Trust

The individual skeptic

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

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

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

Friendship 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

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

…

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

Life hack #4 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

To forgive is not for the “sole sake” of relieving another of their guilt, but rather for the “sake of the soul” that had been perpetrated upon!

DC Gunnersen

…

DCG

Forgive and let go of the past 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

I have a lot to think about

I look at this past year and I ruminate

She loves me, she loves me not

I remember the times that makes me hesitate

As children we played hide and seek

With more than just two

As adults we also play

But now it’s only me and you

We hide behind our masks

We hide behind our texts

We avoid the white elephant before us

Are we not vexed?

The trouble with hiding behind a smile

Is revealed when we look into a mirror

Our reflection shows the disconnect

The contrast becomes more clearer

As kids we danced on the playground

We now dance around our emotional state

How long must we avoid these wounds?

How long must we wait?

I pray for an act of God‘s mercy

For you and I to heal

For you to behold

For you to feel

I am confident there is good medicine between us

We must both remove the mask

Show the soft underbelly

Forgive and let go of the past

RSP

…

DCG

Casualty of loss- redacted

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

– “Casualty of Loss”

I woke to find my name erased from stone,

A casualty of loss, dismissed, alone.

The photographs still hang but look away,

Their eyes recede like tides at end of day.

The room remembers more than I recall,

Its silent witnesses outnumber all.

I trace the dust where once your coffee steamed,

The warmth has left, but still the mug is dreamed.

We built our days like castles out of sand,

Pretending tide could bargain with our hand.

The sea arrived as if on quiet feet,

And swallowed every claim we called complete.

Now meaning limps, a soldier from the war,

Unsure what any sacrifice was for.

My thoughts grow teeth and circle in the night,

They gnaw the ribs that sheltered once-delight.

I pace the narrow hallway of my mind,

Each door is locked by something left behind.

The mirror will not answer when I speak,

It only shows an echo, gray and weak.

I lost you once, but then I lost my way,

As if your leaving emptied out the day.

The clocks still move, but time has gone askew,

It limps in circles, always back to you.

I bargain with my ghosts for one reprieve,

They only nod and whisper, “Let it grieve.”

The world outside still riots into bloom,

Yet each bright petal mocks this inner gloom.

I walk through crowds, a stranger in my skin,

A vacant house with broken floors within.

The mind replays the moment things were torn,

A film that will not stop or be re-scorn.

Self-doubt sits down and pours another drink,

It toasts the story where I always sink.

I tell myself the fault is all my own,

And crown my shame with thorns I’ve overgrown.

But somewhere in this maze a window waits,

A crack of sky that wider light creates.

I hear a distant song, a stranger’s tune,

It braids with wind and wanders past the moon.

The melody remembers what I’ve lost,

Yet hints that nothing loved is ever tossed.

I open up a vein of honest tears,

And wash the rust from long-neglected years.

The heart, though bruised, still trembles when it hears,

That love outlives our damage and our fears.

I stand amid the ruins, breathing slow,

A casualty of loss, but not of hope below.

The scar will outline where the wound once bled,

A quiet map from brokenness to bread.

…

DCG

The post “A Casualty of Loss” is protected on the site, but the tag listing shows it grouped under “Existential Bewilderment,” alongside themes of disconnection, alienation, and the slow psychological erosion that comes from losing what once sustained a person’s sense of meaning and belonging. What can be said with confidence is that the title and context signal someone who has been inwardly damaged by loss—of love, identity, or connection—struggling to understand how that loss has altered their way of being in the world.[thundergodblog]

The quiet charity of loving

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

The Quiet Charity of Loving”


I loved you as the dawn loves light,
Though darkness asked me to remain.
The sky was empty, but so bright,
It taught me joy can live with pain.
To give one’s heart and ask no prize,
Is worship whispered to the air.
For even when no answer flies,
The act itself becomes a prayer.
We love because to cease is death,
Our souls are orphaned when they hide.
Each longing shapes our mortal breath,
Each silence builds the place we bide.
You were the mirror I could hold,
Reflecting mercy into view.
My hands were empty, yet consoled,
For love became the work I do.
Not all who give must then be fed,
Some sow the wheat they’ll never taste.
But kindness lingers when it’s bled,
And sanctifies what time erased.
To want, yet will the other free,
To ache, yet hope their wings ascend—
That is the quiet mastery,
The art of one who loves as friend.
For hearts grow full when not confined,
When grace transcends the claim of name.
The truest lover is resigned
To bless the loss, not curse the flame.
Each wound refines what faith began,
Each tear instructs the heart to see.
We love not just for flesh or span,
But for who we may choose to be.
So if you never spoke my name,
Still, I am grateful for the sound.
For love unspent is not in vain,
It plants its heaven in the ground.
And from that soil, ghosts bloom wide—
Petals of patience, light, and care.
Unanswered hearts may yet abide
As proof that goodness lingers there.

RSP

…

DCG

Screenshot