I write this post for curious eyes. Here, this space, is where I deposit words. I make a withdrawal from my mind and I leave the remainder here for YOU to peruse. Thoughts, those that I can make sense of, are leftovers from the chaos that is my mind. Read them like you read the pattern of ash after a fireworks show. It's an honest picture, but understand that most of it drifted off with the wind.

I remember being a child and marveling at the minds of adults. So wise, I used to think. So smart. So responsible. So brave, always protecting us kids and looking out for our best interest. So unwilling to let us down, us kids. So comforting to be protected, to be looked after, to know that no matter what I'd be looked after and supported. No matter how horrible I felt, at least adulthood would be an easier go.

Easily pleased, those adults. Smile, nod, say something cute. Don't shit in the pool, sleep when told, get good grades, keep up appearances. The rest will take care of itself.

Inevitably I hit the age of ten.

The greatest skill a parent can teach a child is how to handle disappointment. Most parents are able to deliver a curriculum of controlled failure, moments that scream the following lesson to the absorbent ears of a child: Don't expect too much. This is it.

It always had a tone of apology, a well-deserved apology, an apology required by our instinctual ability to hope for better.

"I'm sorry I brought you here." That's why I choose to never utter that sentence. I choose to not reproduce.

Sad part about that is that the world could use more people like me. Smart, competent, analytical, restrained, sensitive, tall, filled with perseverance, optimistic despite the odds, high pain tolerance, a ready, hungry, wanting smile, a believer in the good parts of existence, the hugs and laughs and good swallows of good foods.

And flawed. Very flawed. When I shed a layer of skin the blotches don't go away, no matter how much I try.

We are electrons, us people, just little sparks of energy, flowing in one direction or another. We aren't water, we aren't wind, we aren't lambs, we aren't grocery-store stockers.

Well, maybe we're currents. We flow. Maybe we're water. We boil. Maybe we're wind. We're gentle. Maybe we're lambs. We fear. Maybe we're grocery-store stockers. We can't wait for the next thing.

Maybe we're big dumb dirty apes who dream between moments of instinct, like when a moth rests. We know the next flutter is just a few beats away but there we sit, persistent, pondering, grasping the immovable brick wall, awaiting a wind to arouse us or a rain to disturb us or we merely count down the dwindling moments of existence. Drawn forever are we towards the light, towards the brightness that washes away our inherent darkness.

Only in rare moments do we pause and appreciate how silly the whole thing is.

I've watched wisps of smoke dissipate into the sky past the light radius of a campfire and I've been jealous. You lucky molecules. Stop showing off your curves.

Heat bleeds.

Death is the shadow of a burned out lightbulb. It exists forever but it was there before we came here and glowed.