3.33

A restless dreaming sky. I woke thinking, or maybe I never slept.

Dreams and thoughts tangled, threaded with worry. the noise of deadlines, personalities, pretending. People swirling, processes grinding.

The ocean is distant, far from my eyes.

Another day slides in. I look at my phone 3:33 am again, the old riddle.

I think about shaving my head, each persistent hair fewer than before. I admire their endurance, the way they insist my fight isn’t finished.

Some futures trading at four am. Maybe I'll make it work this time.

I keep hoping to stop selling my time for money.

this currency, time, spent with cathode rays in gray cubicles, and in love affairs where neither of us loved me.

There isn’t so much left now. Most is spent.

The mind goes wandering.

I pay Spotify to rent music, once I owned the vines of my sadness.

Now I am a serf, like ancestors, tilling land I never keep, the baron, a subscription model.

My mind twists, a radio’s dial spinning wild through static;

my heart, unsupervised, crawls into dark places.

Then, a flash of awareness. A gentle smile.

Here, in this minute, I choose to feel, to think.

I press down on the tuner, hold hands with my muse.

Grateful for the gift.

5:55 am

Three miles away, my son sleeps, strong and true.

I've helped raise a young man I can't live without to live without me

Beyond fatherhood,

I've wandered, for 40 years, my own desert, witnessing the lights and shadows.

In this moment of worries and rumination, I choose to guide my thoughts instead.

To offer thanks to the universe, to my abba.

For a life I can shape, for wings that feel the morning air.

This dawn is another journey.

The dark walk has led me through awe and gratitude.

To call myself fully human, to regret, and celebrate.

Proof I've lived, and lived it well.