesus told him it would happen, and still, fear drove Peter to do what he swore he wouldn’t.

Had he remembered to pray, perhaps he would have had the strength to do what was right.

It’s an unlevel playing field out here. EVERYTHING is working against us at times. Flipping, everything!! And the only tool we have is our logical mind coupled with a flawed heart.

What do we do if the mind is broken—and the heart, desperate and treacherous?

I know what I want. I know what I should want. Sometimes they align. Sometimes they clash. What I fear most isn’t desire—it’s that my logical mind will start thinking like my heart.

That’s what happened to Peter.

He knew. Jesus told him. But he couldn’t see it. It’s called situational blindness.

If you’ve never done the situational awareness test, try it. It’s a good example of selective attention.

Still, it is possible.

“Then Jesus, knowing all the things that were going to happen to him, stepped forward and said to them: ‘Whom are you looking for?’ They answered him: ‘Jesus the Nazarene.’ He said to them: ‘I am he.’”

Jesus knew what was coming—and still faced it. Fear didn’t drive him. He was pragmatic, calm, courageous.

Is that what we’re afraid of? Losing our lives? Or losing a fuller life?

The starving man hardly knows he is hungry, but upon tasting that first morsel can only ever know hunger.

Be willing to be hungry. Starve, if necessary. Jehovah knows what we lack. What we want. What we long for. And he’s taking note of it—especially if it is something that we are honestly entitled to but denied due to circumstances beyond our control. We can’t help it if we, or those we choose to love, are broken.

We cannot fix them. Or ourselves.

But we can love. We can be patient.

And how can you not love someone who denies themselves for the good of another?

I can think of no act more heroic.

You be my hero, and I’ll be yours.

We could steal time—just for one day.

We can be heroes, forever and ever.

“But the end of all things has drawn close. Therefore, be sound in mind, and be vigilant with a view to prayers.”

The white hiss continues, but the warm void has been chase away. Our moon has set and the daystar taken its place. The glory of the transition is shrouded by a cloak of grey, but i know it’s there even if it’s invisible.

Oh!! The sweet grip of sleep is again pulling at me.

I will see you in my dreams.

#essay #memoir #journal #osxs #100DaysToOffload #writing

Don't give up

I wish they could know how much they are missed. The people who come into our lives and set our minds and hearts on fire. When they leave, the absence isn't just disorienting. It's debilitating.

Especially in the low moments.

But do not give up. The sun will rise tomorrow and the day will smile. They are with you in your heart. What more can you ask?

#confession #memoir #osxs #100DaysToOffload #write

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