transformation

  • The Key at the Front Door

    Everybody is willing to hate you until they need you again by then the relationship has changed. Not ended. Changed. There is a difference. Endings have funerals. Flowers. Black dresses. Dirt thrown over something everyone has agreed is dead. Change is crueler. Change leaves the body sitting at the dinner table. It lets the conversation…

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  • Crossroads Again

    The mind will tell you things that are not true then make you responsible for the outcome. It is a terribly convincing liar. It knows your voice. That is its greatest advantage. It does not arrive like some villain dressed in black, dragging chains through the corridors of your thoughts. It does not announce itself…

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  • The Mourning Room

    At some point you have all the answers and then those answers disappear quickly leaving an empty space where comfort once lived. Nobody knew exactly why the room was called the Mourning Room. Perhaps because of the black velvet curtains hanging over windows tall enough to belong in a cathedral. Perhaps because of the ancient…

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  • A person who sits with their demons long enough realizes that they are all teachers wearing masks. I used to think they came carrying pitchforks. Turns out they arrived holding mirrors. Funny how disappointment always introduces itself as punishment until enough years pass for you to realize it was simply an instructor with terrible bedside…

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  • There is a neighborhood nobody advertises. No real estate agent will ever show it to you. There are no open houses. No ribbon cuttings. No welcome baskets waiting on the porch. Yet somehow… Millions of people live there. It is the only place on earth where everyone believes they are the victim of their own…

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  • Written Across the Sky

    There are things that should have been said. Not whispered years too late over a hospital bed. Not mumbled through regret after someone has already packed their bags. Not carved into a headstone where the only ears left to hear them belong to the wind. Some words arrive exactly when they are needed. Others never…

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  • Palace Standards

    There is a strange thing that happens when someone is offered two invitations. One arrives on thick paper, sealed in wax, written with careful hands. It is an invitation to a palace. The walls are tall, not because they are meant to keep people out, but because what lives inside has value. Every room has…

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  • There is an orchard few people ever speak about. Not because it is hidden. Because everyone standing in it believes it is normal. They walk among twisted trunks and fruit that never quite ripens. Some branches bloom beautifully while others rot from the inside. The leaves shimmer just enough to convince every generation that next…

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  • Chasing Butterflies

    There is a strange little meadow that very few people ever notice. Not because it is hidden. Because nobody stays still long enough to see it. The butterflies there are unlike any you’ve ever imagined. Their wings shimmer with colors that seem to change depending on who is looking at them. Gold for the ambitious.…

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  • Barstool Royalty

    There is a throne no respectable person wants. It isn’t made of gold. It isn’t earned. It isn’t admired. It’s bolted to the floor of a bar. And every night someone climbs onto it believing they’ve become royalty. Nobody likes a bad drunk who thinks they’re a good one. Matter of fact… Nobody likes a…

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