• Poetry

    Answer Me This

    —A; —42; —3 hours; —the blue one; —true; —false We are assured the correct answers will get us through liferelatively unscathed. But where is that third-grade teacherwhen the doctor says it’s cancer? Is “A” really the right response when your…

  • Thoughts

    Those Damn Questions

    I realized today that questions make people uncomfortable, and the askers of those questions are not so great, either. I don’t know, however, if I should call it a breakthrough. Maybe it’d be better characterized as a memory. Do you…

  • Thoughts

    Just Read the Book

    Well, I must say that I was surprised to find a (Collecting Thoughts Press) post from The Before Times (March 2019: remember what the world was like then?) that made me smile and made me think, Yup. Still applies. Since…

  • Thoughts

    Out in the Cold

    C.S. Lewis retells the myth of Cupid and Psyche in his powerful novel Till We Have Faces. This is my second reading of the book, and everything’s different for me now that I’ve moved my starting point and see clearly…

  • Thoughts

    Don’t Believe Their Answers

    Generally what is more important than getting water-tight answers is learning to ask the right questions. —Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water When I came across those words about a decade ago, I had no idea how true they’d turn out…

  • Thoughts

    Know It All

    The Volume Library. God love you, Dad. When you signed on the dotted line for that scam, you were trying to do the right thing. Your blood sugar may have been on the way down and you just wanted your…

  • Thoughts

    A New Way of Living

    Today is the first day of my new life. It sounds dramatic, I know, but I spent my old life avoiding drama at all costs. So, let’s double down on the drama: everything I thought I knew was just guessing.…

  • Thoughts

    Let It Be an End in Itself

    Do you ever feel like you belong nowhere? I’m going through such an experience now, feeling sort of homeless. I keep telling myself to unpack my bags and settle, that I can stay here, that I can be happy here,…

  • Thoughts

    Let the Night Be Too Dark

    At most he thinks or twitters softly, “Safe!Now let the night be dark for all of me.Let the night be too dark for me to seeInto the future. Let what will be, be.”                        —Robert Frost Living in day-tight compartments is…

  • Thoughts

    Which Character are You?

    Once in a while, I remind myself that I used to get frustrated with people who wouldn’t hand out answers like candy. I liked the sound of this: “Literature leaves you with questions; lesser works give you all the answers,”…