It’s been a hot minute since the last time I ventured onto Medium. The splash page has been beaten down to a dull, dusty form of its once glorious self. I remember when clickbait pictures worried serious writers.

I had coffee after noon, it was my undoing, and my reason for coming here. I thought carelessly that I could read myself unconscious. Doltish behavior on my part, and now I’m busy seeing if I have any voice left after 4 years of silence.

Anyway, looks like tiktok has put a death grip on our attentions. I am not sure where the good writing is hiding, probably behind a well thought out paywall. Not much to find here. I looked at the tag for politics, and mostly skimmed this and that hoping to find something resembling journalism. Still skimming…

Dare I look for poetry, or fiction?

Don’t know, but my feed left me incredibly uninspired, and worried my $5 monthly contribution is being spent on a single person’s mansion. At least my entire oeuvre is still intact. Thanks for that!

😂😂😂 Seems there are still craptastic quirks that stunt the capabilities of publishing with an ipad. The above photo was taken by me of a tattoo I designed for a client at my previous studio in Asheville, NC.

Writers from Mediums glory days are encouraged to say hi.

I need to have a real conversation
to talk to someone
connect,
complete,
comprehension,
understanding,
empathy,
eyes looking into eyes

I want to find someone to talk to
I need to talk to someone
I’m not depressed
I’m just tired
I’m tired of separation
of loneliness when I’m busy

I make a lot of art
I have a tattoo studio
I make a lot of art
art gets in the way
it takes over, it will push you aside
it loves solitary times and hidden times
and bird watching and music surrounding my mind
and wakefulness and insomnia and going
until the energy is gone
I need to finish
I need to go
I must make and that will push you out
it makes me want to be alone

but I need someone to talk to
I need someone to connect with
I need time away from the hunger of inspiration
when I’m done devouring the endless
I still need my back filled with your warmth

There’s the story of dirt and soil

A hand that moves the mountain

Will of transformation

Will of healing

Majick is the sweat in the rain

Removing one to replace with another

Building the shelter

Time is a legacy

Committing to the act

Loss in this fragile fire

Heart filled with ashes

Don’t vacate the pain

Painting by DHBogucki, 2020.

Fragile Fire was originally published in Table of Contents on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Everything changes.
Why melancholy?
Struggle sets me inside
a chicken coop.

Feeling safer with
the salmonella sisters,
the day blends with
the light of a flare in the sky.

Blue, a poem by its very
nature, regards this world,
makes us whole.
Return my being

into solitude.
Align, stretch, crack,
free…
Home,

I am beginning to make
It function.
After weeks of isolation
I accomplish surrender.

~

I didn’t want to write today

But everything is at the surface

I didn’t have time today

But it’s already too late

I gave in today

Because the jolt of consciousness that gave me liberation

Is my only voice

I can’t today

Because time will not stand still

I know what death looks like

Its jaw eternally hanging open

Awe and guile slipping through the gap in Its teeth

The puppeteers hand mechanically spitting out words for the weak

Too afraid to raise their voice

Too stunned to question the line winding to the cliff

Hollow on the inside

You describe the outline of love with precision

Its rotting carcass heaped at your door

Even in this world of beauty

You tug the hemline of dread

It’s not of you to leave

The cycle of your own making

Pushing death to the surface

A new Daisy for the sunshine

Clinging fuels your hunger

So you hack off another limb

Standing and leaving too simple a solution

And how you got here.

There is nothing more exciting than the mundane, life in its weary drabness as you drag on into your late forties. Especially if you have been living life as a constant midlife crisis. Everything can and has been abandoned for reasons that now seem trivial, but give it time, any wound will scab and get picked away.

So, why all the blather? A big move is taking place, but I’m doing it within a relationship. It’s a total cluster-fuck of a move, but this is where life is.

Life also managed to blunder into a dream job, only the blur of waking is wearing off and the coffee is lifting the fog. The issue, as always — is — working with other humanz sux. I mean no harm, this is barely complaining, the doubt that hovers belongs to standards that continue to remain wildly high. I obviously need counseling, therapy of some sort.

Sigh…

This is not the average “staring into the darkness” — meandering for the sake of the journey. This doubt was unforseen by hours, nay, years of mindfulness. I want success, but with it comes a level of responsibility. Then there is an entirely separate conundrum, a lack of any obvious artistic direction. Movement towards success is made more secure when a clear vision is presented. I currently lack said clarity. Writing, hilariously, had never lacked clarity of vision, but I can’t get a grip on a visual vision, LOL…

There are spaces that exist where cohesion is obvious, however, each medium appears to have its own style. I’m guessing as time moves along I’ll see shared references, but this in-between phase can fuck off.

All photos taken by the author. All photos are tattoos given by the author.

P.S. Sometimes the tattoo artist knows what they are talking about, and that little piece of forever you are about to get, it’s your next wrong choice. Except to the ones pictured, they are extra cool