I didn’t start drinking my coffee black until after my father died. Turns out that’s the way he liked his coffee each morning, rain or shine, to start his day. It happened almost unconsciously. I gathered the materials to grind my own beans, pouring them into the hopper of my manual grinder, turning the metalContinue reading “Coffee black”
Category Archives: The Human Experience
On grief and blooming
I. I’ve spent so many years of my life wishing things were different: where I’m from, my body, being so damn shy, exploring my emotions as a man, and wishing I was a better brother/uncle/son. Much of that time trying to change to fit into other people’s vision for who I am meant I wasn’tContinue reading “On grief and blooming”
Holdfast
“We should hold each other more while we are still alive, even if it hurts. People really die of loneliness, skin hunger the doctors call it. In a study on love, baby monkeys were given a choice between a wire mother with milk & a wool mother with none. Like them, I would choose toContinue reading “Holdfast”
The order of things
On a cold Saturday in late March, I wake with words sprawling, tottering themselves into a poem off of my lips. I move quickly to write it all down. Hours later, I’ve scribbled on the backs of several old papers: a restaurant napkin, a movie pass, the comic section of the local newspaper, a notebookContinue reading “The order of things”
Break, breaking
Since I moved to Indiana, life has been small musings between heartbreaks. And this is largely what growing up has been for me. The moving and the wishing people were here that cannot be and the election and the disasters that we become when we are hurt but trying to love people. The war withContinue reading “Break, breaking”
On Friendship
“What is home but a book we write, then read again & again, each time dog-earing different pages. In the morning I wake in time to pencil the sun high. How fragile it is, the world—” -Maggie Smith, Poet When you meet several loves of your life, you don’t always know it. You don’t alwaysContinue reading “On Friendship”
Home
You ever had a perfect day? A laugh-filled, legs-hurting, heart-expanding day full of walks and talks and sights kind of day. Memories in the making, best friend to your right, sky blue with clouds pillow fighting as they pass through one another. A sun tan in-the-making, the trees scattering across the horizon, the water slappingContinue reading “Home”
In closing
I always tell people that the week after school ends each spring is the saddest week. It feels much like mourning the loss of someone, only they aren’t gone forever. Just for now. This year is no different. I’m learning how to say goodbye in what feels like several languages I haven’t fully learned. Looking back,Continue reading “In closing”
A year backwards, light becoming
I’ll admit it: the moment the needled etched the first line into my skin, I panicked. Before I could yank my arm back in protest, three more lines scratched across my skin, each slightly longer than the last. When the man carving into me took a small break, I marveled at my own changing. Ink-dippedContinue reading “A year backwards, light becoming”
Arriving.
When I was a boy, I would take 45 minute showers. Something about the hot water hitting me that made me savor that kind of warmth as if it were the last time. I would spend 35 of those minutes covering my ears and slowly walking through the water—back and forth and back again—simulating aContinue reading “Arriving.”
