A pleasant, wistful day. A bike around an island a short ferry ride away and a couple of wonderful hikes, strolls, swims, and adventure. Northwest by 60 miles and due Southeast by five. A refreshing kiss of rain after a teasing sprinkle. Remembering the word “petrichor” fondly after forgetting for some time.
How fast is too fast? How slow is too slow? Has your life felt easier since knowing?
Nothing breeds motivation like necessity.
“The Space Between Worlds”
Even worthless things can become valuable once they become rare.
Micaiah Johnson
A captivating plot with unexpected deviations. Overall fantastic writing. Subtle, nuanced, and grounded social commentary without dwarfing the splendor of its sci-fi backdrop.
Read if you enjoyed “Dark Matter,” “Annihilation,” and other such gripping, mind-bending stories.
Back Forty
7.10.25 – 7.15.25 early mornings and late nights
A cruising altitude of 36,000 feet and 500 knots falls behind me.
The overgrown pasture has a muggy, low hold on early afternoon sun. Beat out above by wind gusts that even out, granting a forgiving breeze.
A body, now dust, lays to rest where it lived and worked himself to death. One of the last few in a dying breed of mid-western cowboy farmers.
“Had my boots on, at least,” he said before he was trampled one final time.
For Papa – a man who refused to quit no matter how many times he was asked.
7.4.25 – late afternoon
Sunshine creeps the temperature back up to the 70’s after a quick rain shower. The air dried rapidly to half weight since my morning walk. A 7 knot wind runs NW, taking a few precariously balanced things out with it. The furtive inland tide jolted me back to consciousness as it crept into the toes of my socks. The air gained freshness as I retreated to higher ground. Creeping laps of water had wafted an algal must fighting the deet clinging to the hairs of my legs.
The high angle bridge looms over the peace of the stream. Down here my day is heady, but the rain always returns and the tide goads me away.
Unless I feel like a swim.
Over the shoulder
into dawn -
a bruised and battered sky.
Past the fallen
teardrops of honey
so goes the field hands' cry.
Through cedar boughs
melting off entoiling ice -
a freshly minted leave.
In a turning corner,
past their gate
the smokehouse grants reprieve.
Warm smoke trails,
"what's done is done,"
brow's glistening white beads.
Never again,
someday.
Someday
sighs and heaves.
I am the only thing I’ve ever feared -
the force that moves,
the enemy that doesn’t.
We are Gemini.
No bang, no whimpers
just birthdays
on either edge
of the map.
Take a bath
in a glacier's fresh melt
you'll notice the drowning
kills you last.
Silence
in a moment of peace.
One minute,
one day,
one week,
same sudsy clawfoot.
Not the suffocation
of an airless climb.
Not the starvation
of white pine standing proud,
rooting through brackish cracks.
Not the dehydration
from walking too far
and never enough.
Hey,
let's be friends.
My esophagus burns.
It was
five whole minutes ago
I was talking to you
then five whole years
as soon as we’re off the phone.
The most confused
color yellow -
languished -
clambering switchbacks,
for its place
on your dress…
Scribbles 'n Bits 