Words
in my Head.
A running collection of thoughts. Things I can’t design or photograph, only write. They’re pieces of moments, feelings, and the little battles you don’t always talk about. This page is where they land.
The Will to Live.
The rain splattering on my armor seems to match the beating drum in the distance as I gaze out on the plain.
Swarms of enemies headed right towards me,
galloping and scratching the earth underneath them like a pack of savage wolves.
I can feel it.
The familiar rage that I buried deep inside long ago,
bubbling up to the surface,
eager to take over.
I can feel it bending the bars of the cage I put it in.
As the line of black in the horizon gets closer,
close enough to see their piercing eyes,
I smile and turn the key to unlock the cage inside me.
Something dark grips the cage bars and squeezes itself through.
A friend? No.
An enemy? Not necessarily.
Just a part of me I put away long ago in order to save myself.
Now it’s time for it to save me.
A twisted smile sweeps across my face as the monster takes control.
They have reasons to survive.
The thing inside me doesn’t need one.
The Arc of Anticipation.
The best part of a coin flip is when it’s in the air, you know.
When the coin reaches the top of the arc, and the anticipation, too, is at its highest.
Time slows down to nanoseconds in your brain
as it analyzes the moment and what the outcomes mean.
What life means, honestly.
Because once the coin lands, your life goes down a different path entirely.
What if you could live in that moment, though?
That moment when the coin is in the air.
No life-altering scenarios have happened yet.
A perfect balance of dread and excitement in your brain.
In your heart, too.
It’s a weird headspace to be in.
Two sides of a coin.
Heads and tails.
Two sides of your life.
Before and after.
Then you have to take into account the catch and flip onto your hand some people do.
Do you think that messes with your chances?
Logically, it’s still the same chances.
50/50.
But does that act of them catching it and flipping it over represent something?
That’s why I like coin flips in sports.
They let it hit the ground.
No catch.
No interference.
You.
Them.
And that coin.
Is life like a coin?
It has to be flipped to represent something?
I’m unsure.
Anyways, the coin is about to land now.
Best of luck.
The Boiling Sun.
Sometimes I stand outside,
at the peak of the day,
when the sun is at its highest
and the concrete underneath my feet is the hottest.
It burns.
It leaves my feet red for a few minutes or so after, too.
So often my feet are cradled in a sock,
stuffed in a shoe,
tucked slightly underneath a baggy pair of pants.
Hours upon hours of safety in a sanctuary of cotton.
The one part of the body,
or two I guess,
that connects me to the Earth,
hidden from sight and safe from the elements.
What kind of life is that for my feet?
Safe from the boiling sun, of course,
but never weathered by the world they evolved to touch.
So once in a while, I’ll let them burn.
Let them feel the boiling sun underneath them.
Let them remember what it is like to be alive before they crawl their way back to safety.
Living Hell.
How many times does someone need to be knocked down in life before you step in?
Before you say,
“You know what? That’s enough.”
There’s this misconception about life that after enough tough situations,
eventually someone gets what they were looking for.
But that’s not a promise.
That’s statistics.
Enough attempts, enough chances, enough time, and eventually something is supposed to work out.
But what if it never does?
What if no matter how many times they try,
it doesn’t work out?
They never find what they’re looking for.
Because in a world of infinite possibilities,
there will inevitably be people who die before they ever reach their goal.
Time is the limiting factor.
And those people,
driven by the belief that eventually they’d make it to the other side of all those tough situations,
found only the end.
Their life was simply a living hell.
What do you say to someone like that?
Better luck next time?
They never gave up.
Never stopped trying.
Never saw a lick of success.
So society twists it.
“Well, that’s why you have to enjoy the chase.”
Just another carrot to dangle in your face, if you ask me.
Face it, man.
Some men like us are just destined to stay here.
In this living hellscape of ground zero.
This place where dreams are born,
die,
and rot away for eternity.
exhales smoke
I know what you’re thinking.
This is pessimistic bullshit.
But let me tell you what I’d do if I knew I was destined to fall after every attempt.
I’d dig a deeper hole than the one we’re already in.
A hole so fucking deep that the fall would kill me.
Why?
Because I’d climb differently.
Not because I’d suddenly learn to love the climb.
Fuck that.
It could still hurt.
I could hate every second of it.
Every cut in my hands.
Every slip.
Every time I looked up and realized how far I still had to go.
None of that has to become beautiful just because I decided to keep climbing.
But every grip would matter.
Every step would matter.
Every inch upward would be deliberate.
And if I failed,
if my hands finally slipped,
if I fell all the way back to the bottom,
I’d smile on the way down.
Why you ask? Because I’d know there wasn’t an inch left in me that refused to climb.
The odds could have been stacked against me.
Reaching the top could have been impossible from the start.
I’d just need to know I climbed differently.
The High Ground.
Desolate.
The entire surface stretching into the distance was barren.
The surface,
cracked and dry,
had a slight hum to it.
Split down the middle was a long fault line,
clearly eager to open, given the humid heat seeping out of it.
Under all eight of my legs, I felt the hum change.
Deeper.
Longer.
The surface began to move.
Wait.
Expand.
Do I run?
The shadows where I lived were far away,
and night was about to become day.
Before I could move,
the fault line parted,
and a blast of hot, stale air escaped.
This was wrong.
I quickly moved toward the hill with two caverns in the distance.
I climbed.
Safely atop the hill,
my eyes scanned the distance.
I was far enough from the fault line.
I should be safe,
I thought.
As I turned to head home to my shadows,
two large eyes opened beneath me.
got your tongue?
The door eases open,
revealing what appears to be a body.
Crouching over it on all fours
is a creature.
You step forward,
slowly approaching the pair.
The closer you get,
the more the darkness gives way.
The body lying there is not human.
Its eyes open.
Its mouth curls into an infamous smile.
Hunched over it
is another.
Slowly,
very slowly,
the crouching creature turns its head.
The air remains still as it whispers,
“What? a cat’s…”
Darkness left a note.
I'm tired.
I'm tired of constantly being there yet forever living in the shadows.
What do they see in her?
She shines bright. I'll give her that.
But…
She wasn't there for you when you cried at night.
She wasn't there for you on those long walks home.
She wasn't there for you when you woke up from those nightmares.
I was.
So when you realize you were looking for me in her,
you'll know where to find me.
Inevitable.
Stare at it. Think hard.
Halfway through the game.
Half your pieces are gone.
How many moves do you have left?
How many paths are there to endgame?
Not many.
Not many that still give you a chance, at least.
You see, the game ended a few turns ago.
I am just waiting for you to notice.
So feel free to study the board a little longer.
It will not change the outcome.
Pills.
It swarms. Not a single corner of your head is safe.
It slithers under closed doors. It waits in every shadow.
You shield yourself. A round shield of white to keep it back.
Sometimes one shield isn’t enough.
Sometimes you need two.
Water. Shield. Fight.
Water. Shield. Fight.
Relentlessly it comes for you,
each shield dissolving as it tries to protect you.
Every day you armor up and face it again.
One day you’ll be strong enough to stand without a shield.
For now, you take its strength into your own
and keep fighting.
Salt Burn.
The salt burns, doesn’t it?
It’s in the food you eat.
It’s in the air you breathe.
The salt doesn’t have a mind of its own, but it knows how to get under your skin.
Some enjoy the singe.
Some writhe in pain.
No one can escape it.
It’s unavoidable.
Don’t waste your time hiding the wound.
The salt will find it.
Embrace it.
Only then will you know what still lives beneath your skin.
To Create.
To create is to learn.
To let curiosity lead.
To look at something a million different ways and still ask… yeah, but what if?
It’s trial. Mistake. Growth.
Design. Photos. Words.
Whatever works that day.
Different tools. Same obsession.
It’s listening. Scrapping. Starting over.
Zooming way out, then all the way in.
Trying to make sense of it all.
It’s not clean. Not perfect.
It’s how you see. How you process.
And to create…
really create…
can make you feel alive.
Under the Stairs.
No direct sunlight.
Each day, still growing.
Imperfect.
Sharp-edged.
Strong.
Driven.
You did not choose where you were planted.
You bloom anyway.
You do not blame the stairs.
I have a lot to learn from you,
little flower.
EDUT I LOS.
Amid the falling snow
and the glow of streetlights,
stillness becomes a companion,
and solitude, a quiet refuge.