Return

To trying to be more open, more thoughtful, and maybe more introspective while avoiding the pitfall of self-aggrandizement. That small step and one giant leap from "I should be better" to just...trying to be better. 

"He prayeth best, who loveth best, all things both great and small" -Coleridge, Sammy T.

I'll tell you what I do love: the bidet I just installed. No more jumping into the shower immediately after every poop. 

I'm just kidding; I don't do that. 

I bet I could install one at work. A bidet, not a shower. Although a shower would be nice. 

Wait wait wait... self-improvement, not home improvement. Except where there's overlap. From what I understand, the self and the home are never really done. 

I should sleep. 

Goodnight!

Dinner is green beans with margarine and garlic salt. 

There isn't a local noodle stand run by an old man who speaks a language I don't understand that I can go to. 

That I'm aware of. 

It's a big world. And I've been... distancing myself from it. 

I'm okay with this. 

better

And I'm running around like I'm the main character. Staying up too late every night. Training and planning and eating right. Duat storms batter the city and every morning I wake to a world coated in a fine orange grit. 

And I try to remember who stole our nights away.

I'm stronger now, and better, arguably, in many ways. It probably won't ever be enough. It's the nature of things. 

I don't want another. 

A cool breeze, a warm shadow, and the memory of you.  

The sky is red, and I'm running around like I'm the main character. 

This story where I lose everything. And I'm okay. Because maybe nothing ever ends. I can keep going. Stubbornness, spite, and genuine curiosity. I am dead set. 

Because you're even better than I remember.

And I've stayed up too late again. 

Fourth of July, 2024

I'm afraid to download Steam again. I have an account, somewhere, from years ago. My memories from that time are a bit hazy. There may have been one specific game I wanted to play when I installed it, but I was soon lost in a sea of sci-fi space shooters and tower defense games. 

I was staying up way too late and devoting all my free time to the games. I loved them. 

But as I struggle with moderation, I had to uninstall it and my life returned to normal. I was blowing up no more space ships, and erecting no more defensive towers. Oh yeah there was this word game my friend made that was really fun; I played the hell out of that. 

I may have to install Steam again. I hear good things about this Stardew Valley game. 

I've still been playing games, just while walking on the treadmill. Come to think of it, I've been walking a whole lot lately. Like three hours a day. 

I have trouble with moderation. 

One day I'm gonna need to walk really far, and I'm gonna be ready. 

Today is the Fourth of July, a holiday I don't really celebrate. I'm not Patriotic; I'm not sure what I am. I was in the Army. I don't care if people don't stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, and I generally don't. I also don't wear any kind of American Flag clothing. Because I don't view the flag as a decoration. I also don't care if people burn the flag. 

Again, I'm not sure what I am. 

The fireworks have mostly subsided. People in the neighborhood began setting them off before the sun went all the way down. Also a lot of us have to work tomorrow, I imagine. When the holiday is on a weekend, those things go off all night. 

I'm gonna go to bed and do what I always do. Put on my sleepy-time headband headphones, put on a classic scary story, and think of you until I fall asleep. 

Goodnight!

the tree

The tree in the backyard

Flourished like death

Blossoms all fallen

Bare branches Reaching upwards 

A reminder that the more beautiful the life

The fewer can have it

integument

"Integument" means my skin

It's hard to imagine a worse-sounding word for what it is 

My outer layers 

Adorned but unarmored 

Mostly soft but rough in parts

Poets yammer on about the feelings deep inside

But what about the middle feelings

Brackish, where rivers meet oceans

And the fish that can live in both

Their integument grew scales 

arid

In the desert, he survived on the dew of her memory 

and crushed dried mesquite seed pods

He knew where she was

To go to her unbidden would be...uncouth 

and he loved her too much to do that

He walked along the ancient crumbling brick canals

His third-favorite sound was clattering masonry

Someday he'd have a yard of 

cobblestone

red brick 

and walls of gabion

un-mortared so the grass could grow through the cracks

If it ever rained again