Month: January 2026

The individual skeptic

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

I was born an unfinished question in a house of ready‑made replies.
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They dressed me in their hand‑me‑down whys.
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The TV told me who to be before I knew my own first name.
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I memorized the script and called it “my” acclaim.
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Teachers drew straight lines where my thoughts tried to bend and roam.
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I learned to color in their boxes and called that “home.”
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The preacher thundered doctrines while my doubts sat shivering in the pew.
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I nodded like a bobblehead and called it “true.”
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Friends passed around opinions like a vape we all inhaled.
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We coughed out second‑hand convictions, then exhaled.
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My phone kept buzzing, “Here’s your tribe, just click agree.”
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It sold me mass‑produced rebellion labeled “me.”
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I wore my curated quirks like a neon crown of thorns.
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Still cried at night because I felt like one more clone in uniform.
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I posted “live your truth” with filters hiding half my face.
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Then wondered why my heart still felt out of place.
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Some days I preached free will while running on a leash of fear.
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I called it “God’s will” or “the algorithm,” both unclear.
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I mocked the sheep while checking where the loudest crowd would go.
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My “independent thinking” followed every trending flow.
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At last the joke grew loud enough to wake me from the dream.
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I saw ten different cages painted “self‑esteem.”
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I started asking who gets rich when I erase my doubt.
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And who gets nervous when I finally opt‑out.
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Individuality arrived not with a scream but with a sigh.
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A small, embarrassed “no” that would not die.
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It wasn’t fireworks, tattoos, or moving to a foreign shore.
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It was owning how my yes and no had bent before.
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I felt the panic: lose the tribe and you will surely disappear.
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Yet every honest word drew one real person near.
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I saw my parents’ frightened eyes inside the rules they taught.
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Their love and their indoctrinated fear were strangely wrought.
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I saw my faith was half alive, half armor wrapped in pain.
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I let a little silence fall between the prayers I’d chant by rote again.
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Now I walk this narrow hallway between “belong” and “be.”
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Some doors are locked by them, some quietly by me.
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The comedy is this: I stay a messy social creature to the bone.
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Yet every step toward being real leaves me less alone.
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I won’t be perfectly unique, some mythic island free of tide.
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Just one more haunted, laughing human who stopped completely running from inside.
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If there is any holy act in this bewildered, wired nation’s role.
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It’s signing your own name beneath the script—and then rewriting it in soul.

…

DCG

Specious habits of perception 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

When you speak your truth, I hear a different sky. .
Your words are rain, but my history makes them dry. .
You say it was a joke, I feel a hidden knife. .
Your laugh is light, my chest recalls another life. .
We stand in the same room, but wear a different past. .
My shadows move so slow, your joy runs bright and fast. .
You only see the surface, the shrug, the turning face. .
I’m drowning in an ocean you call a shallow place. .
I judge you as careless, you judge me as cold. .
We both are reading stories that were written old. .
My mind collects its proof, each glance a heavy stone. .
I build a quiet prison and then call it “home.” .
Your silence feels like anger, your distance seems like blame. .
But maybe you are frightened, and cannot voice your shame. .
I cling to my opinions like a shield of rust. .
They cut into my fingers while I name them “trust.” .
The mirror of illusion hangs inside my head. .
It shows me what I fear, not what you really said. .
Old injuries awaken when your eyebrows rise. .
I paste a former villain over your new eyes. .
These specious habits guide me, unseen but in control. .
They whisper, “You’re a victim,” and tighten round my soul. .
I notice how I flinch before you even move. .
I’m fighting ancient battles you never asked to prove. .
One day the strain is heavy, the argument repeats. .
We’re circling the same old wound on different streets. .
I feel the quiet cracking of the tale I wear. .
A softer voice inside me asks, “What if you’re not fair?” .
“What if your righteous anger is only half the frame? .
What if your sacred story is just one part of the game?” .
I pause before responding; the script begins to slow. .
A strange and aching honesty steps in and says, “Let go.” .
I tell you, “When you leave the room, I feel erased.” .
You answer, “When I stay too long, I feel displaced.” .
We stare at this new moment like a foreign shore. .
Two private worlds colliding through an open door. .
No one is the villain; the lens itself is flawed. .
We’ve worshiped our perceptions like a quiet god. .
You share the weight you carry, the shame you never named. .
I see how my suspicion kept your heart ashamed. .
We speak of early losses, of nights that shaped our sight. .
How hunger taught us both to fear another’s light. .
The room does not grow perfect; the pain does not dissolve. .
But now we stand together with a will to solve. .
We promise not to worship every thought we think. .
To question quick conclusions standing on the brink. .
To clean the dirty window where our fears have slept. .
To honor what we’ve lived, but not be wholly kept. .
In time, the habit changes, though slowly, line by line. .
Our eyes grow more transparent; your story touches mine. .
I learn that understanding is a costly fee. .
It asks my proud perception not to center me. .
So when I feel that tightening that says, “You’ve been betrayed.” .
I breathe, and ask more gently how this scene is made. .
I look for hidden sorrows behind the harsh display. .
I hold my judgments loosely, let some wash away. .
The specious habits weaken when we dare to see. .
That truth is rarely simple, and seldom just “for me.” .
In this, a quiet mercy rises, slow but real. .
We trade our shrinking armor for a wider field to feel. .
We will still make errors; the old ghosts sometimes call. .
But now we walk more open, less certain of our wall. .
And in that humble seeing, a truer life begins. .
Not free of all illusions, but free to loosen their thin skins. .

…

DCG

When a soul touches another

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

When two voices meet, something more can arise.
The heart softens gently, stripped of disguise.
We speak not to win, but to understand.
A bridge takes shape, unplanned by the hand.
In the hush between words, meaning breathes anew.
It’s there love enters—only passing through.
I saw your eyes searching for a place to rest.
I gave them silence, and you felt blessed.
No shield, no mask, just a fragile tone.
Your story unfolded, and I felt my own.
The pain you carried was mine in part.
I listened not with ears, but the heart.
You spoke of loss that time couldn’t mend.
I met you there—listener, not friend.
And in that stillness, the world grew wide.
We both disappeared in the tide.
Words were few, yet something survived.
The space between us softly revived.
A sigh, a nod—the language of care.
A sacred knowing lingered there.
Sometimes the cure is not to speak.
But to stay when another feels weak.
You don’t have to fix what’s torn apart.
Just offer presence, soul to heart.
Such moments make the unseen heard.
A truth far deeper than any word.
Each voice we honor shapes our own.
Connection seeds the love we’ve grown.
So when you listen, do it whole.
Let empathy guide, let patience console.
For every answer begins with care.
Every healing breath needs air.
The art of hearing is seldom learned.
But when mastered, the heart is turned.
I write these words as a mirror call.
To remind the listener within us all.

…

DCG

My soul compass 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

Lost in the turning, I wander the haze.
The heart keeps seeking a brighter blaze.
The compass trembles, unsure where to steer.
The voice inside whispers, “You’re still near.”
Shadows of failure cling to the skin.
Yet dawn reminds me I’m born to begin.
Faith is fragile, a flicker in bone.
Still, grace leans close — I am not alone.
I walk through tempests with tethered eyes.
Truth unveils how the broken rise.
Love feels distant, its outline torn.
But scars are the proof of a soul reborn.
Attachment wavers, the self unsure.
Yet grace repairs what grief can’t cure.
The mind replays what the heart conceals.
But prayer unmasks what pain reveals.
I falter often, lost in despair.
Then Christ reminds me to cast my care.
The map I drew has burned away.
Still, light breaks through the ash and clay.
Each aching step rewrites my name.
The Lord restores the will to flame.
I gather lessons from every fall.
For bruises can be our greatest call.
Confusion whispers, “You’ve lost your place.”
Yet mercy meets me, face to face.
Bowlby spoke of longing’s chain.
God reshapes it through healed pain.
The insecure heart learns to trust.
When love is rooted beyond the dust.
The anxious soul yearns for hold and keep.
But heaven’s arms embrace so deep.
Each wound a teacher, each loss a friend.
They guide the soul toward its true end.
The chaos swirls, and yet I stand.
For faith was never a steady land.
It’s forged in fire, tested by cost.
Found in surrender, never lost.
The world instructs through loss and strain.
No tear is wasted, no effort vain.
Confusion yields what pride denies.
That wisdom blooms where the ego dies.
The compass spins, yet still aligns.
With truths the heart in silence finds.
We learn by falling, rise by grace.
Reborn, renewed, we find our place.
Every storm becomes a scroll to read.
A script of growth our hearts still need.
The path to light is rough and long.
But the weary soul grows strong through wrong.
So let the tempests bruise and bend.
For they are means, not the end.
In every loss, a sacred clue.
The world refines what is most true.
The compass turns — the heart obeys.
And faith becomes the soul’s new blaze.
We walk through shadow, anchored in day.
For God Himself lights up our way.

…

DCG

Lines for a lost map 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

Lines for a lost Map

A coin fell through the cracks of planned design. .
And rolled into a hallway not my own. .

The night revised the script I’d underlined. .
And left me speaking lines I’d never known. .

A letter came that wasn’t meant for me. .
Its ink described a stranger with my face. .

It named my secret wounds in plain degree. .
And traced their origin to time and place. .

A train I meant to catch pulled out too soon. .
Its fading lights dissolved into the rain. .

I walked home underneath a swollen moon. .
And met an old regret that knew my name. .

A friend I trusted vanished in a day. .
Their silence rearranged my inner sight. .

The absence carved a door within the clay. .
Where softer hands could touch the buried light. .

A book on types lay open on my bed. .
Nine windows into storms I’d called just “me.” .

The patterns of my heartbeat could be read. .
As maps of fear and half-remembered plea. .

I saw how anger dressed itself as right. .
How envy wore the costume of a lack. .

How gluttony mistook its hunger’s height. .
For proof that nothing loved would ever come back. .

I watched my pride defend a crumbling throne. .
While sloth pretended numbness was relief. .

Each sin a language pain had made its own. .
Each mask a way to bargain with my grief. .

Yet in the web of all these crooked lines. .
A quiet thread kept glimmering between. .

It shimmered where the worst of my designs. .
Had failed and left a gap for grace unseen. .

The chance encounter on a winter street. .
The job I lost that broke my careful scheme. .

The diagnosis dropping like a sleet. .
That woke me from a long, anesthetic dream. .

These were not proofs of some exacting fate. .
Nor random blows from indifferent skies. .

They were the moments ego learns too late. .
That broken glass can open seeing eyes. .

For when the map I worshiped came undone. .
The living terrain asked for my bare feet. .

I found that every detour from the “one.” .
Revealed another soul for mine to meet. .

A stranger’s kindness at a traffic light. .
A nurse who joked while threading in the line. .

A teacher who stayed talking late at night. .
Until my shame grew small enough to shine. .

Not every hurt was followed by a cure. .
Not every loss returned in sweeter form. .

Some questions stayed like weather I endure. .
Some roads dissolved in yet another storm. .

Yet even there, among the path’s mistakes. .
A lucid tenderness kept breaking through. .

As if the heart, each time it bends and breaks. .
Remembers it was always more than “you.” .

So let the fragile plans still rise and fall. .
Let trains depart and letters go astray. .

The thread runs through the ruin of them all. .
A deeper yes beneath the shifting day. .

Walk on, with maps now folded but not burned. .
Eyes open to the blessings you can’t chart. .

For every fortuitous turn you never earned. .
May yet unite the scattered of your heart. .

And though new anomalies will cross your way. .
And sudden storms erase what you have drawn. .

There is a quiet wisdom in the play. .
That turns each shattered midnight toward a dawn. .

…

DCG

Friendship 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

We walked in light once, when the world still listened.
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Our laughter rose like ash from a spark newly christened.
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You said friendship was not built but found in the ruins.
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I thought you meant love, but now I know it blooms in the tunes.
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There were days when silence was holy between us.
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When words would have ruined what truth tried to discuss.
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To be understood is the rarest gift a man can be given.
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Most hearts speak in echoes, few are truly driven.
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We stood beneath the shadow of time’s indifferent eye.
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Beneath its watch, our wounds learned how to dry.
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Betrayal came not like a storm, but a subtle forgetting.
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The kind that makes faith seem too heavy for regretting.
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Still, there is beauty in what remains unspoken.
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In the spaces where old promises lie half-broken.
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I remember the night your silence turned to stone.
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You walked away gently, yet I felt utterly alone.
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Friendship, I’ve learned, is less about staying.
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It’s about returning, when the leaving’s done praying.
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Some souls are moons, caught in another’s orbit for a time.
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Guided not by want, but by a gravity divine.
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And now when I see you in dreams, your face is kind.
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No blame survives the mercy we find.
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True friendship is not two paths side by side—it’s one road shared.
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Worn and cracked, yet somehow perfectly prepared.
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For the next traveler who knows loss, or longing, or why.
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We meet them with open hands, and never ask why.
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So here’s to the ones who stayed, and those who could not.
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For all are part of the fire that friendship begot.
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The ember still burns, quiet but strong.
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And maybe, after all, it was love all along.

…

DCG

The ripple effect

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

The Ripple Effect” argues that every small act, attitude, and decision sends out waves into other people’s lives and into society, shaping far more than we see on the surface. In simple terms, the post says that how you speak, how you love, and how you ignore or care for others all spread outward like ripples in a pond, eventually returning to you in the kind of world you end up living in. The heart of the message is moral and existential: you cannot control the whole ocean, but you are responsible for the ripples your own stone creates, and over time those ripples help build either a more compassionate world or a more wounded one.

The stone you throw is smaller than your hand. .
Yet circles run for miles beneath the skin. .
A whisper leaves your mouth like drifting sand. .
It builds a dune of shame or grace within. .
You think your anger dies when doors are slammed. .
But echoes bloom in children down the hall. .
A single careless phrase, “You’re weak, you’re damned.” .
Becomes the script a soul reads as it falls. .
The night you turned away from someone’s tears. .
Seemed trivial, a tired, forgetful hour. .
Yet loneliness grew thick across their years. .
And spread like ivy through their trust in power. .
The kindness you once offered half‑awake. .
A seat, a smile, a patient listening ear. .
Became the unseen bridge someone could take. .
To walk back from the ledge of secret fear. .
We live as if our moments stay in place. .
But time is water, nothing stays contained. .
Each choice dissolves, then gathers into space. .
As weather in another person’s brain. .
You scroll and judge, you mock behind a screen. .
The ripples cross a fragile, breaking heart. .
Or you send one true message, calm and clean. .
That says, “You still belong, you get a start.” .
A parent hides their grief behind a joke. .
The child learns early not to show their pain. .
The pattern travels outward, spoke by spoke. .
Till no one knows why love feels laced with shame. .
But also, when a wounded one forgives. .
The ancient tide of cruelty is shocked. .
A different kind of current starts to live. .
A door long rusted through is gently knocked. .
We are not gods who rule the storm and sea. .
We cannot mend the world with one grand act. .
But every quiet “yes” to empathy. .
Rewrites the terms of one inherited pact. .
The heart you soften softens someone else. .
They go back home and speak with gentler eyes. .
Their mercy grazes wounds you’ve never felt. .
And lifts a stranger’s head toward different skies. .
The pain you choose to finally feel and name. .
No longer leaks in ways you can’t control. .
You break the chain that always shifted blame. .
And send a cleaner river through your soul. .
So when you feel invisible and small. .
Remember how the circles leave the stone. .
Your life is not a closed and private wall. .
Your smallest love is shaping worlds unknown. .
Stand in the pond and own the waves you make. .
Let every breath be honest, fierce, and kind. .
For every tender risk you dare to take. .
Becomes the tide that heals the human mind. .

…

DCG

The ego paradox abridged

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

The ego paradox in this context is the way the “I” both protects and imprisons us: the more ego tries to free itself, control life, and define who we are, the more it tightens the chains of illusion, fear, and separation.

The post treats ego as a mental construct—a lens built from selective memories, desires, and defenses—which resists impermanence and clings to stories about being harmed, entitled, or special, yet cannot by its own effort escape the very patterns it creates.

The central insight is that awareness must see through ego’s resistance and conditioning, rather than “using” ego to conquer ego; instead of constant worrying and self-preservation, there is a call to surrender, presence, and humility, allowing ignorance, greed, and hatred to lose their hold as attraction and aversion subside.
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Each mirror swears that I am all I see.
I chase my shadow just to feel it pass.
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It doubles back and starts to swallow me.
I name my edges, “This is who I am.”
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A list of wounds recited like a prayer.
I crown my worries like a sacred psalm.
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Then drown in thoughts that thicken in the air.
I sharpen reasons like a rusted blade.
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To cut the ties that keep my fear in place.
Yet every strike repeats the same parade.
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My ego fights itself and calls it grace.
I build a throne from every slight and scar.
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Sit higher than the child I used to be.
I point at others, call them wrong and far.
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Then feel a prison locking over me.
I fear the void behind my busy mind.
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So I stay loud, defensive, quick to speak.
I call this armor “truth for humankind.”
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But truth feels smaller every time I seek.
I barter peace for one more fixed ideal.
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I cling to roles that crumble in the night.
I ask my image what is fake or real.
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It answers only what will make me right.
I try to crush the ego, force it down.
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But who is it that swings the heavy fist?
The one that vows to steal my paper crown.
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Still talks like judge and never like a mist.
The paradox: I can’t out-think this “I.”
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It feeds on every effort to be pure.
The more I strive to pin it, starve, or try.
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The more its phantom shape pretends secure.
So I grow still and watch the storms arise.
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Let anger, shame, and hunger come and go.
I see each story flicker through my eyes.
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Like passing lights across a silent snow.
No single thought can hold the sky in place.
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No single name can cage the living soul.
The watcher is not bound to win the race.
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By running faster round the same old hole.
I start to loosen from the voice that shouts.
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Let grief and joy move freely through my chest.
When I stop arguing with all my doubts.
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A softer knowing asks me just to rest.
Here, “I” is only waves on deeper sea.
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A changing mask that never owned my breath.
In letting go of who I “have” to be.
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The self I feared to lose survives its death.

…

DCG

The exoneration of regret 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

Poem: The Exoneration of Regret

  1. I stare into the wreckage of my then,
  2. The echoes answer softly, “Here we met.”
  3. I catalog the harm I did back when,
  4. Each memory stamped with one dark word: “Regret.”
  5. I thought that flogging thought would make me clean,
  6. As if self‑hate could pay another’s debt.
  7. I wore my shame like armor, hard and mean,
  8. Yet every plate was forged from unpaid fret.
  9. I knelt before the altar of “Too late,”
  10. And prayed to be condemned and not forget.
  11. I called it holy never to feel great,
  12. As if joy proved I’d learned nothing from the upset.
  13. But sorrow, when it listens, learns to bend,
  14. It does not need a noose around its neck.
  15. The point is not to never find an end,
  16. But let remorse turn forward, not back‑check.
  17. I hear a Voice that does not flinch at crime,
  18. It names the wound and will not soft‑correct.
  19. Yet after truth has finished taking time,
  20. It opens up a road I can’t expect.
  21. “You cannot change the script of what you did,”
  22. It says, “but you can change what follows yet.”
  23. “You are not only what your worst self hid,
  24. You are the one who now can make a new beget.”
  25. So I release the courtroom in my head,
  26. Where I was judge, accused, and harsh cadet.
  27. I trade the endless trial for bread instead,
  28. And feed the part of me I used to vet.
  29. I visit those I’ve harmed with open eyes,
  30. Not asking them to cancel every debt.
  31. I give them space to answer or revise,
  32. While owning what I broke without reset.
  33. In learning how to grieve without self‑hate,
  34. I learn that punishment is not the same as sweat.
  35. The work is walking different through the gate,
  36. Not kneeling in the ashes just to fret.
  37. So let the gavel fall on shame’s old throne,
  38. Let mercy write the terms of my new bet.
  39. I carry what I’ve done, but not alone,
  40. For Love has signed The Exoneration of Regret.

…

DCG

The want to aspire 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

Dane learned early what silence meant inside a crowded room,
His father’s eyes were weathered stone, his mother’s voice a sigh.
He built a fortress out of fear, a childhood half in bloom,


Where questions fell like broken glass, and wounds refused to die.
He carried anger like a torch; it kept the night at bay,
While friends grew up, he merely grew in walls of self-defense.
Every smile felt counterfeit, each kindness slipped away,
Because trust, he thought, was weakness cloaked in fine pretense.
But time has teeth, and youth decays when faith’s denied too long,


He left his home to chase a dream that seemed both fierce and frail.
A college city called his name, the hum of human throng,
Where people spoke of meaning more than money, fame, or mail.
There, books became his quiet balm—he learned the mind’s design,
That wounded hearts constrict themselves, repeating what they know.


He saw his parents mirrored then, their fear was also mine,
A curse in need of breaking, if one dared to let it go.
In lecture halls, he met his ghosts in Freud and Maslow’s word,
In classmates’ eyes he saw himself with empathy renewed.
The truth was simple, yet profound—the past could be deferred,


But not denied: to heal, one must confront what once was crude.
One late night by the river’s edge, his thoughts became a prayer,
Not to some god beyond the sky, but something deep within.


He whispered thanks for every hurt that sculpted him aware,
For only through his fracture could he grow beyond his skin.
He started calling friends again, though trust came slow and odd,
Began to hear his mother’s tears, not as a form of blame.
Forgiveness came like gentle rain from some forgiving god,


Or maybe from that hidden place where love and logic came.
Through understanding, Dane rebuilt the house he’d burned before,
With windows wide to let in air, not walls to shut out pain.
He learned that strength was not the fist but opening the door,
To let compassion find its way through every loss and gain.
Now when he speaks, his words are scarred, but tender at the seam,


He tells the young that desperation isn’t just despair.
It’s sometimes the great crack that lets through a deeper dream,
The place where broken boys become the men who finally care.
For Dane, the past still whispers soft, but doesn’t hold his hand,
He knows that love is learned, not found, through patience more than pride.


From wounded child to thinking man, he’s come to understand—
That pain, when faced, transforms to peace no rage can ever hide.

…

DCG