The Infinite Starr

Some people get angry when my name is spoken.

Others get quiet.

Others laugh because they finally understand the joke.

And then there is me.

Sitting somewhere in the middle of the chaos laughing when certain names are spoken because life has a dark sense of humor once you survive enough of it.

That is the part people do not understand about writers.

Some people think every word is confession.
Some think every paragraph is evidence.
Some think every sentence is aimed directly at them like a loaded weapon wrapped in punctuation.

Meanwhile the writer is sitting there collecting fragments.

Expressions.
Conversations.
Energy.
Pain.
Contradictions.
Moments overheard in grocery store aisles.
Courtrooms.
Hospital waiting rooms.
Parking lots at midnight.
The silence after somebody lies directly to your face.

Writers are thieves of human behavior.

We take pieces.
Blend them together.
Wrap truth in fiction and fiction in truth until even the people involved no longer know which parts belong to them.

The funniest people are always the ones screaming:
“That’s not me.”

Oh sweetheart.
If the shoe does not fit why are you trying it on so aggressively?

The mirror was not attacking you.
You just hated what you saw standing in it.

That is the problem with people who spend their lives judging everyone else.

Eventually life removes the audience.
And all they are left with is themselves.

No distractions.
No gossip.
No manipulation.
No crowd to perform for.

Just a long dark hallway with their own reflection following behind them like unpaid debt.

Some people can survive war but cannot survive self awareness.

That part right there?
That will preach all by itself.

Because the truth hidden between the lines is this:

Life eventually returns every ounce of energy you hand out.

Every lie.
Every cruelty.
Every betrayal dressed up as justification.
Every child used as a pawn because two adults hated each other more than they loved the kid caught in the middle.

People think they are hurting the other parent.

No.

The child carries the damage while the adults sit around trying to “win.”

There is no winner in that game.

Only trauma with a bedtime routine.

And eventually courts get involved because somebody finally gets tired of being bled dry emotionally, mentally, spiritually, financially.

Court is never really about justice anyway.

It is strategy in a suit and tie.

A performance where everybody suddenly becomes innocent once paperwork enters the room.

Funny how people remember morality once a judge is involved.

But life?

Life is the real courtroom.

Life keeps receipts longer than any courthouse ever could.

And if you have been paying attention long enough you already know the law:
Do right, get right.
Do wrong, get humbled eventually.

Maybe not today.
Maybe not tomorrow.
But life has a way of dragging people by the ankles through the consequences they thought they escaped.

Bloody nose.
Missing teeth.
Sleepless nights.
Anxiety chewing holes through the stomach at three in the morning while the ceiling fan becomes their only witness.

Because guilt does not disappear.

It ferments.

And eventually it starts speaking louder than the lies ever did.

I learned a long time ago that evil only survives where people keep feeding it power.

The devil cannot drown someone who finally learns how to swim.

And me?

Me and the devil already had our conversation years ago.

He tried to break me.
Tried to convince me exhaustion was defeat.
Tried to convince me pain was ownership.
Tried to convince me survival should make me bitter.

Instead it made me dangerous.

Not dangerous in the loud way.

Not the fake internet tough kind of dangerous.

No.

The kind that keeps standing up after life keeps swinging.

The kind that gets calmer the more pressure gets applied.

The kind that understands exactly how dark this world can become and still wakes up every morning choosing to protect the people they love anyway.

That is where the real beast lives.

Inside the protector.

Because there are only two things in this world I do not play about:
My children.
And the people who earned a seat inside my tribe.

Everybody else is free to gamble with their own karma.

But mine?

Mine are guarded with teeth.

People mistake that for anger sometimes.

It is not anger.

It is loyalty sharpened by experience.

There is a difference.

And no I am not proud of the wrath.

But I no longer apologize for surviving either.

Some gifts are ugly before they become sacred.

Some people are born with eyes that notice patterns long before everyone else catches on.

I have watched tables flip so many times in life that I stopped fearing injustice.

Because eventually balance arrives.

Always.

Maybe slow.
Maybe brutal.
Maybe years later when nobody expects it.

But balance always arrives.

That is why words matter.
That is why actions matter more.

If your mouth and your behavior do not align eventually your value collapses under the weight of your own contradiction.

People can only perform for so long before life rips the costume off in public.

So to the bitter people wishing harm on others while pretending innocence:

May life introduce you to yourself honestly.

That is punishment enough for most people.

And may the Gods have mercy on the souls still confusing manipulation for power.

Because some of us already walked through hell once.

And came back teaching the devil how to fear us.