I’ll never know what it was really about

’till I get to the end

The more you live, the more life feels like a dream

I went to bed at 19 and woke up at 35

I’m still the same insecure boy I always was

I just look old now

And my joints creak a bit

Is this the dream

Or is this the waking?

I smudge my fingers along the contours of my face in the glass

Drawing little circles and lines

And crosses

I thought I was going to be someone

I guess I just didn’t know how

Part of the journey is realizing that there never was a past

There never was a future

Those are delusions of the heart

There was only ever now

The forever now

That grows and strengthens the body

And then slowly rots it away

As the soul is washed in mud and silt

Bloodied and scraped and scarred

I carried my body to the river

Laid it down in the water

And slowly let the currents take it away

I looked for emotion in his face

Some life in his cheeks

Where’s that smile I knew?

It’s ok

You don’t have to speak

I love you

Please take care of yourself

I’ll see you on the other side

Goodbye.

red, blue, and yellow

twisted neath the wire cutters

six seconds to blow

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1/7/2025

We enter existence,existing in an entry into the unknown .We stretch our new born heads in wonder and awe,light and sound,the wonder of nothingness.Then our feet touch and our bodies begin to form,our reality begins to blossom like a plant firm in Virgin soil.we reach with our innocent eyes,pulling a mother's loving embrace to tears,that cultivates and helps us grow.

We break free,uprooted by our desires leaving behind the foundation where we took our first steps.Running into the wind,while the breath of love from a mother's goodbye sculpts and strengthens our frailty into a tree,buried in the concrete and steel.

Then the light and sounds beckons us home,

as we bend with the winds of time,til our limbs decay and fall into an abyss of the unknown.Then a tear falls that was conceived in love,that nourishes our being into a brand new existence.

We know not what the next moments do

And past ones are an illusion too

All that’s left is the here and now

It’s the one we must live through.

Countless shadows loom around

Unseen embrace of hidden arms surround

This moment is the only one lit

While everything else is darkness profound.

We can use this light to brighten our day

And realise every dream and wish, per se.

For all that’s left is the here and now

It’s the one we must live through.

This moment, the present, is the celebration

It’s the passion, the look, and the flirtation

Here and now encompasses our whole world

One moment can undo ages of oppression.

So use it to change the world for the better.

Say your apologies and mean every letter.

For all that’s left is the here and now

It’s the one we must live through.

We know not what the next moments do

And past ones are an illusion too

All that’s left is the here and now

It’s the one we must live through.

I have finally realized how much I've been suffering for the past year and a half. But do not pity me, dear reader. I have buried the suffering so deep with anger and resentment, that i don't need any sympathy. This is simply the cost of being a caregiver to a brother with schizophrenia. I will call it a kind of collateral damage.

For a good 30 years my primary intention was to break down the walls that I built around me during my first 20. My professional and personal life were dedicated to being compassionate and kind. In most respects that was the identity that I created for myself. My children and family deserved it. My patients needed it to succeed. I humbly think I did pretty well with it.

But since my brother took himself off his medication, I've had to slowly purge the compassion from my soul. To be clear, it is only a small part of my soul, but this has been a journey more difficult than grieving for both of my parents. How ironic that i have needed to rebuild the very same wall that I vowed to destroy long ago. It was as if I was betraying myself. However, it was a necessary step to progress forward. For both of us.

I am happy to report that there has been major progress today. Progress that was decidedly unexpected when I woke up this morning. My sharply tuned guardedness was not bending until he handed me all the keys and garage door openers to the house. He has officially moved into an apartment. This is just the first small step towards stability. Yet there is still a long way to go.

I still have not really cracked open the window in the restored wall. But now, at least the curtains have been drawn.

We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, "sketch" is not quite a word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.

A sketch for nothing is not quite right either. Life is a story without a plot, a Bildungsroman in which we were once children, and the change out of that form of existence is subtle yet constant, a plant unnoticed to be growing day by day but unrecognizable from seedling to tree. We grow unrecognizable from infant to teenager, and the leap from teenager to adult is so insecure it leaves many young adults reeling in denial. Not me, not yet! I’m not ready!

And yet can the same not be said for all life? An eggtooth cracking a baby bird out of its embryo is unaware it will fall from the beak after being used for the first and only time. An actor going on cold is an actor engaged in improv, yes and, yes and. Yes, and what else could life possibly be?

Repetition simply can only occur after one has first lived through the first time. The train ride only seems like an act on autopilot because of the times spent anxious at every stop I rode past first.

The first rehearsal only occurs once the lead actor has obtained knowledge of the plot, whether scripted or not. Background characters can be placed clueless on stage, bit parts can be played without dialogue, accurate accents, time period true costuming. Nobody knows how long the runtime will be, if they will see Acts Two or Three, if the audience will ever appear, will sleep or be left on the edge of their seats.

And some people live their lives convinced they are background characters in the show of life, unimportant, unseen, unloved, and their efforts entirely unacknowledged until they start putting the bare minimum in.

Life in the form of work would be less scary if it weren't always the first run through, if we were given scripts and scenes beforehand. I hadn't known until my third full week on the job what I had thought was an internship involved me doing paralegal work. So instead I sit here typing this as I am entirely unsure what specifically a paralegal even is, nevermind if I can do the work when my boss regularly leaves me alone, adrift in the deep end.

But life is not drowning, it's living - the work will either get done or get me fired. Writing is not work, is far from my first run through, is a skill grown through repetition and practice, albeit one that rarely ever results in profit. If I was a better employee, I would cease writing on company time, and yet I have no willpower, no desire to stop typing, moving my thumbs through this and then feel accomplished despite being far from successful in what I will be ideally maybe paid for if I'm lucky.

But life continued, the day ended, the work did indeed find itself completed, and now I write again from the comfort of my bedroom floor. A vantage point wherein life continues to feel repetitive, though each experience ought to be new. One new experience in my future will be a class in which sketching will take a different meaning - digital art, complete with layers, a more accurate metaphor for life than traditional sketching would be.