The struggle is real

It’s funny how maturity shapes the way we handle struggles. When we’re young, we might charge in recklessly, run for the hills, or drag our troubles behind us like an overstuffed suitcase. But as we grow, we learn — sometimes the hard way — that facing life head-on, with a little grace and a lot of resilience, feels a whole lot lighter.

If this divorce had hit me 20 years ago, I would’ve fallen apart — no doubt. Back then, I let hard times sink their teeth into me, body and soul. I’d bottle everything up, drowning in the weight of it, stuck in my own head until I felt completely hollow.

But now? Now I take life as it comes — one day, one moment at a time. I roll with the punches, not because it’s easy, but because I’ve learned that resistance only makes the hits feel harder. I’ve stopped gripping so tight, letting go of the need to control every outcome. Some days, I stumble. Some days, I stride. But no matter what, I keep moving — because standing still has never gotten me anywhere worth going.

It is what it is.

 

A question.

 

Ernest Hemingway’s 7 Tips for Writing

 

1. To Get Started, Write One True Sentence
“Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, ‘Do not worry. You have always written before, and you will write now.’”

2. Always Stop for the Day While You Still Know What Will Happen Next
“The best way is always to stop when you are going good, and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck.”

3. Never Think About the Story When You’re Not Working
“I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.”

4. When It’s Time to Work Again, Always Start by Reading What You’ve Written So Far
“When it gets so long that you can’t do this every day read back two or three chapters each day; then each week read it all from the start.”

5. Don’t Describe an Emotion—Make It
“In writing for a newspaper you told what happened and, with one trick and another, you communicated the emotion aided by the element of timeliness which gives a certain emotion to any account of something that has happened on that day; but the real thing, the sequence of motion and fact which made the emotion and which would be as valid in a year or in ten years or, with luck and if you stated it purely enough, always, was beyond me...”

6. Use a Pencil
“If you write with a pencil, you get three different sights at it to see if the reader is getting what you want him to. First when you read it over; then when it is typed you get another chance to improve it, and again in the proof.”

7. Be Brief
“It wasn’t by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics.”

 

John Lurie- "The Sky Is Falling, I am Learning to Live with It", 2016

 

 

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."
— Khalil Gibran

A marker.

The cold house holds its breath,
its walls quietly creaking.
Art hangs lifeless,
music fades into silence,
books pile up like abandoned dreams.

Without them,
without you,
these are just objects—
hollow vessels of a life
that slipped through my fingers.

I came here at the end,
hoping for a beginning,
but these walls hold no memories,
the floors no scattered mess.
It’s not the rooms that are empty—
it’s the absence of us,
echoing louder than any voice.

I reach into the stillness,
search the shadows for their laughter,
for the warmth of your touch.
But no echoes linger here.
The silence is sharper,
cutting deeper than the shards of our broken home.

This place isn’t home.
It’s a marker,
a monument to what’s missing.
And I, its keeper,
stand here, lost,
aching for voices
to fill the void with life again.

"Nº 1" by John Cooper Clarke

 

 

Spoiler alert

 

 

“What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?”

A rhetort.

Your words fall empty, a mask to obscure,

The truth I know, steadfast and sure.

You speak of “authority” with hollow pride,

Yet I see the cracks where your stories collide.

It seems honesty isn’t part of your commonwealth,

You’re far richer in tales than in truth itself.

The facts remain, no matter your spin,

Deception may start, but it won’t ever win.

While peace may guide where we must cross,
Respect is earned, not built on loss.
Cordial, yes — but trust won’t renew,
For honesty matters, and I see through you.

Jokerman. 2025, NFS.

 

An Open Letter to Past Loves

Thank you for showing me how to be myself — whether or not that was your intention.

Your choice to love me — and later, to leave — taught me as much in joy as it did in heartbreak. You cracked me open, made me stronger, and reminded me that sometimes, survival demands a little armor.

I’m sorry if I wasn’t what you envisioned, if my quirks clashed with your expectations, or if I let you down in ways I never meant to. Please know I gave it my all, even when it wasn’t enough.

I don’t know if I ever cross your mind, but you drift through mine sometimes. I think of the moments we shared, the ones untouched by the ending, before everything unraveled.

There’s no bitterness here though — only gratitude. You left your fingerprints on my story, and for that, I’ll always be thankful.

— Me 

Sisters

You rise with the sun, eager and bright,

A song on your lips, a smile full of light.

And you linger, dreaming as long as you dare,

Stretching the moments, with no time to spare.

You find solace where the world is still,

A quiet embrace, a heart to fill.

While you, ever restless, resist staying still,

Dancing through moments with untamed will.

Your days unfold in worlds you design,

Imagination your guide, your spark divine

But you, my sweet one, with boredom to bear,

Seek something unseen, yet always there. 

Night falls, and you sigh, soft and deep,

Snuggled in quiet, you welcome sleep.

But you, my lively, untiring sprite,

Push back the shadows, resist the night.

Different as dawn and dusk may be,

You’re both beacons, shining brilliantly.

Forever cherished, endlessly true,

Two shining souls, uniquely you.

The Seven-Year-Old's Itch

You spend your days unlike any seven-year-old I know —

TV? A shrug. The Switch? Left untouched.
Barbie? A fleeting ten minutes before dismissal.

You squander the hours,
claiming boredom, pacing the room,
uncertain how to fill the vastness of time.

Did I fail you, little one?
I know the fire your mind holds —
a spark of creativity waiting to ignite,
a passion still untapped.

Should I have taught you the art of stillness,
the quiet comfort of one’s own company?
So, when boredom presses its weight upon you,
it wouldn’t so easily conquer your spirit.

Or is it something more?
A longing for treasures just out of reach,
or dreams too vast for your young heart to hold?

I hope it’s the latter —
a spark for what’s yet to unfold.

For stillness and quiet,
those ever-faithful allies
are constant companions —
never straying, never abandoning,
always yours to embrace or endure.

5:00 AM January 1st, 2025

You woke as softly as you had drifted,
caught in the in-between,
where darkness lingers,
and morning’s edges blur with sleep.

Bleary-eyed, your thoughts clung to
promises made to yourself in slumber —

cinnamon rolls, donuts, and juice.

And there I was,
duty-bound to fulfill your quiet wish.