I sit in a quiet, dimly lit room in front of a blank page opened on an old laptop. My eyelids are heavy, my thoughts are slow and hollow. I take a sip of tea in hopes of refreshment, but it is cold and tasteless. I smirk as I compare it to my writing.

So many things I want to write about. So many ideas. Yet every time I try to it all just slips out of my mind and into the infinite void that our brains are too weak and primitive to grasp. I begin to hate my mind, my body, and ultimately myself, spiraling down into remembering every single mistake and bad decision that I have ever made, once again reminding myself that I am a bad person, a scum, a villain, and that maybe it would be better for everyone around me if I wasn't even born in the first place.

No. It isn't true. Not entirely, at least. I take a deep breath and recite her words. I know them to be true, because she never lied to me. I wish I did the same. Her words are like a beacon in the dark stormy ocean, a reminder that there is light inside of me, and that it was this very light that had saved her years ago, and keeps doing so to this day.

I am hanging out with you under dubious circumstances. You make a clicking sound without opening your mouth, feet off the pedal, sports mode on. I say sentences and they drift into the clean air we're breathing. I'm not sure if you hear me because you don't reply.

We're driving and driving. You choose the music, I choose the mood. Sometimes one of us says something amusing. Most of these things don't settle; on occasion we find them hysterical, riffing and laughing until it catches our lungs. Past the window, a never-ending chain of the same old strip mall. There's Target, Trader Joe's, Chilli's. You repeat the memes which were our only reference to these American chains before we moved here.

Hanging out with you is often frustrating. Sometimes I feel so completely in company, other times I feel hopelessly alone. Your psyche drifts to somewhere far away. We both jostle from the real world to the world we've run from, from things we can see to things in that third digital spaces. We both message other people, outsourcing our company in every which direction.

It is hot and it is dry, a veritable tinderbox. We're not used to hanging out with our full disaster bag and nowhere to go. I'm used to having a list, you're used to looking out in awe when we arrive at somewhere we've researched. It's unclear whether this unchartered day is something magical or something to be feared. I look up at you and you don't look back. Your mind is in the mountains, mine curled in my grandparents' lounge. We both seek comfort as our home fills with smoke.

Hanging out right now isn't easy; it hurts, it's chaos, it's cloying. That said, in these dubious circumstances, there is nobody else with whom I'd rather be.

The best way to keep a secret? Hide it in plain sight. People will never notice what’s right in front of them because they’re too busy chasing what isn’t there. That’s just how our minds work.

I’ll admit, it felt strange—unsettling, even—when everyone suddenly had something to say after a particular loss. Before that, no one seemed to care. In the history of filmmaking, nobody had the faintest idea of what was going on. But the moment that event happened, the noise started. Everyone became so vocal. It caught me off guard. I kept asking myself, How did all these people find their voices overnight?

And then, it started to click. They weren’t reacting to the event out of concern; they were using it. People started pointing fingers, blaming others, but in truth, they were all part of the same group. That realisation hit hard. It was confusing.

And when you’re confused, you have two choices: assume you know the truth, or go looking for it. I chose the second. I started investigating, hoping to piece it all together. But instead of staying detached, I got pulled in—I became part of the mess I was trying to unravel.

Looking back, I think it was necessary. Painful, but necessary. It brought me closer to understanding the truth. Day by day, week by week, month by month, every little thing that happened started to make sense—every motive, every hidden agenda, every play for power.

It’s a strange feeling when it all becomes clear. It’s like waking up from a dream and realising you’ve been lied to your whole life. Their hate? A lie. Their love? A lie. Their arguments, their fights, their criticism—it’s all a lie. And I kept wondering, Why? Why all these lies?

There are plenty of reasons. Some people crave power—they’ll do anything to keep it, even if it means manipulating others. Some aren’t strong enough to hold their positions, so they rely on dirty tricks to stay afloat. And then there’s survival. People will do whatever it takes to survive, even if it means crossing lines that should never be crossed.

In this case, survival meant taking a life. It was heartbreaking. If we, as humans, are supposed to be the pinnacle of creation—whether by nature, God, or evolution—then how are we still behaving like this? We might be more civilised, but deep down, we’re still acting on the same primal instincts we’ve had since the beginning of time. Eliminating others, taking their place—it’s the same story, just dressed up differently now.

It’s a hard truth, and not everyone’s ready to face it. But for me, I’m glad it happened. As painful as it was, it gave me a sense of purpose when I felt like I’d lost my way.

Now, I can say this with certainty: I’m at peace. I truly am. Because I know the truth. And the truth has always been my ally. It always will be. Knowing the truth also means knowing how to share it—how to help others see it for what it is.

Could it have been avoided? Sure. But with power comes responsibility, and sadly, some people abuse that power. They forget what they owe to humanity. Instead, they become inhumane. And in doing so, they create false gods.

Still, I’m at peace. Because I see it for what it is. And I know the truth.

They say love belongs in the light, where it’s easy and safe. But they don’t know what it feels like to love you...to lose myself in the quiet corners of the night, where shadows stretch long and our hearts speak louder than words. The faint beams of moonlight cast us into focus, our silhouettes blending like whispers shared too softly to be heard by anyone else.

You are a spark, one I didn’t know I was waiting for, and I? I’m the fire that you’ve somehow made whole. Every time your hand brushes mine, every time your breath warms my neck, it feels like the beginning of something I’ll never be ready to end. Our love is not loud; it doesn’t demand the world’s attention. It’s quiet, steady, and unshakable, like the tide gently pulling the shore closer to the sea.

Your scent lingers in the air long after you’re gone, wrapping around me like a memory too beautiful to forget. When you’re near, the world softens. The edges blur, and nothing else seems to matter but the way your touch feels against my skin. There’s an ache in loving you, a sweetness that borders on pain. It’s not the kind of love that asks for permission; it simply takes hold, unrelenting and pure.

Tonight, as the stars press close and the world fades to black, I feel your lips against mine. The moment is simple and perfect...not because it’s flawless, but because it’s ours. Your hands find me in the dark, tracing the edges of who I am, grounding me in the only truth I’ve ever known: that I belong to you.

In this quiet, we are free...free to love without fear, without judgment. The world may not understand, but here, wrapped in the stillness of the night, there’s nothing to explain. Love, I’ve learned, doesn’t always come with grand gestures or perfect timing. Sometimes, it’s found in the way your heart beats in time with mine, in the way your arms feel like home.

This is what love looks like...not perfect, but real. And as the night holds us close, I know this is where I’m meant to be. With you. Always with you.

I slip my hand beneath her shirt and feel as she gets warmer and warmer with every passing hour. I want to get impossibly closer. I tangle our limbs in a soundless dance, listen to the symphony of her laugh and hums and heart all ryhtmycailly mine.

Her perfume is stronger this way, when I touch her so softly it holds no baring to the rough, taking personalities ive known. But she's never known this type of lust. She knows only of what I give her.

Tentative hands that brush, but do not claim.

Lips that hesitate out of nerves, not out of foreboding regret.

A body that flushes from every messy, often accidental exploration.

And I want to drown in it. Bathe in the moment, and prune beneath the purity of it all.

She doesn't know yet, but when I flip onto my stomach to look at her- sleepy eyed and soft smiled, I want to tell her I love her.

My face must give it away- because I know I am useless under her unwavering attention.

But she wouldn't know, because she's never known, and everything I give her is her first. It is as unknown to me, my softness and vulnerability, as it is natural to her.

I want to promise her everything she could ever want when she kisses my temple, then chin, then bridge of my nose and corner of my mouth.

Build her a future from empty pockets and sticks.

I want to tell her I am so hopelessly in love with her, but I can't.

Because ive never known a love like this. Its my first too.

I sat there trying to stomach the cold spaghettios they'd left

remembering all the bowls of milk with cheerios

how it wouldn't work with the dame bowl and milk but with shrunken down shelf stable onion rings.

I realized the power house of capitalism that's overtaken food shapes for the overall bottom line profits it onemany becomes fixated on when running a business; here,

is to shape the products like 0s to appear to have more while being mostly empty like some kind of puffer fish

Zeros, ohs, rings

But maybe

It's really a reversion to something more fundamentally embedded

A portal

A hole A passage/tunnel

That which gives then must be taken

I see through these shaped emptiness's yet

the tangible pain led sensory captivation the hunger caused from me withstanding the indulgence of such things

Was cured, almost immediately

freeing my world- My life, to think about the finer non-survival based things that not actively dying from starvation allows one to do

'Man on man

which rounded object will I have to defecate all this shaped goo once my body no longer finds it beneficial to take ownership of and blast it out the last rounded shaped hole before it slowly becomes one with the globed goo ball'

The bus rumbled down the deserted highway, the only sound the hum of the engine and the occasional crackle of the radio. I gazed out the window, watching as the landscape shifted from lush green forests to a barren wasteland. The sign on the side of the road read "Pripyat" in faded letters, and I felt a chill run down my spine. This was it, the infamous city that had been abandoned in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster.

"Nia!" I called out, as she ran out of the bus.

She's always getting into mischief. I saw her, running off towards the ruins.

"Nia, wait!" I shouted, taking off after her.

Our guide, a gruff but kind-hearted Ukrainian man named Viktor, stepped in front of me. "Be careful," he warned, his eyes serious. "The radiation levels are still high in some areas. We need to stay together."

I nodded, feeling a surge of worry. I caught up to Nia, who was exploring a abandoned playground. I grabbed her hand, holding it tightly.

As we made our way through the city, I couldn't help but feel like I was walking through a ghost town. The buildings stood empty, their windows shattered, their walls cracked. The streets were littered with debris, and the only sounds were the rustling of leaves and the occasional bark of a wild dog.

We stopped in front of a abandoned apartment building. Viktor told us that this was where many of the city's residents had lived. I couldn't help but wonder what their lives had been like, what they had left behind.

As we explored the building, I stumbled upon a room that seemed frozen in time. There was a child's doll on the floor, a book open on a table, a pair of shoes discarded in the corner. It was as if the occupants had just gotten up and left.

But they hadn't just left. They had been forced to flee, to abandon their homes and their lives. The thought left me breathless, my heart heavy with the weight of their loss.

As we continued our tour, I couldn't help but feel a sense of sadness. The city of Pripyat was a testament to the devastating power of human error. But it was also a reminder of the resilience of the human spirit.

We left the city, quite. The sun was setting, casting a golden glow over the desolate landscape. It was a hauntingly beautiful sight, one that I would never forget.

I closed my eyes, letting the silence of the city wash over me. The only sound was the soft beep of the Geiger counter in my hand, a reminder of the secrets that this abandoned city still held. And as I stood there, I knew that I would never forget this place, this haunting reminder of the devastating power of human error.

"Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 19:14

Is Christmas only for children? If you think so, you have lost some important hard-wiring in your brain. You're less human.

Our minds are a gestalt: beyond the autonomic drive to breathe and rhythmic impulses keeping our hearts beating, we're also born with innocence.

But innocence is not a lack of something.

Innocence isn't merely a blank slate—ignorance of the world. It is not the stupidity that proclaims that "sucker born every minute." Thereon are instruction sets written in invisible ink; we all come into the world hard-wired with that innocence.

Innocence has room for life's inscriptions, written in life's calligraphy, in many hues of ink. Sometimes, in colors of pain. But how easily our original instruction sets are overwritten!

Have you ever tried explaining to a child why some people hate others? Even people they don't know? Or why some people do unspeakable things to others, as if any reason could justify it? Especially societally?

Why can't a child understand why one religion sees hurting members of another as a good thing? Something that pleases God? Or hurting members of other nations; or skin? Would a child see homosexuality as bad? What if it were explained as love between two people?

When the children in Matthew swarmed Jesus and bugged his disciples, they shooed them away, like irritating gnats. Jesus rebuked them for slighting those closest to the God of the love he was teaching.

A child comes into the world as pure love.

Watch children's reactions to nonsensical hate. Or the Nightly News. They don't fail to understand because they're ignorant of the real world; or stupid. No, they fail because it contradicts the hard wiring we're born with. Calligraphy fails. Their slates become cluttered with graffiti, spray-painted in tears.

And blood.

If you've ever defended to a child any reason justifying hate and ill will—successfully—then perhaps you're the problem. How far have you distanced yourself from the loving God in whose presence you were born? (It's all downhill from there.)

This Christmas, suspend disbelief and join the innocence of childhood. Even if Jesus means nothing to you, innocence is a Godly thing and yours to miss.

Guilt hovers like a storm cloud when it comes to doing the things that we want to do. Not what we need to do, but the little moments in life that fill us with indescribable happiness. And not that I don’t feel happiness and liveliness throughout my day-to-day, because that isn’t a fair assessment of the life that I’ve spent so many years building. However, the routine of everyday life can breed monotony, and a feeling that you want to live. To truly grasp what it means to be alive, and experience something so filled with magic that you can almost believe in forces beyond those of the natural world.

It’s called enjoying the fruits of your labour. It answers the question of why you put in the hard work that you do, beyond simply surviving. You work to provide. Shelter, food, power. But you also work in hopes of escaping the often torturous malignancy of a brain that seems to work at the opposite end of a rope during a never-ending match of tug of war.

And for me, magic in its purest form is music. On weekends, after a long week of work, I put my favourite records on the turntable and sit in a small loveseat that I purchased for a mere 40 bucks on marketplace. I crack open a beer after the needle has been placed on the grooves, and the music starts and I close my eyes. It’s magic. It’s a time machine. It’s a world of endless possibilities, where a man can come to a fork in the road and explore multiple possibilities.

I can see a world where I chased my dreams of being a rockstar. I’m standing in the cold like I did so many years ago. I have a guitar case in my hand, and a fake leather jacket draped over a chequered plaid shirt. There’s an ominous January wind coming off of the river that in later years will fill me with dread, but on this evening, it does not because I’m playing my first rock and roll show.

I can listen to the music of Bruce Springsteen and feel my blue collar veins like roots from my family tree. Each story impactful and meaningful. The realisation that perhaps I’m one of the less fortunate dreamers from a rock and roll song, but also that maybe my life is as important as it gets. Like I said, the music is magic and the soft burn of the alcohol as it descends my throat into the pit of my belly, makes me feel lighter, like a feather but also heavy, depending on my mind set when I decide to crack open that can.

I tell my wife, “We need to see the boss live.” She agrees, and although there’s much discrepancy in our tastes in music, Bruce Springsteen is not one of them. She loves him, and we sing along to Badlands, and Adam Raised A Cain, and Prove It All Night in the car as we drive through town. Her as much a character in one of his songs as I am. Some days I look at her and see us as the two young protagonists of Born To Run, singing “I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul.” And then some days I look at her sad and defeated, living a life that isn’t so much living but just a conscious shadow walking through life feeling unseen and unheard. I think she resembles more the love interest in Racing in the Street, than she does Wendy from Born to Run. “She sits on the porch of her daddy’s house but all her pretty dreams are torn, she stares off alone into the night with the eyes of one who hates for just being born.”

Then the day comes where I buy tickets to his show in Montreal at the Bell Centre on Halloween night. Because of illness and fatigue, the show has been postponed a full year, so the rescheduled date has finally arrived and I can’t believe it’s here. I came so close to selling the tickets many times with a belief that the show would never happen.

We wake up that morning, get the kids ready for school, and then drop them off. They’re sad that we’re leaving and that storm cloud of guilt is hovering so close to my head that I can feel individual strands of hair meeting it like an electrical current. But we never take time for ourselves, and it’s been longer than I can remember that my wife and I sat alone in a car and acted like two people who fell in love before kids and mortgages entered the picture. “I promise this will be the only year we won’t take you trick or treating, okay?” I say to my kids, who are understanding. Their grandpa is going to take them, anyway. They aren’t going to miss out on Halloween.

We drive to my in-laws’ place to drop off car seats and tell them a couple of last-minute things about their few days with the kids. My mother-in-law smiles and says that she raised kids before, and she’s pretty sure she can handle it. She tells us to have fun and to drive safely.

After that, we grab coffee and we hit the road. We have a 10 hour drive ahead of us, but the day is young; the air is warm, and the sky seems undecided about whether it wants to provide us with sunshines, or hard rain. Before the drive is finished, we’ll get doses of both.

It feels strange just the two of us alone in a car. It's like a first date. She places her hand on my thigh and smiles at me. I can feel the poison being extracted from my body and in those moments on an open road with a warm cup of coffee, I ask myself, Why do we fight? We’re living similar lives and going through similar stresses, and that should bring us closer together, like the music of the boss does. When you find something that you have in common, you hold on to it; you bear hug it into submission, because if it gets loose, everything feels empty. So, again, I ask. Why do we fight?

For the first few hours, we don’t play music or the radio. We just talk. We’re excited about the concert because it’s been ten years in the making, but we’re trying not to get too excited until we get closer to our hotel, and until we actually get into the arena.

And even when we’re not talking, it isn’t an uncomfortable silence, it’s just silence where our heads are saying, Wow, there actually is silence in this world. It’s peaceful. I like it.

A few times, I can see her through my peripherals, and she’s smiling. She’s smiling the way she used to smile when I had a microsecond when I was going somewhere. When I’d get up on a small stage in a dingy bar with my acoustic guitar and my words and close my eyes and sing. I’d open them and she’d be at a table with friends and a drink that usually featured one, if not several colours of the rainbow, and she’d just smile.

Then, when the show was finished, I’d order a pitcher or two of beer and feel good. Feel happy that even if my music didn’t change the world, that at least, I put it out there. That was all a person could do.

And after we were both good and drunk, we’d stumble our way back to my apartment, and feel all the things that a person should feel. Those things that make you realise as clear as day that there is life and there is living.

And as the years go on, those smiles don’t appear as much. Those pleasures go through periods of such brevity that you forget how special that connection can be. And I don’t think that a concert will save a marriage, but I think Springsteen has been the soundtrack for our entire relationship, and that sitting together, just the two of us and hearing a 50 year catalogue in the space of three hours will let us escape into a place we used to go so often when we were younger.

The drive isn’t without its complications, because of heavy traffic and a GPS that ceased to work during crucial moments of finding our hotel, but we do arrive and we get to the show when the doors open.

My wife isn’t feeling great because she doesn’t always travel well, and the added stress of the last hour of driving had her feeling weak and sick. I was getting nervous as the show approached that she wasn’t going to enjoy it, or that she was going to throw up and have to leave.

But she powers through. We find our seats and wait for the show to begin. I still feel that heaviness sitting in my chest like an inability to relax and enjoy the moment. The anxiety is there like it so often is, but I’m still hopeful that the show will allow that feeling to subside. That it will truly allow me to live in the moment and nowhere else.

She still looks sick and unhappy that she’s making me unhappy, but I’m not. I just want her to enjoy the show and not remember it, only for the way she was feeling.

7:30PM, the show begins. We’re behind the stage, but we have full access to the huddle and prayer that the band gives before each show, and we get to see Springsteen walk on stage to a roaring crowd of over 20,000 people. All those years, saying that I needed to see him live and wondering if I ever would, because the rock stars from the 70s are now in their 70s, and like the boss says, “once you get older there are a lot more yesterday’s than tomorrows” fade away. Because there I am, watching him count off the band 1! 2! 3! 4! And the music starts, and it’s life. It’s life in its purest form.

It takes me three to four songs before I get over the shock of staring down at one of my biggest musical heroes, but once I do, it’s magic. My wife begins to feel better and I can see her staring down at him with a look of awe on her face. The pain is going away and is being replaced with magic.

As the band goes into Atlantic City, I can feel myself going back to the first time that I heard the song. Just a university student who’d recently started buying Springsteen albums. I was in my room listening to Nebraska when the second song came on. From the first seconds of, well, they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night. I was gone, baby gone.

I showed it to a friend I was playing music with and then showed it to my wife. And I was like, this is it.

This is what?

I don’t know, but this is it.

During those shows where my wife smiled at me, the way she did during the early stages of the drive. It’s all there. I’m here now, but I’m somewhere else too. I raise my hands with the crowd and I look around and I see stories. I can read them in their eyes. There are hardships in those eyes. There are worlds of people who kill themselves to survive. I can feel it.

There are two old men sitting next to us, perhaps the same age as the band, maybe younger or older. It’s hard to tell. But they’re seasoned in this world. They close their eyes and move their heads and they’re lost in it. Then when the encore comes, and it’s time to dance with the lights on, they get up and sway like they’re in their living room all alone. But it’s wonderful, it’s thousands of people doing the same thing. Our lives so different, yet so much the same, in that we all seek respite from days and nights of hardships. We all seek those moments where we live, not only exist. Where we’re using our time and living in it.

And it’s there. I can feel the weight getting lighter and the air going into my lungs easier. And I know that there are things I’ve done that I’m not proud of. There are moments where perhaps I would have chosen another path and seen where it took me, and I wonder, but doesn’t everybody? Is there anyone on planet earth that is happy with every choice they’ve ever made since they were old enough to make them? I doubt it. I sincerely doubt it.

But with music, is the power to understand that the world is filled with people who go through hardships. And the right music will tell you it also, Ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive. And that I wanna spit in the face of these badlands.

There are lyrics that tell us I’ve done my best to live the right way, I get up every morning and go to work each day. But your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold. Sometimes I feel so weak I just want to explode.

But the same song can also tell you: There’s a dark cloud rising from the desert floor. I packed my bags and I’m heading straight into the storm.

The songs are about hard times, but hard people too. That you can feel weak, like you’re going to explode, and that sometimes your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold, and that’s life. That’s life in all of its pain and glory. It’s right there. It tells you that you need to feel pain to understand the beauty of an evening without any of it.

That you need to come face to face with yourself, and especially a version of yourself that is bent on tearing down those walls that keep your sanity intact. But the songs will also tell you that the bad doesn’t always win.

Throughout the three hours of that show, I felt life the way it was meant to feel. Not always, but the way it feels for the people who lay down their lives every day, and who need a moment to say, yeah, this is fun and I’m not the only one who feels this way. There are 20,000 people here singing these songs and closing their eyes and drifting away into a world where the bad is put into submission by the power of community. By the power of love. And even as someone who is neither religious nor spiritual, you can’t deny something higher than ourselves in the rhythmic swaying and dancing of a sold-out crowd who all understand the difference between existing and living. Who are choosing, if only for a short while, to fully live and to fully experience what it means to feel your heart pound in your chest, to feel the blood flow through your veins, to allow yourself a moment where you can be vulnerable. Cry if you want to cry. Dance if you want to dance. Sing as loud as your heart desires because that is what magic is for.

And on the drive back, we listened to Springsteen music, and we reflected on an important evening. An evening where we spent time not just as mom and dad but as two adults who loved each other long before our lives changed, and wanted to make sure that it was all still there. And it was.

Sometimes we fight and ask if we’re only together for the kids. But it was nice to get away and realise that we do love each other. That we could still eat a romantic dinner on either side of a small table and look at each other and talk.

And then after another day of endless miles of open road, we finally made it back home. And as soon as the door opened, the kids came running out, hugging us in excitement and we know that our life is hard but it’s rewarding, and although there are days and sometimes weeks where we’re likely not doing much other than surviving, there is always magic around the corner. You just need to find it, see it, and make sure that when it comes, you’re living in it.

Every night down in the street i heard him open bin lids sorting through rubbish for tin cans, i hadn't seen but i just knew it, on dark almost every night.

bang, bang, bang

At the time i didn't have much money as i waited to start university living above a Thai restaurant in the city.

I had saved up a bag of coins, dollars, twenties, fifties for emergencies, and i had resolved to give this to the man who i called tin can man.

One night i heard him at the bins, shuffling, banging and rushed down the wooden steps through the restaurant out to the street below.

What i saw was a little bent over old man, intent on the bin he was looking in not noticing me at all.

I walked up to him with the bag in hand and said, 'Hey mate, i have something for you'. He had turned quickly, flinching at the same time, expecting an attack.

'I have these coins for you please take them', i had said quietly. He looked at me for a moment then took the bag, not saying a thing.

Then i went back to my room, and he to his life on the streets, but at least i helped if only a little bit.