Off the

beaten path.

No street lights,

nature has

embraced you.

Solitude has

been found.

Suddenly,

feeling as if

you’re not alone.

The darkness

becomes palpable.

Shadows embody

subtle movements.

Heart rate increases,

breath quickens.

You begin

walking faster.

Trying not

to panic.

It feels like

something is

following you.

Now what?

Dread sets in,

anxiety starts.

Your eyes

say you’re alone.

Yet your mind

says otherwise.

Footsteps echo

in the growing

silence of the night.

As phantoms dance

in and out

of sight.

Each one becomes

more terrifying

than the last.

The mania

of the mind

begins to manifest

in your vision.

Shaping fantasies,

promoting nightmares.

Your mind is

fatally infected

with the delusion

of paranoia.

Now you begin

to question

your sanity.

It feels like

the entire forest

is watching you.

Are those really

tortured souls

in the trees?

Rocking. It is the constant that surrounds me. Rhythm.

Both personal and impartial and uncertain in its constancy. It is a movement that occurs as the byproduct of all things in motion, myself as well, no matter how still I try to make my mind or body or the article on which my feet have stopped.

Crib, seesaw, or chair, or open field...

Age has relevance, as a descriptor of events, such as measure of day.

It does not define me, inside nor out, and rocking reveals nothing other than the reassurance that minutes are passing and there is yet the potential for end.

Or change of pace, or a similar continuation.

Whatever the tempo, the rocking is the meter surfacing in my awareness.

Like breathing. Heart beating.

I am ancient.

I am infantile.

I am cradled,

within living rock.

07.31.2024

Completely Open Ended... challenge @Last

If you fan

those dying embers

you try so hard

to keep alive

in the end

all you'll be

left with

are ashes

in your eyes

Chapter 1

Friday and Saturday nights were music nights at my house. No matter how many times we moved, my father found a room for his sanctuary and built a kick ass man cave. The walls always filled with posters of KISS, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, and a variety of other arena rock bands from the 70s and 80s.

For a while, he held a job on the railroad, which allowed him to have weekends off. I don’t know how long this lasted, but I remember it was during the time we lived on Brookside. At this time, my mother was working at Wal-Mart, which came to town around 2004 or 2005. After the promotion for different movies ended, she would take some of the cardboard cutouts and posters and bring them home. I’d fill my room with posters of Spiderman, The Matrix, Star Wars, and countless others, and the cardboard cutouts would hang on either side of the stairs descending into the basement. It was cool.

There was a giant Spiderman and Green Goblin from the 2002 movie with Tobey Maguire and Willem Dafoe going down the stairs. Then when you walked into the basement, there was a small TV, which my father would keep on mute with a hockey game or a movie on AMC, posters, DVDs, and VHS tapes surrounded you along with my father’s massive CD and record collection, which were towards the back wall. It truly was a sanctuary, and an escape from a world where your body and mind were expendable. A place where you could enjoy the fruits of your labor, if only for a little while.

It was a fun place to be, and I’d get into many arguments with my mother during the summer months when I’d rarely leave it. Though I played sports, and had friends, I’d often find myself for days on end just walking to the movie store on Roseberry to rent VHS’s and walking back to grab a snack and fade away into my old man’s sanctuary. I can see why she was angry, because as a parent now, I don’t always love when the kids plant themselves in front of the TV for the day. The outside world is important. There’s no denying that. But the world is hard, unfriendly and unforgiving. Who wouldn’t want to slip away for a while? Plus, the days of being in my head feeling something akin to a goddamn Eli Roth horror movie would occupy a lot of time during my 20s. Those days were some of the last, where being inside my head was a paradise. Two best pals eating snacks and watching Jackie Chan clumsily beat the ever living hell out of gangsters.

During the school years and summer, though, Friday and Saturday nights at 7 were always the apex of the week, and something that I’d carry with me throughout my university years and deep into fatherhood. The importance of those evenings is instrumental, and still to this day, when the three of us get together, we make sure to crack a few beers and get the tunes going.

I think they were important because they felt like the only hours during the week where our father belonged solely to us. The rest of the week, he had some kind of preoccupation. Whether he was working, or spending time with my mother, or even when we all spent time together, it was nice in a different way, but it wasn’t the same.

My mother understood that too, and also understood the importance of having a couple of hours of “me” time. She loved music, but not in the same way, and she certainly didn’t feel a need to sit in a basement and discuss the merits of each song played accompanied by one of my father’s stories of being young, and how different songs changed his life. She’d always roll her eyes and playfully tell him he was brainwashing me or and my brother. Maybe he was, but what the hell, there are worse things to be brainwashed into than kick ass music from the 70s and 80s. He wasn’t Jim Jones, and the basement wasn’t Jonestown.

There was also a happiness in his eyes on those evenings, a sense of peace. And as my brother and I got older, he relished the fact that we took an interest in his life before us. I wanted to know about working on the oil rigs. I wanted to know about his high school years and his fights. I asked about his girlfriends. I asked about my grandfather and sometimes felt saddened at their distant relationship, while simultaneously feeling grateful for ours. I could listen to him talk for hours. He never bored me with those stories, though I’m sure he felt he did.

He never seemed to sink into depression, but there was a certain darkness in his eyes when work demanded more than his body wanted to give. There was anger in them, too. And it didn’t happen often, but when he lost his temper, it was frightening. You stood there and did your best to not let a single tear escape your eye. But as quickly as the darkness overtook him, he could cast it away once again in the snap of a finger. Something that I’d inherit from him.

During the music nights, we’d pick two songs each. My father would start, and then we’d rotate. It was fun, and we mostly picked songs we knew my father would like, but every so often we’d pick something new we heard at school and hope he enjoyed it. You wanted something that kept the evening fun going along at a nice, steady pace. You didn’t want to drop the ball with something that no one liked, because you’d hear about it. In fact, my family always had a propensity for never letting things go. So, you’d probably hear about it a lot more than was really necessary. But if you could take it, you’d get your chance to give it at some point.

My father would also designate someone as the beer guy. Since we didn’t have a mini fridge in the basement, my brother or I would have to run upstairs and grab the old man a couple of beers from the fridge and run back down, trying not to miss too much of a song that we loved.

For as long as I can remember, I loved the taste of beer. Especially that first drink when the cap came off. Sometimes my father would let me take that first sip, and that carbonated burn as it slid down my throat made me feel like I was getting a teaser into his world. The world beyond the fog. I was drinking and talking about the good ole days. The days before, I was even a thought or a whisper.

It always felt like I was training to be a man from the time I was a young kid. I wanted to see him leave in the morning and study how he walked to work. I wanted to partake in the weekend evenings of beer drinking and rock and roll music. I wanted it all, because there would come a time when I’d be my father’s age, and I’d have young kids getting me beer from the fridge. It’s the circle of life, I think, or some variation of life. The songs would be different, but the spirit of it never changed. It was a time when I belonged to the kids, and it was my time to talk about old stories and brainwash them in the church of Bruce Springsteen.

But those years of growing up and listening to music were important. They were important because I was being introduced to albums and artists that were well before my time. I was building a deep understanding of rock and roll music that none of my peers had. Then, when I’d find myself in university surrounded by musicians and looking to take a stab at writing songs and performing, I’d be able to speak their language.

You wanted to debate about The Stone and The Beatles? Let’s do it. You wanted to talk about shock rock in the 70s, glam or thrash in the 80s, great. If you wanted to talk about grunge and alternative music, fine. It was all good, because I’d dipped my toes in all of those waters. I became a well rounded, and I think unbiased music lover and critic. Well, maybe not completely unbiased, but I was being introduced to albums that may have been considered uncool at the time of their release because of generational factors, but I wasn’t there. So, everything was fresh and new and exciting. I wasn’t chained down by the ideologies of music gatekeepers.

And this was all thanks to my old man. But for all the great music he introduced me to (and there was a lot), Springsteen wasn’t there. Of course, I was aware of who he was, but he was never played on those sanctuary evenings. Not once.

But when a friend of mine introduced me to The River, and I’d be out on my own, studying music that wasn’t my fathers, I’d understand why. Springsteen didn’t always offer the escape that my father was looking for after a hard earned work week. In the basement, we listened to KISS, watched Star Wars and talked about days gone by. I rarely, if ever, asked how his day was. He rarely, if ever, talked about building trains. Because if we did, then work would occupy every second of his existence, and he was hellbent on ensuring that his life was about more than work.

My father and my grandfather never had those moments of talking through their differences. Much like Springsteen and his father, my old man grew his hair long. My father got his ears pierced, and my grandfather asked him if he was a faggot now? They argued about the state of their relationship. My grandfather wanted him to play sports every second of his life, and my father wanted to listen to his albums.

My grandfather was a railroader and my father, like myself, tried to run away from that life. But he got my mom pregnant at 19 and went to work on the oil rigs. From there, he went to the railroad. Then when my grandfather died in 2008, I heard from my mother that he cried, but I never saw it, neither did my brother. We were there for him in our own way, but we never really talked about how badly it hurt. Or if there were things he wished he’d said before he passed. We just kind of stood there, offering quiet support while our minds ran amok, trying to figure out how to actually help.

Still, to this day, I don’t speak to my father much on that level. We still laugh and poke fun at anything and everything. We still listen to music and drink beers when we get together, but it can still feel hard to shed that skin. But I told him one day that I love Springsteen because his music reminds me of him. I don’t know if he thought much of that, but I wanted him to know that this was music that dealt with complicated people and complicated relationships. It said the things that we were often too scared to say in real life.

But one day last year, I called him. He lives in Ontario now, and I don’t see him much. Sometimes I listen to My Father’s House, The River, Independence Day, or all of Darkness on the Edge of Town and think how much will go unsaid on the day that he dies. Will I sit and cry, wishing desperately that I’d said what I needed to say? The truth is, probably.

I made the call in desperation. I was losing my wife. I was losing my whole life and I could see it happening. My head was fucked, and I needed help. So, I called and for a while we joked, but he knew that something was up, because these weren’t calls we had often. So, eventually I asked how he and mom did it. How did they survive through it all? Because I felt like I was losing it.

That afternoon, as my wife was away with the kids, we had a great conversation. He offered advice in the best way he could, and when he had to get back to work, he told me to call anytime I needed anything. When I hung up, I felt like I was going to collapse with the sheer weight of finally telling the strongest man I’d ever known that I was feeling weak. And that I was in serious trouble.

The call made me realize that in many ways we were the same, and also different. I loved Springsteen because it hit home truths I was running away from. Whereas he didn’t want to be reminded of those truths, because he knew them all too well.

I sometimes picture a fictional version of those music nights. I’m ten years old and already a huge Springsteen fan. I put on Darkness on the Edge of Town. For my two songs, I pick Something in the Night and the title track. Or any two songs from the album, really. He places the vinyl in his hands and reads the lyrics. What happens? Does he become a fan, or does he tell me to turn it off so he can play KISS? I don’t know, but I often think about it. I think he would have found some hard truths in there, but I also think he would have revered the anger in a young Springsteen’s voice. Because in which other profession can you let out a primal scream like Springsteen does in Adam Raised A Cain, or Streets of Fire? You can’t do that in real life, though many of us would like to.

I know my father’s work weeks were often torturous, especially in the winter. I remember my mom telling me how much it upset her to hear the winds blowing off the river, howling so viciously you could barely hear yourself think, and knowing that he was out there. Out there walking that line between the tracks, reading a switch list, and trying to do a complicated mental puzzle inside his head to lessen the amount of moves and time it took to complete his job.

I’d understand when I got older and walked that same line, if only for a little while. I’d think about my father and those music nights, and I’d think about his eyes. They were tired, and there was anger behind them, but he never substituted hard work outside of home for the hard work inside. He did both, always and to me he was a goliath of strength. An impenetrable force, and as I get older, I’d feel much weaker knowing that we were cut from the same cloth. Though, I don’t know what the inside of his head was like; he handled that life like only he could.

That’s why the man cave was a sanctuary. Because it was his direct link to his childhood, it was a direct link to good memories with his kids. It represented everything the outside world didn’t. He needed it to keep sane, and I’d find the same thing as an adult. Escape through music and writing. Finding those links to times that didn’t crush you and make you feel small and weak. An insurance that no matter how bad things got, there was always a place you could go where things felt good, and things felt right. And while my father would seek it with KISS, and other huge acts, I’d find it with Springsteen.

At the worst of times, there would be songs that fit my situation like a perfectly placed puzzle piece. When I’d find him, it would be the closest thing to a religious or spiritual experience I’d have. An alignment of the world. An answer to the world’s hardest riddle. It would save me, at least from making it through my 20s.

There would be times when my world was ending. And the kids would go to bed, and my wife would follow suit. Then I’d find myself walking down the stairs of my home, feeling so weak I could explode and heading to my record player, putting on Darkness, or Born to Run, Nebraska, or The River, and just sitting trying to keep it together. Trying to rationalize my situation and find an escape. Seeking the strength of my father. The man who’s back was never hunched. The man who walked through the early morning fog, not with a mentality of “the world is going to beat me into submission”, but one of “I’m going to beat it into submission.” I’d search for that strength, and search and sometimes feel so depleted at the notion that it just wasn’t there for me. That his strength just wasn’t in the cards for me.

The music would help me understand. It would help me understand my childhood, my relationship with my parents. It would allow me to think about my parents as kids, and how that generation must have felt with their parents. A generation that felt like their folks were 500 years older than them. The coldness of my father’s father, and how it was his goal to be a better father, and how he was raising me to be even better.

Then, with that, I’d write poetry set to some of my favorite songs. I’d pick up a guitar, learn some chords and sit with those for a while, then I’d put words to my songs, and play bars and cafes, closing my eyes and pretending I was Springsteen in his early days at the Cafe Wha, or another Greenwich Village cafe around the time he was getting ready to sit at CBS in front of Jon Hammond and play his heart out for a record deal.

I’d seek words as a form of understanding. Songs could answer questions that an argument with my wife just couldn’t solve. I’d write and write, and then my chances at stardom would crash and burn like so many before me. My father who could have gone pro in hockey. I, who could have possibly done something with music, would find it ripped out from under me, the fog of my childhood pulling me back to the place I’d wanted to leave. Or maybe that was another question that needed to be answered. Did I ever want to leave?

Then I’d have to seek those answers in another form of writing. So I’d write stories. I’d write stories about railroaders and small towns. Imagery of smoke stacks like a gun barrel, burning winds coming off the river and cutting like knives. I’d write about people deep in depression staring at the sun creeping through the window blinds and wanting a darkness so absolute, it must mean death?

I’d write about characters in Springsteen songs. I’d read Springsteen books, and buy all his records and hope that just because music and sports didn’t work out for me, I wouldn’t just work and die without a single piece of art ever completed.

But first, I’d have to learn to survive without living under the same roof as my mother and father. I’d have to navigate a world alone as they moved hours and hours away in the opposite direction. And I’d have to deal with almost watching my brother die at the same time.

All of the madness

stopped for a moment

on the tip of a paper

thin dime

and the earth shifted

from blue to

ink jet black

and the truth

raised above

the vast horizon

like a lion

over the blood red

sky of the Serengeti

wall streets,

with English ivies

that choke the stars

of persons

Transposed,

black "lorsque" eyes and

migratory tonsiled vocals

singing gutterally

into the nonsilence

of night, wince

the global heart

cries,

as to Where? does small

ambition

crawl,

to untold

beanstalk heights...?

I don't want to lose us

to the abstract columns,

bookended sidewalks---

the fiction

that curdles human blood,

with salt, or twist-of-lime Realty,

downed in a gulp!

an acquired taste

we connoisseur to,

as an aspiration...

hungover

the shoulder loosely

with pompous name

like Olympus or Olympia

that could be picture maker,

or picture taker,

or landscape,

in fanciful distance...

in any case, or shelf, or reservation

a higher order, for a cold

sampling

of what every fresh foundling

knows as ferment

and decay...

otherwise known as

...Civilization...

“When am I ever not at a party?” At first I’d been a bit pleased that Bram had called–because I’m a narcissist that likes attention. And because it’s unlike him to have gone so many days without checking in, considering the circumstances. But now he’s kind of pissing me off. As usual.

I’m standing in the corner of Castle of Stuff, shaking my head at Jamie, who’s at a stuffing station just a few feet away. He’s holding the fabric exterior of a goose against the end of a tube, watching the cotton-candy colored, glitter-infused stuffing churn through the clear pipes that fill the ceiling of the warehouse-like building. He keeps pointing and grinning at me as he watches his goose get filled from the inside. It’s really the kind of stuff only serial killers should enjoy.

“Are there kids there?” Bram sounds more than a little surprised.

I turn towards the wall, attempting to use my body as a sound shield, but shrieking kids run by with their own stuffed animals. And to imagine that Eve has a little brat like these. What a horrible thing to have to look after. “Maybe,” I reply darkly. It's Eve's fault for having her birthday at place clearly designed for people a fifth of our age.

There’s silence on the line, and I sigh deeply. “So. What do you actually want?” I ask him, eyes catching on Eve. She’s standing beside Jamie, looking as young and pretty as she was in college, nailing a simple-but-elegant style but still able to pull off hip, almost-in-your eye, dark bangs. She looks like the world’s most picturesque mother as she smiles and hugs her daughter to her side. There’s no way she’s really that happy to have to take care of a tiny carbon copy of herself, right?

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; we never liked the same things.

Eve, by her own making, was my best friend in college. We had no similar interests, no overlapping classes, and completely different home lives. Eve went to church every week, I went day drinking; Eve studied calculus and linear algebra, I slept in during my english literature classes; Eve visited her parents and three siblings often, I made any excuse to not see my mother. But she’d been determined to befriend me, so eventually I gave in. Somehow we were roommates for three years.

And now our lives have branched in even more opposing directions, if possible. She married a nice, if boring, nurse. They have a kid and two dogs. They live in a little affordable house in Minnesota. Every year on her birthday I get to hear how fucking happy she is. It’s sickening. I don’t know why she puts up with me.

“Hello?” I’ve completely zoned out, but Bram still hasn’t said anything. What is wrong with this man?

He makes a “hm” kind of noise then says, “Sorry, Masie. I’ve gotta go.” I stare at Jamie’s finished goose, which he’s holding up like Simba, as the line goes dead.

How utterly rude. He calls me, and for what?

I stomp back over to Jamie and Eve and Mini Eve. Mini Eve looks at me through her matchy-matchy dark bangs and points at my pink combat boots. “I like your shoes.”

I am spared from making conversation with the child because Eve asks me, “What is it? Work?” She’s looking at me all doe-eyed, which is how she used to get me to do things in college with her. The worst part is she’s not being manipulative, that’s literally just what her eyes are like. She’s probably half deer.

“Yes,” I say distractedly, since at the same time Jamie is trying to hand me the limp body of the unfinished tiger I’d picked out.

“Was it Bram? How is he?”

I’m holding the tiger by its back leg, letting it dangle in front of me. I can’t help that my eyebrows raise as I look back at Eve. How is Bram? As if I would know. As if she should care? It takes me a second to think of something to say. “He’s really great. He’s doing just fine. Loving life. Just like you and mini-you.” My voice comes out bitter.

Jamie steps on my foot. He really must’ve put some force behind it because I feel it through the boot. This is why I hate hanging out with Eve, it makes me feel like a small dog yapping at a big one for no reason.

“Oh.” Eve gives me a thin smile; she’s not stupid. She takes her daughter by the hand. “We’ll be by the glitter tornado.”

As soon as her back is turned Jamie throws his newly-birthed goose at my head. I’m too slow to dodge, and it bounces off the side of my face. “What the hell?”

He holds up a pointer finger. “There are children around here.”

“Ok. What the fu–”

“You haven’t said a single nice thing to her all day! You begrudgingly said ‘happy birthday’. The first thing you said when you saw her was ‘have you had work done?’” Jamie’s finger is now pointed accusingly at me.

“Oh, right, because you weren’t thinking the same thing?” I fold my arms.

“We see her once a year, Masie.”

“Yeah, exactly. Once a year, so what’s the point? I don’t even know her anymore, and she definitely doesn’t know me. Why bother?”

“Because that’s what friends do. She’s making an effort.”

I laugh. “Making an effort to what? She gets to see me once a year and go, wow, thank god I’m not like this crazy bitch. I’m probably just entertainment for her cute little family, just a reminder of how great she’s got it.”

Jamie’s nostrils are flared, which only happens when he’s really mad because he thinks he looks like a bull when it happens and he tries his best to avoid doing it. “You’re literally so self-centered, Masie. This is her birthday. The world doesn’t revolve around you. I’m your friend, right? I make an effort too. I call you even when you haven’t talked to me in forever, I invite you out when I know you need someone to go with. I let you talk about yourself for hours even though you never ask if I have anything new or different or hard going on. Everyone else has their own life, how can you not see that? And if you don’t want to make an effort, then fine. We won’t either.”

I’m so shocked I literally drop my tiger carcass on the ground. Jamie and I have fought, but not like this. “Is this about something I said last night? Because I was drunk and I don’t really–”

Jamie shakes his head. I think there are tears in his eyes. “No, Masie. But speaking of, when you find a new friend, you should try apologizing to them and not just giving excuses.” He juts his chin into the air. “Now, Hank Featherford and I are going.”

“Hank–?” He swipes his goose off the ground. It's probably a better friend than I am. “Wait. Hey, I’m sorry, Jamie. I–”

He turns on his heel, Hank Featherford clutched against his chest. He’s definitely crying. “I’ll be at the confetti waterfall. Please don’t follow me.” He sniffs.

I scoff, then cringe at myself. Be nice, be nice. “Hey, wait. Is this about us or is this about Eve? Because, honestly, I wasn’t really that mean to her. But we can sort this out!” He’s not listening. And really, I don’t want to go any closer to the confetti waterfall anyway. So I pick up my sad tiger and take a few breaths. I’m not gonna fucking cry when there’s a seven-year-old two feet away, clutching a bright blue dinosaur body and waiting for the stuffing station.

I try miserably to smile at him, and then wander away.

--

(previous chapter)

pt 21: https://www.theprose.com/post/816609/contradictions

In contrast to the woman who is protected and rescued, held within the arms of those whom she trusts and loves-- whom she is compelled to love-- this boy, newly born is forced to fight.

This little boy designated already as a soldier, already commodified for product by his youthful, psychologically alluring neoteny of his face. The virtue and wonder inherent in the innocent want to protect. It is the soldier boys who protect out of love, compared to their compatriotic men, defending their right-- faded and slowly peeling at its yellowed edges-- to live and to survive, fighting to see blood, to see blood validating their lives to continue. Insisting, begging that their lives be deemed worthy to continue by the pierce of their bullet or the blood upon curved Army knives.

A boy must fight to live, must fight to love, must fight and fight and fight.

In contrast to the women, trapped within the lovelessness of gilded glass as the rosy promise of a fairytale. Which play upon slowly withering apple cheeks. But amidst the knights and the dragons with their hateful flame, among evil men and other domineering ugly women, who protects the man, who takes their chisled jaw and strong chest to feel the heart beating underneath? Who tells these soldier boys fed the idea of red strings and fawning young maidens that the danger has past? That they are safe. And when are they safe?

To a female past the archetype, to a female breaking from their mold, their opposite is the enemy. The man who so demands their love and their bodies.

However it is the elders in their silvery misted bogs and their wizened hands on cool glass crystal balls who so dictate those rules. Old authors, old male authors of a besotted, plague riddled time who placed these expectations on paper. Of the little girls to be wives, and of the little boys to be soldiers and to constantly battle and beat off the competition.

Separate yet somehow never equal, not within their spheres, or upon each other. When they are.

Borrowing from a more Asian belief, a shuddering notion to be sure, yin and yang. Representing the light and the dark, the good and the evil, as well as feminine and masculine. What we have denominated to equate as boy and girl.

From the youth and exuberance of a boy to the beauty and therefore vitality of a woman do we come to see life be made, new life a blessing in whatever binary form it takes. For a child is sacred in all spheres.

So says the matronly nature of a woman's archetype. But the question must be posed, where is the paternal? The Father is often off fighting war and in stories is often a non-entity or otherwise, a constant obstacle near exclusively to their daughters. In more recent years to the "daughters when asked for sons," of the boys who prefer the artistic, nurturing pursuits deemed gentler and woman-like. When if anything, the brutal punch of an emotional blow damages an individual in a way unreachable for the rite healing much similar to simple and shallow conceptions of human beings.

And better yet when both are in twilight, nearing the end of their lives here and to rise toward guiding lights in the night sky, we focus upon the wisdom gained from a lifetime of war and bloodshed. We call him the sage. While we call her the crone. What of the wisdom from watching a life grow and prosper? What of the wisdom within the peaceful, artisanal little village?

The wisdom of what made a child smile and where vice came to be born within every child making for the dysfunctional. Those all too-- almost too human-- to be included in the category so loftily described.

hell

it seems

at every

mid weekend

we've made

some choices

and wonder

about

"Choice"

like

Sans

Andreas

fault

lines

we've straddle,

as if these

were horses

and we were

green face

nightmare

jockeys

on whom

we've placed

bets upon,

and all

life's worth

is riding

on...

That is the

illustration of

Existential

Dread.

06.26.2024

God, The Universe, and You Part 7: Existential Dread