rotten {

"love you 'till you're rotten"

those were the last words i said as i held his decaying hands. skin peeling like bark from a tree that stood for years too long. a toothless smile crept from a face that harbored a scowl just moments before, carrying a voice angry enough to shake the curtains of the hospital bed. his smile was the first i'd ever seen.

awake in a cold sweat. 5:45. less than four hours of sleep. i resigned my head softly in the middle of what i knew would be an immortal night.

***

i used to keep dream journals. every morning, i'd write down everything i remembered about the dream i just had before. i heard this made your dreams more vivid, more impossible, and eventually more controllable. 

i was a child the last time i had a lucid dream. they are wonderful. you can fly or taste the prettiest ice cream or whatever. and then you wake up in the morning. not a trace remains of an escape that no high can match.

on this night, i was reminded of what it felt like to remember dreams. so, in the cover of night and the comfort of silence, i wrote down the only thing i could recall.

***

my purpose in life is to be a story teller. but to be a story teller, i need to be a story listener.

i want to collect stories because everyone has something to say and i have something to learn. my strand in life's collective ball of yarn is only as thin as everyone else's. but through differences in distance and length, we're stuck all the same. twisty and windy and messy. just as intended.

i'm ashamed i won't get to listen to everyone's stories. i'm ashamed that i don't try.

***

i can't hate, can i?

it takes too much effort. mental resources devoted to avoiding, swerving, and blocking. i'd rather let mister distance and missus time do their thing. we'll grow old and wither and die and all will be at peace because it's hard to hate under 6 feet of an earth that couldn't care less.

it's easier to find reasons to love. by virtue of being human, there's already a ground state of acknowledging the years and tears it took for our eyes to meet and our words to tether. but not everyone loves. i wish i could hate you for that.

i can do better than cling to afterimages. i can do better than be the last lonely passenger sitting by the benches. listening to the march of engines that carries everyone else to merry-go-rounds. or cliffs. after a while, i'll get up. the damp wood groans as if it were letting out a sigh of relief. i don't blame it. i shouldn't have missed the last train, anyways.

fuck, i should've bought a ticket.

} 2025.10.16