THE
PIECES

“‘Pain is productive. I look back at the things I wrote in the deepest valleys of my life and marvel. I doubt I could replicate that now, and I grieve this perceived loss of skill. I know my pain has changed. But it is still imminent. I still isolate. I still feel the urge to die, but have not yet taken action, like so many others. The stigma that comes with an idea or a belief is far more potent than the reality itself.’” I pause at the close of the passage then ask, “What d

Water. Give me water. My hand reaches for the pristine trickle of cool, my tongue burns with lust for a freezing mouthful, a lust hotter than the flames that carve my crimes into my skin. Get me out. Get me OUT OF HERE— Gehenna. What Jesus called a burning trash dump. What Christians call Hell. What I call my tomb. I repent. The flesh on my knuckles tear as it scrapes against the stone, unraveling blood and skin. Unraveling the rotten tape of my life, the winding record of si

10/5/25 Five years later, we take the old route to the park again. It’s dark. The moon lags a bit behind our steps, as do I. Our conversation is sparse. In those gaps only fallen leaves sputter, the last breaths of firecrackers under our feet. I try once for every few they take. Can’t ever make a shot still; we laugh. Some rounds I hang about under the net mindlessly slapping my palm against the hoop’s metal pole clanging like funeral bells like funeral bells.