Tammy's peculiar love for pickles traced back to Grandma, whose own fondness for the tangy treat ensured our fridge was never without a jar.

Every weekend, we'd visit her Grandma's, and she'd play checkers with her. Sometimes, they'd tend to the garden outside. Other times, they would cook and bake together. Then, they snacked on pickles.

Following Grandma's passing, she seemed to eat more of it.

We thought it wise to address Tammy's growing obsession. The pickle jars, once symbols of her connection with Grandma, now seemed like an excess we ought to curb.

"Where are my pickles?" she demanded after one of her outdoor games, her voice echoing the loss of more than just her favored snack.

"We're cutting back," my wife gently suggested.

Tammy's storm of emotions—anger followed by tears and hard stomps on the floor as she retreated to her room—echoed her turmoil.

Yet, as time passed, we promptly forgot about this day, until she was 16, and she learned about pickleball, a sport blending elements of tennis and badminton.

"Remember the pickle ban?" she teased, jar in hand, a nod to both her defiance and cherished memories of Grandma.

"We only wanted what's best for you," my wife sighed, her words laden with unspoken regrets and the weight of parental decisions.

"I know," Tammy's response, softened by kisses to our cheeks as she went off to play pickleball.

An unforeseen accident on her way to the game abruptly changed our lives, her injuries a stark reminder of life's fragility.

We saw her in the hospital, wrapped up in bandages, with metal rods protruding from her. My wife cried when she saw this and stepped out.

"Will I lose a limb?" she whispered in the hospital, her vulnerability piercing through the veil of resilience.

"No," I reassured, clinging to hope and the promise of recovery.

Rehab came with Tammy's loss of appetite. She looked gaunt during my visits.

"Did you know," I told her a story, "your grandmother was the first woman to win our local marathon?"

"She was?"

I nodded. "She looked so thin then, didn't have much of an appetite, but she still practiced for the marathon. To force herself to eat more, she discovered something that got her going."

Tammy listened curiously.

"She learned that pickles would give her an appetite." I smiled. "That's how she eventually grew strong enough to win."

"I miss her," Tammy cried and hugged me.

I was teary-eyed but took out a jar of pickles and handed it to her.

She hugged me even tighter.

When Tammy left the hospital, she playfully taunted, "And you thought these were bad," holding up a pickle she was snacking on.

She looked healthier.

Months later, pickleball became a regular family affair.

he said that they

drove their cars onto

the thick ice

of the lake

left them there

until it thawed

sinking their vehicles

right to the bottom

the bubbles that formed

when the cars went under

screaming for air

and a sense of closure

the waves have a color

it turns to a deathly

dark shade when it laps

at the under carriage

of the trucks that are

parked there, not knowing

that they are being swallowed

in one mouthful, a lake

so enormous

its darkness is a hue

that people see

and know that they

can make things disappear

inside of it

You think...

you have time,

but I have You

for all eternity,

A redundancy?

my reincarnate,

darling moment

the undying life

Lotus blossom,

ambrosia made

& not begotten

world w/o end,

our imagination

in Love w/ itself

the shorn head...

ocean hill crest

Buddha bellied

imagined & yet

unimagined...

in the Infinite.

02.12.2024

The trouble is... challenge @dctezcan

Letting my guard down,

I offered you me.

My expectations

were of unity,

and of forevers -

romantic notion,

antiquated, that

may soon meet its end

should self-centeredness

continue to spread.

The only thing we truly have is time

Looks fade, friendships drift away

Relationships sour or end in pain

Health is fickle to the point of cruelty

Even our memories eventually melt into confusion

And yet - what is time?

It is both our master and our slave

At once, abundant and scarce

The whip and the salve on the wound

I don't have time to cook that healthy meal

I don't have time to read to my child

I don't have time to care for my ailing mother

I don't have time to walk in the forest

I don't have time to take a bath

I don't have time to cry or feel or be

Today, it feels like time has abandoned me

There is none and tightness binds my chest

Constricting my throat - stifling a scream

I feel I'm falling, I'm failing

And yet - I do not despair

For there is always tomorrow

I believe this time will be restored

Sometime in the future - there will be time

For all these things that should be precious

Perhaps there will be time

Or maybe it's all run out

No one ever tells you about the inevitability of falling out of love. The emphasis is always on the rose petals, the whispers, the silk sheets and caresses and lips locking with a heat that burns through all of the long-dead shreds at the center of you. You always hear about the healing, the golden glow of discovering a new dawn, of becoming something made of two parts instead of halves. But what about when the sun sets on that fiery flash of soul's collide? What about the days that drag in dreary repetition, slagging steps toward the final flare, before that love tastes of nothing but bitter ash on your tongue?

We all do love to burn.

We all do love to pretend that the flames will never bank, that there will always be fuel for more fire.

But forests aren't infinite in the same way as death and decay. When you've harvested every last twig, you'll find yourself blinking in disbelief at the sullen stumps around your feet. And you might claw at the earth, dig free those dregs, fling them into the flame... if only so you can burn a little brighter, a little longer.

It may be a slow burn, a gentle feeding of sticks into the hunger, stretching that quiet love for many years, but it's usually a forest fire, gobbling up everything in sight. It is all-consuming and soul-searing, but when it's over, you'll find yourself in a barren wasteland.

And then you will begin to hurt.

And if you're one of the lucky ones, you might begin to hate a little.

You might shovel from that ashen ground and fling black charcoal into the pit of your hatred.

You might burn with the putrid seeds of it instead.

And you'll wait, biding time for your lover to make the descent into the depths right along with you.

And you'll look at them and know. Neither of you are cowards as you stand in the chasm of your hatred. You might reach for each other. You might claw and fuck and punish one another slowly in some sick offering to the love that burned you both.

You might stay that way forever, stealing bitter pleasure from one another, faking the curl of lips that once grinned without reservation. You might cry and laugh and build something atop those dead dreams of a world in which love would not destroy. But you'll know, you've been wrecked.

You have been obliterated in the flare of love's supernova.

Or you might be a coward.

You might leave your bitter lover.

You might try again, caught perpetually in the wheel of a million minuscule meteor showers of hearts flaring and failing.

But it'll never stick. It'll never stay.

Because even if you manage to ration, to keep burning... love will end.

Death will claim it.

And you should hope, that your love does not last that long, because then it will stay with you as an eternal suffering, torturing with pangs through the chambers of your rotten heart until it finally shutters to a stop.

No. No one ever tells you about the inevitability of falling out of love.

They don't tell you, because even if they knew the truth, they'd still hope to burn.

And I am like them, too

Always hoping

That you'll burn with me.

In a town with scarce choices, my marriage was more a contract than a courtship, dictated by necessity and my father's insistence on heirs. We had a daughter first, then a son. With that, I considered my obligations fulfilled and turned my attention to the estate, leaving little room for matters of the heart.

Whispers followed me. "Unhappily Together," they echoed in the corridors, murmured by the maids. I met them with a sharp retort, "Mind your own damn business!" but the words lingered, a constant murmur in the background of my life.

It was Peter, the younger, who first dared to breach the walls I had built.

"You have no love for mother?" His question, simple yet loaded, caught me off guard. Before I could muster a defense, Sasha, his sister, drew us into an embrace, a silent acknowledgment of the chasm between us. "You'll understand about obligations when you grow up," I muttered.

Over time, their mother, undeterred by convention, took to teaching, instilling in our children a wisdom I had overlooked. I sneered at this then, but Peter and Sasha found time to visit her in school.

"Do you know the Velveteen Rabbit?" Peter once asked me. It was during one of our rare family gatherings that Peter shared the story of the Velveteen Rabbit, a narrative about love's power to transform and make real a worn-out toy. I smiled at his story.

During his teens, the war took Peter, his letters home a facade of bravery masking his underlying fear. Sasha remained, her presence a constant, gentle nudge towards a semblance of balance.

Peter returned from the war altered, his spirit dimmed by his experiences. Yet, in moments with Sasha, the shadow of his former self would occasionally reappear.

"I understand about obligations, Father," Sasha once cried angrily at me. "I understand it every time I see Peter!"

I felt a pang at this. In a fleeting impulse for unity, I suggested a family portrait.

As we fidgeted before taking the picture, I placed my hand on Peter's shoulder, leaned over to him, and said, "My son, you are not worn out. You are loved, after all." He turned to me, confused at first, then nodded.

The resulting image, now hanging in the main hall, captured our complex interrelations, a silent testament to the unspoken bonds and tensions among us.

In my later years, as the estate's demands waned and my energy ebbed, I sought solace in solitude, contemplating our silent bonds.

I would go to the school, which I had never visited, now much bigger as I contributed, quietly at first, more to its development. My wife, now its Principal, eventually learned of my donations, and helped me walk with my cane.

Peter found love himself. Married an intelligent woman, and they are now often in the city. I wrote him regular letters now, which seems to have been the only thing I could do.

Sasha takes care of the estate. She's managed to make a business out of pigs and farms. Perhaps her early education from her mother actually paid off.

Compelled by a newfound recognition of my deep, unspoken affection, I penned heartfelt letters to each, laying bare my regrets and realizations.

"Sasha, forgive me. I imposed upon you obligations as my father had imposed on me. I now realize you should have been freer to pursue your own passions."

"Peter, my son, the courage you showed, both on the battlefield and within the walls of our home, taught me the true meaning of bravery. I regret not understanding sooner the weight of the obligations you carried, and I wish I had been there to share that burden with you."

"To my wife, your strength and grace in the face of our arranged union and the challenges that followed have been the silent backbone of our family. I see now the love you've quietly woven into the fabric of our lives, and I regret not recognizing and honoring it sooner."

"That's my story," I said, staring at the suited man beside me.

Death nodded, reached for my hand, and we moved on.

we are the shadows

the dregs of the earth

recording the world

through skewed souls

we write like rats

scratching all night

unceasingly clawing

within walls invisible

we vermin who analyze

burrow beneath the rabble

leaving shabby unkept trails

of upturned word tunnels

deep down dark damned

eyes blinded by the light

incessantly incising ideas

bloody nails on chalkboard

4:27 AM and I'm feeling grand slammed

weary bleary buzz-eyed the menu swims before me

to my left at the counter a couple does the breaststroke

to my right a dude dunks and dives into raw runny eggs

the color of sun rising sky will blossom in an hour or so

sizzle and stink of whiskey breath kisses linger in the air

as the gal slings a plate in front of me with flaccid pale sausages

black and white potatoes brunt frozen drowning in puddled grease

a maze of luminescent yuck scramble that turns me over uneasy

neon glare turns everything a queasy sickish slime green

in the lysol piss confessional I pray into poop clogged porcelain

still steaming layers of butt wipes not bothering to even try

jiggling the faulty handle's smeared shit rusted crusted glint

faucets run dry so I wipe my palms on towelettes from the floor

that's why I won't go down to the Dennys no more