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OUR BODY

Our Body cannot count its movements.
It enters spaces without announcement.It struggles to examine itself
and sees only partial reflections, distortions—never the truth.Who really cares about the truth anyway?
Not one.Who are you to scrutinize its authority?
We may only answer its call, or leave.Who am I to analyze its beauty,
as if it were made for my pleasure alone?Who are they who hold its cells and nerves for ransom—a mass of disembodied voices?The Creator watches quietly.

THE FIREPLACE

I had a dream one night.In the dream, I woke to the sound of rumbling and war outside my childhood bedroom. I was my current age. The room was exactly as it had been.I walked down the hall to the living room.My parents were there. The room was dark except for the light from the fireplace and the occasional flash from outside, followed by a distant boom. My mother tended the fire quietly. I could hear the crackle of the wood.My father sat in his chair, as he often did. The front door was open, but the glass door was closed. He held a cup of coffee and kept watch from his chair.He looked at me and said, “Go back to bed, son.”So I did.I walked back to my room and went to sleep.

THE CLOSE OF CHARLESTON

“It feels so bright in my eyes…
I can’t recognize myself anymore…
It fills up my mind…
Bring me back once more.”

I was nearing the edge of myself.One evening I was walking back from my parents’ house. It was pitch black. The only thing I could really see was the small square of light from my front porch, reflecting off the white house.I don’t remember why, but I stopped.I felt paralyzed in that moment. The dark was so complete that I couldn’t see what was around me. I couldn’t feel the ground. The porch light was the only fixed point. Time seemed to hold.I heard them.My children. Outside somewhere. Not in the light — at least not where I could see them. Just their voices. Talking. Laughing.Had I died?How long would this last? If I had died, would their voices eventually stop? Would I be left in silence with nothing but the light?I did not want the voices to stop.I started walking again.⸻