\ Back 9

Do you ever stop talking when you believe you cannot improve upon the silence, but then resolve to whisper, worry your fate is tied to your character, then remember, oh, remember, and the only utterances thereafter are the occasional profanity let loose under your breath, on the walk home, reach the run-down, impoverished house where you grew up and were ashamed and were hopeless, to pick at the few bones that were the feast of your consequences.

I think every now again and then I mean to ask a question without actually getting the punctuation right, and only when faced with surprise realize that I ended with an exclamation. I shaved my head, shorn locks in the open, close at hand.

I am almost ready to wish my youth a farewell, like when you are reluctant to leave camp, and the bucket of water is at your side, the gear is packed into the truck but the embers still smolder. You know that throwing a bit more wood, green though it may still be, on to the coals, the flames could be waist high in little time, but there are other fires to be burned, controlled, easy heat that won't threaten your safety, but won't smell of cedar, for that matter, warm your back while your face freezes, looking into a quiet forest that has never lost a blinking match. And that is why you stamp smother it, and that is why it hisses and cries.

I will continue to struggle as long as I believe the opposite of happiness is wisdom.