Lukas, you’ve recently become infatuated with maps. You sit on the floor, your maps sprawled out, staring intently as your finger traces across continents, oceans, and rivers. You softly whisper to yourself while your mom and I exchange smiles. You’re only six, and yet, you bury me every time in a game of Find the Country. It’s not even close—and no, I’m not letting you win. Not at all.

Recently, you asked me about the places I’ve been to.

“I haven’t traveled a whole lot,” I said. “Just around Canada.” I pointed to Quebec City, then Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and finally Winnipeg.

“You’ve been to Manitoba?” you asked, your eyes lighting up.

I told you, yes, and that’s where I was when you were born.

“You weren’t here when I was born?” you asked, your voice filled with outrage.

I shook my head. “No, I wasn’t.”

Naturally, the follow-up question was, “Why?”

I gave you the short and sweet version: your mom and I were living in a small apartment in downtown Fredericton when she told me she was pregnant. So, I decided to get a job with the railroad because it paid well and would give us a chance to get a house—to start life like a proper family. But that meant training in Winnipeg for the entire summer of 2017, which is when you were born. I came back on August 4th and nervously held you for the first time.

There are parts I left out, for what I think are obvious reasons, but I’ll tell you now because if—or when—you read this, you’ll be older.

When your mom told me she was pregnant, I freaked out. As much as I’d love to say I was a man, that I stood up and instantly came up with a solution, I didn’t. I didn’t want to have a kid at that point—I was terrified. Absolutely terrified. I was still infatuated with a self-serving world that featured only one main character: me.

I wanted to be a rock star. You might laugh when you find some of my old songs on Soundcloud and ask, “You seriously thought these would propel you to rock stardom?”

I won’t get offended. I’ll probably laugh too and tell you, “Yes, I did.” Your late teens and early twenties can be a time of massive overconfidence—the end of feeling invincible.

Today, I can’t write a single song I’d feel comfortable sharing with the world. I ask myself all the time, what happened? I used to get up and play in front of drunk frat boys. Now, I can barely sing in front of your mother. Tough but true.

When your mom told me she was pregnant, I remember it clearly—or at least the memories feel clear. Whether they’re 100% factual, I can’t say, but I’ll tell it the way I remember.

I was coming home from work at the lumber yard—or possibly another job—and your mom was sitting in our bedroom on the edge of the bed, gripping the sheets. She looked pale and frightened, and I suppose I already knew what she was going to say. When she told me, I flew off the handle. I think I even left. Not my proudest moment, but I eventually came to my senses.

I grabbed a coffee downtown and thought about everything. The small apartment that seemed fine for two poor students—or recent graduates—felt woefully inadequate for a child. Drug addicts lived in the adjacent apartment, and it wasn’t unusual to see syringes littering the steps and parking lot. The thought of rolling you in a stroller through that mess, past the high hellos, made tears well up in my eyes. I felt like I’d failed you before you were even born.

Looking back, I was overthinking. We could have made it work for a little while until we came up with a plan.

Instead, I decided to pursue a career I’d been running for my entire life: the railroad. It ran in the blood of my father, uncle, grandfather, and great-uncle. CN was hiring in my hometown, Campbellton, which seemed unbelievable for a post-industrial town hanging on by the skin of its teeth. But it was true—the men who’d started in the 70s were finally retiring, and a position opened up. I called my father and asked for his help, and he was happy to oblige.

After a few rounds of interviews, I got the job. The training was in Winnipeg for the entire summer.

Your mom and I had many conversations about whether this was the right path. Ultimately, we decided it was. She and her parents would help her move while I was gone. When my training was over, we’d settle in Bathurst. New house, new son, new job. It was a lot, but we made it work... for a little while.

(For the record, we moved to Bathurst because getting hired in Campbellton meant working in Miramichi as well. To avoid hotel rooms, I traveled between the two.)

I don’t know if you’ll care about this when you get older. Maybe you won’t, and if that’s the case, that’s fine by me. All I know is that every day, I watched you two grow a little, shedding the skin of your previous selves. Every day, I remind myself that, Eric, you need to write about them—or at least, start taking notes—so you don’t forget. And every day, I waved it off, why? Out of fear, perhaps. Fear of the stakes involved in writing about the world that means the most to you—the people who mean the most to you—and not hiding what parenthood and marriage really are. They’re beautiful, but hard. Boy, are they hard?

But I think the real reason is that I love you two so much that, I fear that I can’t write from above it. I’m not an 80-year-old man who’s looking back on his life through scrapbooks and half-memories, faint truths and illusions. I’m living right in it. As I write this very sentence, you’re both playing Lego on the floor next to me, screaming bloody murder and running back and forth from room to room. I tell myself that maybe I should wait until you’re older to write these stories, because there are still so many stories to come. But I think, I’ll try this now. I can’t tell you why, but it feels important.

You two need to be at the center of a story. As a writer, I can’t avoid it—nor do I want to. With fiction, I can hide behind the characters. I can scatter little pieces of my life through them, like pixie dust. But when you write nonfiction, it feels a little like standing up in front of a room filled with everyone you’ve ever known, taking off your shirt, zipping down the entirety of your midsection, and saying, “Hey, here’s everything that I am. And likely everything I’ll ever be.”

It’s a tough one, we’re so accustomed to hiding in plain sight. From the time we’re born, we’re trained—directly or indirectly—to stuff down that which causes us grief. We’re experts at it. Writing feels like self-exploitation. It feels like guilt, but a pang of necessary guilt.

Though I try my best to ensure that you both know the man behind the mask, I know there will still be times in life when something keeps you from coming to me. When embarrassment and shame creep into your consciousness, making you feel like you’re letting me down—or your mother. Times when you’ll be in your bedroom, feeling like the whole world is wrong. Wondering when you woke up to streets that felt different, skies that looked sinister, friends who were never truly friends—just small-town bodies in close proximity. It will happen, as it happened to me.

And though my parents never told me not to come to them, I still felt a natural inclination toward solitude. Reprieve through music and movies. Through anything except talking. Because even if you have someone to go to, sometimes, you just don’t have the words. That’s life. For better or worse.

At the end of the day, I’m writing these stories because I need to. As much as I need to breathe, to eat, to hydrate, to love—I need to write. And what’s more important than the two of you? As I hope you’ll gather from these stories, the answers will be spread out throughout the entire book.

Nothing

Tara watches the steam rise from her coffee in precise helical patterns, the way heat always dissipates in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics. She thinks about entropy, how all systems tend toward disorder, how even the careful structures built of love and shared mornings begin to dissolve. James is saying something about needing to talk, his voice carrying that familiar frequency she has learned to recognize, the one that signals emotional turbulence barely concealed by forced calm. The afternoon light through the kitchen window catches the dancing dust between them, suspended in Brownian motion, random and purposeless like the words forming between his pauses.

He says he’s been thinking, and she already feels the framework of their life together starting to fracture. She notices the micro-expressions she once memorized: the subtle twitch in his left eye, the unconscious movements of his hands that betray the effort behind his measured tone. She wants to tell him about quantum entanglement, how two particles remain connected across any distance once they’ve interacted, how they affect each other in ways that defy logic and laws. Maybe if she could explain this, he would understand what it means to try to untangle two lives so deeply intertwined. Instead, she says she knows, because she does. She has known in the quiet, cellular way that bodies know when to change, to divide, to surrender.

The silence between them grows like a living thing, filling the space with its presence. She observes how their breathing no longer syncs, how the rhythm of shared sleep and shared life has fractured into jagged, mismatched patterns. He is explaining about growing apart, about wanting different things, about how love sometimes isn’t enough. The words feel both too simple and too heavy, like trying to map a fractal with straight lines, and she begins to catalog the physicality of pain. Elevated heart rate. Constricted throat. Cortisol and adrenaline spilling into her bloodstream as if preparing her for a battle that isn’t there.

She thinks about binding energy, about how even the strongest atomic bonds can be broken with sufficient force, about how matter cannot be destroyed but only transformed. She wonders what they will become, these two people who have shared a bed and a bathroom, the easy intimacy of familiar routines. She says maybe he’s right, because the scientific method demands she follow the evidence, even when it leads to failure, even when it breaks apart hypotheses that once felt unshakable.

The space between them stretches, expands, an invisible force pulling them apart like galaxies adrift in an accelerating universe. She watches him collect his keys and wallet, small acts of departure rendered monumental in their finality. She thinks about conservation, how nothing is truly lost but only changes form, but the thought feels hollow. When he pauses at the door, she sees him suspended in a moment of wave-particle duality, leaving and not leaving, until the act of observation collapses the uncertainty into fact. He leaves.

She sits alone in the kitchen—her kitchen now—and watches the steam rise from her coffee in precise helical patterns, dissipating into the air as heat always does. She thinks about entropy, about how all systems tend toward disorder, about the inevitable unraveling of even the most careful designs.

The green light in your eyes shines bright,

Like summer noon’s warm, golden hue.

In them, the years of wisdom lie,

Yet youth’s soft grace still lingers, too.

You’re like a garden, autumn-grown,

Where every leaf holds lines of lore.

But in your heart, with passion’s tone,

Young love remains, alive and pure.

Your gaze is calm, like rivers deep,

Yet holds both strength and hidden fire.

Each word you speak is warm and sweet,

And lit with sparks of past desires.

You’re vibrant as the autumn leaves,

Your green-eyed glance, a silent spring.

I’m yours, a captive every eve,

To love you while the moon still sings.

Desire

The ache of wanting

Your face on every woman I see

My love for you grows

It pulses in my chest

As the waves pound the shore

I need you more than I can say

Yet I try to everyday

My soul longs to be with yours

When our bodies embrace

Joined together

In the rhythm of love and passion

Perfectly synchronized

Breathing each other’s breath

Knowing glances

We achieve the ultimate pleasure

An orgasm consumed by love

Becoming as one

We are complete

Our fate has been met

When I first met John, he was a rebel. He hated the system and everything associated with it. I was raised on and subsequently abandoned Catholicism. But I never could shake that fear and obedience of the law and rules and structure. John had none of these qualms, and it was exciting. I wanted to be him so badly, but I just couldn’t. So I settled for being with him instead.

He came into my life as a hitchhiker, drifting in and out of cars and cities. I was on my way home from visiting my parents out of state. He told me where he was headed, but I don’t really remember where it was. He never made it there. We got to talking and found out we had quite a bit in common. He’d also been raised in an excessively strict household. He’d also been raised religiously, though Southern Baptist rather than Catholic. He was also into classic rock and knew the CD I had in the car word-for-word.

We stopped at a Denny’s in the middle of the night for some coffee. It was there that he mentioned that he didn’t have a place to stay when he got wherever it was that he was going. So I suggested that he could just stay with me at mine.

“But that’s not where I’m going.”

“I know.”

From that moment, I think we both understood that there was no going our separate ways. I’d found him attractive from the moment I saw him, thumb out on the side of the road. It’s the reason I stopped, to be honest. He must have seen something in me too because he agreed to come back to mine. Mine, that was still five hours away.

The rest of the drive back I thought he might sleep, but either the coffee was doing its job, or he was wired on my company. We continued talking, comparing our upbringings, and our respective takes on religion based on what we were taught as children. We were of similar minds that there might be an afterlife, but there was no way to know until we were there.

Once we pulled up to my home, I helped him get his bags, leaving most of my own in the car. We managed to get through the door but not much further before we deposited everything including our clothes on the ground. We made our way into the bedroom, our bodies intertwined and clumsily knocking various items to the floor. As we climbed into the bed he pulled away from me momentarily.

“Charles, are you sure about this?” He asked. “I don’t mind, but it is kinda fast.”

I don’t know what came over me, but I looked him dead in the eyes and said–

“I’ve never been so sure in my entire life.”

After that, some people might say we had sex, but I’ll always maintain that we made love. I believe it was present that early on. In fact, I believe it was present from the moment we saw each other. I know for sure that there was electricity coursing through my veins, and I hope, much like most people would, that there was the same reaction on his end.

The next morning I made us breakfast. Over it, we talked some more. He was trying to join some kind of ecological resistance movement, one that I’d heard of. They’d blown up pipelines and done other things to get themselves labeled as eco-terrorists. Or, it was assumed it was them. No one had come right out and claimed ownership of the attacks. But they were known for their less-than-non-violent espousing in regards to what we were doing to the planet. When I confronted him about it, he smiled and said that if he had to become a terrorist to enact change, then that’s just what he had to be.

I’d never had a cause that I was willing to die for, never an ideal that I was willing to kill for. So I found his dedication to his cause intoxicating. I asked him why he was so invested, why he cared so much. He said that the world was here long before us, and should be here long after we were gone. But at the rate things were going, there wasn’t going to be much world left for future generations. I melted at that answer, thinking of the children.

As I gathered our plates he asked me what I was doing for the rest of the day. I told him I had to go to work later, but I’d be back around seven.

“Do I need to be gone by then?” He asked.

I was slightly taken aback by the question. Of course, I understood the question, and why he asked it, but I hadn’t even thought of kicking him out.

“I was hoping you’d still be here when I got home, actually,” I said.

He seemed surprised, and I was a little bit too. I wasn’t the type to let strangers into my house, let alone let them stay there while I was gone. But for some reason I trusted him. So I told him what food I had and where I kept the remote to the TV, and left him alone, in my house, for over eight hours, hoping he wouldn’t run away.

He never did.

A few months later we were in the grocery store buying fruit together. I was in heaven. I’d tried to have relationships like this before, but the dating pool in my fairly small town was pretty nonexistent. At least, for people like us it was. So for him to come into my life the way he did was like something out of a dream, and I didn’t want to wake up.

It’s not like he’d had a ton of boyfriends before me either. Coming from the Bible Belt didn’t lend itself much to being homosexual. It was one of the reasons he’d left home, or been thrown out of it rather. His parents weren’t accepting of who he was in the slightest. Nor was just about anyone in his town. So he left it. He’d been on his own for years now, slowly drifting around. But now he had me.

Every fairytale has its evils though. My town wasn’t Bible-thumping, but it wasn’t exactly gay-friendly. We had our fair share of run-ins with hate. But for the most part, we kept to ourselves. We tried not to be too affectionate in public, or at least I did. John didn’t care much about what anyone else thought, so naturally to him I was a bit prudish. But he truly seemed to enjoy riling me up and “bringing me out of my shell,” as he called it. I was content holding hands, but he wanted kisses and such. I would give them begrudgingly, but I secretly liked them. He knew I did.

Not everyone liked them though, and some people were more vocal about it than others. John was vocal right back. Sometimes it got him in trouble, but for the most part, we were able to avoid it. Until that night.

We were walking in the neighborhood on a cool, breezeless night some year or so into our relationship. It was so nice outside, and we were walking hand in hand. Suddenly, something hit me in the head. I stumbled and raised my hand to my head. I was bleeding and covered in beer. I looked up and saw one of our regular tormentors, David. He was yelling slurs at us in a slurred voice. John was giving it right back. David came up and got up in John’s face, and before I could do anything John punched him. They began fighting, and I pulled out my phone and started to call the police, looking around and screaming for someone to help us.

A shot rang out. It felt like the slowest I’d ever moved as I turned my head to look at them. John was already falling to the ground, and David was standing there, a horrified look on his face as the gun shook in his hand. When he looked up we locked eyes, and I could see fear and regret. Then two more shots rang out, and he fell backward. I looked to John and saw him with his hands outstretched, holding the gun we kept in the bedside table for home defense. He dropped it to the ground, and I saw him cough up blood. I ran over to him, crying harder than I ever had in my life.

As tears obscured my vision, I picked him up and held him in my arms. It had all happened so fast. I hadn’t had a chance to do anything.

“I thought I might need that. I don’t know why, but I had a feeling,” he said.

I heard sirens going in the distance, and neighbors were looking nosily out of their windows, blinds drawn but cracked.

“Don’t talk,” I said. “Don’t say anything, just wait for the ambulance. It’s got to be on the way.”

“Charles,” he said before another bloody cough. “I love you, but I’m not gonna make it. This is it, I know it.”

“No, no it can’t be,” I sobbed. “You can’t leave me.”

“I’m sorry Charles. But hey, look on the bright side– I’m gonna find out what the afterlife looks like.”

My shoulders heaved and tears ran down my face, landing on his and stinging my cheeks.

“Charles, I’m starting to go. I’m getting cold. Which is kind of funny don’t you think?”

At that, I wiped my tears and looked at him with incredulity.

“What could possibly be funny about that, John?”

“Because Hell is hot,” he said with a smile on his face as he closed his eyes. “And according to both our faiths, that’s exactly where I’m going.”

“I love you, John.”

Silence greeted me. No witty banter, no smart comment. Only silence. I could barely hear the echoes of the police getting closer, more and more sirens filling the air. The only thing that filled my ears was my own heartbeat as I looked down at my lifeless lover. As I gazed at him, I saw the gun in my peripheral. A thought shot through my mind.

I reached down and grabbed it as the police arrived. They got out of their cars and shouted at me to put it down, but I had a plan. I barely heard them as I raised the gun to my temple.

Honestly, it felt natural to follow him into Hell. In a way, there’s nothing I’d rather do. Nowhere I’d rather be.

The trip with Daniel was supposed to be a simple one. We’d pay to climb the mountain, and our guide would help take us to the top. Simple. If I’d known what was really in store for us, I might never have gone.

It was our second day on the mountain when the avalanche happened. We saw it coming and managed to get underneath a rocky outcropping that protected us from most of it. Our guide was not as lucky, and instead was crushed under the snow when part of the outcropping collapsed underneath the force of the snow. He disappeared with a short scream, obliterated by the white onslaught raining down the mountain. And with that, we were trapped, three walls of rock and one of snow. We were on the less traveled side of the mountain because we’d wanted a challenge, so it was unlikely that anyone would find us. Even after they started looking a few days or a week from now when we hadn’t come back, it would be a miracle if they found us at all, let alone before we’d starved or frozen.

Space was not much of an issue; we had plenty in our icy prison. But supplies were something of a problem. The guide was the one with the food. All we really had was basic supplies, and a hot top with a little propane tank. Daniel thought it would’ve been fun to cook something on top of the mountain. Instead, we sat across from each other in this space we would share for potentially the rest of our lives, cold and miserable.

“Hey Danny,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“You remember that time when we were kids, and we made that shitty little igloo in my backyard?”

I did. Daniel and I had been in each other’s lives for as long as I could remember. We’d grown up together, best friends. We only took a break from each other during college, when he went away while I stayed in town and got a job.

“Yeah, I remember that. It ended up collapsing on us.”

“Hopefully the one we’re in right now is made of tougher stuff,” he said with a chuckle.

Daniel always could find the good in the bad. He could always cheer you up in a shit situation. He was just that kind of guy. The kind to crack jokes when you were at your worst, make you laugh even when you didn’t want to. Make you smile even when the only thing you thought possible was a frown. He was just a genuinely great guy, and everyone saw it in him. What he saw in me though, I didn’t know. I’d always been ungainly and unpopular. But he never left my side.

“Hey Daniel,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Why’d you come back?”

He scrunched up his face. As though the question had offended him.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“You could’ve been anything, gone anywhere. But you came back to our shitty town. Why?”

And it was true. Daniel had always excelled academically, and always been gifted athletically. He was just a good ol’ homegrown American boy. When he went to college, it was a full ride. After that, he went to medical school and became a doctor, a surgeon. Then, he came back to our hometown. The hometown I’d never left.

He seemed to ponder for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

“I just really missed it. I missed the people. I missed my family,” he said. “You can only get so far out there without the people you love.”

I leaned forward and said –

“Bullshit.”

He seemed taken aback by this, the soft smile disappearing from his face.

“You had the whole world to explore, you could be making a million a year, you could be driving exotic cars, but you came back to our hellhole for family? Family you could’ve visited every year at Christmas? I’m not buying it.”

The small cave became quiet with my outburst, even the crackling of the snow seeming to silence itself. He wrapped his arms around his knees as he brought them to his chest. After a few minutes, I really began to feel bad. I shouldn’t have said that. My life was full of things I shouldn’t have said. Unlike Daniel, I was dumb. I had little common sense, and I’d been working shitty minimum-wage jobs since I was sixteen. I was twenty-six now. A decade of mediocrity. I was only on this trip now because he'd paid for everything.

“It was for you, Danny.”

Daniel’s voice pulled me out of my self-pity. I looked at him and we locked eyes. He was serious.

“Wha-”

“I moved back because I missed you, Danny,” he said, cutting me off. “Life just wasn’t the same without you man.”

I couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“What are you talking about Daniel?”

He sighed, his breath freezing over in the air. He looked resigned.

“I missed you. I just couldn’t find anyone like you out there, and I tried. I wanted to have someone with me, someone like you. But there was no one. They just couldn’t fill your shoes man.”

I was in shock. No one had ever said something like that to me before. No one had ever told me I was really worth much, let alone that I was irreplaceable.

“Daniel, where is this coming from?”

He shrugged. “You’re my best friend dude. Always have been, always will be. I love you, bro.”

“I love you too man”, I said, holding back tears. “But I still don’t get it, there’s nothing special about me.”

“That’s not true Danny, there’s always been something special about you. You’ve always looked at life in a way I never could. Even in your darkest hour, you didn’t give up. You kept going.”

He was talking about when I was addicted to heroin. It started shortly after I heard he’d gotten into med school. I looked at my life and didn’t see anything worth living, so I tried to escape. I did it off and on for years, getting clean and relapsing. But when Daniel came back to town and found out, he sent me to a really nice clinic that actually helped me. He paid for everything, and to repay him I’d stayed sober ever since. It’d been two years now since I’d touched the stuff. But I still didn’t understand.

“You always saw the art in life, the beauty. You looked at nature like it was a gallery, not a terrarium. You never cared about understanding, you could just exist. I could never do that.”

With that, I saw tears in his eyes as well. I saw pain. He was telling me something he’d never told anyone, I could tell. This was something he’d been living with for a while.

“I wanted to hate you sometimes,” he said. “Because you seemed so happy just to be here. But I could never bring myself to it. I just wanted to be like you so badly, Danny. So badly.”

We were both crying now, the tears stung my cheeks, the cold turning them into icy rivulets of sadness. He was more composed, but I was sobbing. I couldn’t hold it back. I’d always wished the opposite, that I could just be more like him. I’d always wanted my parents to be proud of me like his were, for people to like me the way they did him, for girls to talk to me so easily. I just wanted to be better. And this whole time he wanted to be, what? Dumber? So stupid that the weight of life could be lifted off of his shoulders. What a weight, what a horrible burden he carried, I thought bitterly. To be so loved.

“Fuck you, Daniel,” I said, venom in my voice.

Now, he was the shocked one. His mouth opened in surprise.

“Fuck you. You think you’d be better off as me? You think being some dumb, heroin-addicted loser who barely got out of high school would be better than what you are? A fucking doctor! That’s what you are, you’re a fucking doctor, and everyone loves you.

What the fuck is wrong with you?”

His mouth shut tensely, and he choked back his tears. Once again the quiet reigned supreme in our prison cell. After what felt like an eternity, in actuality probably just a few minutes, he whispered something.

“What?” I said.

Again, he said something softly. So softly it couldn’t pierce the sound of silence.

“I can’t hear you, Daniel.”

“I said I don’t know!” he roared.

His suddenly fierce demeanor caught me off guard, and my anger was quickly forgotten.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me Danny! But something must be because I hate my life! Every day I wish I hadn’t woken up. Every night when I go to sleep I hope it’s for the last time! Do you know how many times I’ve fantasized?! Do you know how much I wish I had the balls to just blow my brains out?! But I can’t, Danny! I can’t fucking do it!”

Now I was fearful. Daniel was standing, shouting at me as I curled tighter into myself.

I felt like a child who’d once again said something stupid. I spoke before I thought about the implications. He took a step towards me.

“I guess I’m getting what I want, huh Danny?! I guess it’s finally ALL gonna happen for me! Everything I ever wanted!”

I was terrified and grabbed the pick next to me. Daniel saw this, and a look of realization and self-conscious horror came across his face. He backed off and sat down once again. I clutched the pick to my chest, trembling in fear rather than cold.

We sat there, him looking forlorn and dead inside, and me, shaking. The temperature was dropping, and soon I was shaking with the cold.

“Hey, Danny.”

“Yeah, Daniel?”

“Can you do me a favor?”

“Sure, Daniel.”

“Can you take that pick, and put it right in my temple?”

His request startled me at first, but after a moment of thought it didn’t seem outlandish, given his recent revelation. But I didn’t have the guts. We both knew it.

“It won't hurt me,” He said calmly. “One good swing, that’s all it’ll take.”

My hands were sweating, writhing about the pick in nervousness.

“Please, Danny. I don’t want to freeze to death.”

My eyes widened, and I felt nauseous at his request. There was no way I could. I couldn’t murder my best friend.

“Daniel, I know we got a little heated, but we don’t need to do anything like that. We could still get rescued!”

“I don’t want it to come to that,” he said calmly. “I don’t want to make it out of here.”

“Daniel,” I said, pleadingly. “Daniel please don’t ask that of me. I can’t do it.”

He looked up into my teary eyes, and I could see the defeat in his.

“Okay, Danny,” he conceded. “But know this, I won’t make it out of this life alive, and I’d rather it be by your hand than mine. So please, reconsider doing me this mercy.”

With that, he laid down and rolled over to face away from me, and I was alone. I sat there, wondering what he meant by that. His life was wonderful! He had so much to live for, why wouldn’t he want it? The longer I sat there, the colder I got, and the more confused. Eventually, I crawled over to Daniel, and on my knees I asked him –

“Why?”

“Why what, Danny?”

“Why don’t you want to live?”

He was silent.

“I can’t do this if I don’t know why, Daniel.”

Silence.

“You’ve got so much to live for, you’ve got such a great life. Why end it?”

More silence. And then –

“Because none of it means anything. It’s all a pointless charade. It’s all just a chore at this point. The only thing I want anymore in this life is you, and I can’t have just that. So I don’t want any of it.”

I thought for a moment.

“What do you mean, all you want is me?”

He sighed.

“I told you, Danny, I love you, man.”

I sat behind him for a moment. Then I raised the pick into the air. My hand was shaking violently, and so I gripped it with both. Tears streamed down my face as I tried desperately to do what he wanted, to give him the only real thing he’d ever asked of me.

“Danny?”

“Y-yeah Daniel?” I stuttered, my speech impeded by my heaving chest.

“Thank you.”

I froze, my hands stilling themselves. And then I swung.

My aim was true, and with a horrible squelching sound the pick sank itself into his head. He jerked, then lay still. Blood should’ve been rushing from his head, I thought, but instead, it flowed slowly. It was pushed out by ambient pressure rather than a heartbeat. It was an almost peaceful scene. I sank back onto my heels and looked at what I’d done. It took a few seconds, but the realization soon washed over me, and I began to weep once more. Now that I’d done it, I was once more jealous of him. I’d never thought to get out, to end it. And now, here I was, trapped with the body of the person I loved the most in the world.

I began removing my clothes, and as I did the cold cut me deeply, quickly reaching into my bones. If he was gone, I wanted to follow suit. I just hoped freezing to death wasn’t going to be long or painful. Soon, though, I stopped trembling. I was confused, and tired, very tired. I laid down next to Daniel, holding him tightly, the pick still in his head.

“Hey, Daniel?”

“Yeah, Danny?”

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that you hurt for so long.”

“It’s okay, Danny. It’s alright.”

Even if obscured by overcast weather,

the Hunter’s Moon

still radiates.

It maintains a steadfast presence

until the building clouds, as they always do,

are dispersed by the wind.

Then the night sky is illuminated once more

so those fortunate enough to look up

will be in awe.

Ignore outside forces

attempting

to lessen your uniqueness.

Reject negativity,

both external and internal,

that questions your worth.

Share what you have to offer

to shine on others,

like a Hunter’s Moon.

Morning fragments (like glass)

scatter across linoleum. The pills

sit quiet in their plastic days.

They whisper sometimes—

tuesday is green

wednesday tastes like copper

thursday has teeth

The walls breathe in out

in out

(or maybe that's the neighbor's radio)

seeping through cracks that weren't there

yesterday

Mother's voice on the phone:

honey are you eating enough

but her words come through backwards

hguone gnitae uoy era yenoh

I watch them fall

like dead birds on the kitchen floor

The mirror holds

someone else's face today

(I keep it anyway)

Clock hands spin

stop

spin

stop

Time has grown thorns

The medication cup

tips over in slow motion

white circles rolling

into corners where

shadows gather to watch

There's a garden growing

in my skull—weeds and roses

tangled with synapses

blooming in colors

that don't exist

The doctor's pen scratches

scratches

scratches

making constellations

of my broken thoughts

I fold these moments

into paper birds

let them nest

in my chest

where they peck

at what's left

of truth

Night comes

(or has it been here all along?)

The walls whisper their secrets

in morse code dots of shadow

...---...

Tomorrow might be

someone else's memory

but today

I am

almost

certain

of gravity

In winter's embrace, the morning's cold bite,

The warmth of my blanket, a refuge tonight.

It whispers like dreams, a soft, tender call,

“A little more slumber, don’t rush, let love stall.”

The dawn creeps in quietly, stealing my light,

Yet the allure of my cocoon holds me tight,

Outside, frosty fingers curl ’round windowpanes,

But here I am drifting, where comfort remains.

With each gentle tug, my eyelids do weigh,

The world calls for action, but here I will stay.

Nestled and snuggled, with thoughts drifting high,

Oh, to linger in warmth 'til the sun fills the sky.