I’ve always loved books. Or more specifically words. Words are beautiful things, beyond just a particular assemblage of letters, I see them as little envelopes, packed full of emotion, meaning, or subtexts that add color, flavor, and texture to the world around us. They convey ideas and can build confidence or shatter the soul within our chests.

I’d sometimes get caught up on a particular word, admiring how it felt in both temperature, mouthfeel, definition in relation to.. its.. “it-ness.” Words like “Powerhouse,” “Juxtaposition,” or “Hatred.” Playing with them, said fast, said slow, said with different emphasis on each syllable. Maybe it was first adult themed manifestation of my own ADHD? Who knows. But it was there. This eventually expanded a bit beyond just the words themselves.

A cleverly turned phrase, a trick of language, a few word swaps can alter meaning in so many different ways. You can say “I love you” and its effective, albeit pragmatic in its simplicity. An expression of love in its most basic, straight forward form. Perfect for ending a conversation, or a “just because” if the mood strikes you. You can ratchet the intensity to 100 and spin the central conceit into something like “In my life I have dreamed a thousand beautiful and perfect dreams. You are the first dream that has led me to pray to whatever God answers such things, that I never wake.” Or dial it all the way back down to a simpler “Luv ya!”

Not to mention the other directions to go with wry humor “I love you enough to help you hide the bodies.” or “I’d totally make you breakfast in the morning.” Suffice it to say. I love words.

My obsession began years ago, back during the infamous Schoolastic book fairs during elementary school. Remember those? If your folks blessed you with a $10 or $20? You were a King or Queen! for the day. I usually would run for those old Scary Tales books with the grotesque and oddly cute? picture on the front. It was as if young Stephen King and Shel Silverstein were fused into some literary homunculus like chimeric beast who decided to write stories with just enough spice to hit my elementary school brain like a sledgehammer. And an accordion.

I dove into those books, and in time found fantasy, the piece I wrote about NNHS (Room 501) took a couple slight liberties with reality, but its core premise was autobiographical. The classroom at the top of that odd staircase off the red section was loaded with fantasy books. Many of which were rapidly consumed with abandon.

But it was when I came across a collection of H.P Lovecraft’s assorted works in a Newbury Comics (RIP) that everything began to erupt uncontrollably. Lovecraft for those unfamiliar was the father of the Cthulhu and elder god, and some could argue modern horror itself. He was from the early 1900s era, using a combination of contemporary and archaic language in his stories.

In my opinion, his real talent wasn’t in the dialogue between characters, this was often dry and to me? Fairly uninteresting. His core talent revealed itself inside his world building. How he didn’t... use words, he wielded them. In pieces like “Azathoth” he wove strands of silk, filaments of imagination, and fibers of language into perfect transmissions of an understanding inside your mind. His descriptions, full of unique adjectives, shaped in unexpected ways, tickled my mind so wonderfully.

I would often sit with a dictionary as I read, deeply appreciating the education tucked in alongside the story. Appreciating the craft, and later comparing and contrasting later authors against his style. What had started with the hunger for a deeper understanding of the nuances present in both poetry, prose, and the lyricism present in music.

As children, teachers would often ask us to reflect on what we were passionate about. What made us “tick.” I never had an answer. It felt awkward going into myself to answer that question. Too self conscious or maybe lacking the maturity necessary to consider it truly. Funny how it’d take several decades for me to finally discover that the answer had been in front of me the whole time. I had shelves full of books, several in the back seat of my car. The side pocket of my ACUs, and definitely one in my work bag. A book was always within reach, chock full of them.

Delicious.

-KC

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This piece came to me in a series of images. Fun and challenging to write. It resisted me every time I went back to revise or edit, so here it is. Bring some water, it’s chewy!

Upon desiccated earth, a ramshackle stage supplicated earnest performance for the assembled royalty. Grand thrones stood in arrogant vigil at the periphery, regal and self-righteous, composed despite their near contempt for the humble stage beneath. An actor danced in the dim ambiance, culled from the spaces between stygian terror and the ambiguous mediocrities of existence. Its effigy a desperate prisoner, trapped within the reflection of the highly polished golden monuments. Distant mausoleums and tombstones flagrant on the horizon, epitaphs reciting the same obituary.

Oblivion.

One silhouette lazed through existence as a wistful mote of portent and opportunity. Its blurred aura possessed of a spectral afterglow, belying the limitless creation languishing deep within a sepulcher of ignorance. An effervescence of illumination diffused outwards, demarcating the fractures tracing tenebrous flesh. The metallic clacking of punched time clocks, and nominal cries of children echoed in this liminal space, reverberating across the veil through captured visions of a mundane life.

Authority sufficient to rend fortified illusion cannot arrive adorned in a gossamer shroud of meekness, or the well-intentioned seduction of non-confrontation. The toll of the threshold mandates an absolute certainty. The stuttering start may be tolerated, as long as beneath the intimidation, an aquifer of fire churns deep within the primus of self.

A purposeful grimace.

A breath held a moment longer.

A single tentative step.

The foreboding span of the bridge stretched across the great chasm, with its fractured slats and frayed rope guides like a ragged scar. Its length nebulous, seeming to simultaneously contract and stretch further as it swayed threateningly above the maelstrom. Lashed by gales that carried slivers of ash and the few remnants of hope that manifested as brilliant shards of starlight. At the precipice the lone shadow stood, a golden radiance shone from its broken skin, pulsing almost timidly before the magnitude of the task before it.

Purpose and release coalesced to become dangerous alchemy in the presence of momentum. Though the wan scaffolding of the bridge shuddered treacherously, the first foot placed with intent brought a moment of welcomed sanguinity. Before the witness of countless failed incarnations, long ripped apart by the tempest below, slow steps gave way to purposeful strides. The tremors of the traverse began to fade into irrelevance as the figure progressed. Nightmares wearing the garb of memory attempted to interrupt its journey. Wielding poisons of unworthiness, wings bladed with existential doubt and wickedly hooked uncertainty. Denizens of the chasm whose appetites could only be quenched by the ruin of a future dismantled.

True courage only manifests during tribulation, when both arch and buttress are torn away. Above the wrath of the tempest, the specter endured the onslaught on the bridge. Visible only in stolen glimpses amidst the orgy of envious blackened wings, a tortured yellow radiance. Irregular fractions of dark flesh were viciously wrenched off the specter’s body. Each terrific wound giving permission for more of the brilliance underneath to shine through. A golden brilliance that had distilled into an exquisite platinum glare that no longer accepted compromise.

What erupted from the dark mass of violence, was no longer possessed of the flesh that had carried the burden of generations within its matrices. Instead a joyous luminosity emerged from the depths with a spectacular incandescence that flung charred fragments of the enemy into the hellscape. No longer just a shadowed patchwork of anxious fragmented light, scintillating filaments unfurled behind the figure. Seemingly gifted wings of its own through its triumphant emancipation. In its wake, wretched wooden slats splintered, rope guardrails seemed to dissolve, and the threads of reality itself appeared to reorganize into patterns alien to this world.

There had never been a new day here. So when dawn arrived, an irreconcilable confusion spread across all of creation. Except for the glowing form that stood by the precipice of the chasm. Its light oscillated in the steady rhythm of an unconcerned heartbeat as it surveyed the world before it. Its eyes full of a pacificity it had never known possible. Whatever reward the bridge had proffered had been casually dismissed, deemed as both too small and too unnecessary. It figured that going forward, it would be the judge of what its own happiness would look like.

Never again would the fear of becoming stand against the demand of what must now be.

-KC

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Do you remember it?

Like, you could tell things were...probably? Being communicated, but had no idea what.

And really, as long as you connected, it would be okay.

What did you do with all those CDs? Those AOL CDs that arrived, bundled, mailed, stuffed into magazines.

They might be the single greatest contributor to the microplastic epidemic. (We’ll never know.)

Before Gmail and spam folders... There was a single phrase that could make your entire day:

“You’ve got mail.”

It was like something out of the distal side astral plane was acknowledging you.

Cared enough about you.

To write you a letter.

The mystery was intense!

Who from?

What’s inside?!

Maybe...

Holidays.

Birthdays.

Graduations and special occasions.

High chances of getting that big square card wrapped in a colorful paper or a long, skinny envelope.

Hopefully filled with the last bit of whatever you needed to buy that thing you wanted more than anything else.

My Grandmother lived in D.C., about 8 hours away, so we didn’t see her that often, but I always looked forward to her letters. Every letter would be addressed the same.

“To Master Jonathan”

I remember when I was old enough for the novelty of the honorific to register.

“Master”

...?

Master of what?

I live under more rules than everyone else!

This regime makes me go to church, go to bed before I want to, and gets mad when I don’t do my homework!

My mom had explained it to me later and it kinda made sense.

An unintentional jack of all trades.

Because really?

I was the Master of none.

Sometimes, even here in 2025, I still like to write letters once in a while.

I keep a book of stamps in my desk drawer.

Next to a few of those Sharpie gel pens. (Iykyk)

Because even though my return address isn’t on the distal side of the astral plane…

You still want to let people know that you care.

-KC

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Sometimes I struggle with simple social rituals and routines. I feel like most people have a baked in script for being unexpectedly greeted, when to begin eating in social settings, or whether it is or inappropriate to go in for a hug when greeting a long unseen friend... I still struggle with that last one. How fast do friend levels degrade over time? If you step in, are you already committed to the hug? Is it weird if you step in, then back out?

Does my confusion show on my face? So now I’m approaching reentry with a bewildered but determined look on my face. No one needs that, and if they did, do I want to be hugging them in the first place?

These are the questions that I need help with.

Then you have the whole cornucopia of the “Make a Wish” traps.

“It’s 11:11 make a wish!”

“Look! It’s a shooting star, make a wish!”

“You blew all the seeds off the dandelion, make a wish!”

I have a hard enough time thinking of something appropriate to wish for on my Birthday. Is there some kind of hierarchy for the kinds of wishes you can make for each event?

Like when is it appropriate to wish for the little plastic ends of my shoelaces to never fall off vs an untraceable bank error in my favor? Or that I miscounted and actually have one more ice cream sandwich in the box vs getting a warning instead of a ticket for going 80 in a 55?

Ugh. Maybe I should just start writing these down.

Make a little wallet card with a whole gradient of wishes for every situation.

I’ll start small, see how many get granted and go from there.

If you come across any kind of manual for this kinda thing, send it my way ok?

Thanks.

-KC

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I want to sit down and kinda drift a bit, and have a semi unfocused stream of consciousness to really just… explore death. Not about death itself, but what’s left behind when someone we love slips into the other room.

There is a saying that when someone passes, we aren’t sad because they’re gone, we’re sad because they’re gone from us. On some level I get this, despite the implications of selfishness, because it is true. Although these feelings are not mutually exclusive.

Depending on the nature and nuances of the relationship, we can be sad, angry, guilty, and happy all at once, which just adds to the mess really. Because there isn’t exactly an instruction manual on how to feel. There’s just a run of falling emotional dominoes, each one crashing until, at some moment, the last one falls. Then? There’s simply the before and after. Everything else suddenly feels irrelevant in comparison.

The ability to say or do something to show love, to do some form of “catch up” or “extra credit” homework on a relationship that had taken a backseat. But now reality has checked the receipts and totaled the bill.

And in the afterwards… all we have left are prayers and sentiment. Maybe that’s enough, but far too often it feels our prayers and feelings are just tealights. Each plea, each supplication, a candle cast out into and swallowed by an endless darkness that mirrors the void now within our chests.

A chasm, with no clear direction of how to fill it is now.. present. As if the vacuum of their departure pulled part of us through, leaving us smaller in some inexplicable way.

Regardless of how we express our pain, the raw, tear soaked wails that bring us to our knees, or the silent unboxing of compartmentalized sorrow in solitude, it all comes from the same place. Again, it doesn’t really matter, because these things are coming from us, for us. Ultimately, the only balm that seems to work is time.

Time, spread across internal honesty, through the lens of perspective.

Through that, we find the kind of acceptance that reminds us life doesn’t care about our opinions or feelings.. it just goes on. In acute suffering we look down. We become myopic for a time... our minds seized by the emptiness before us, and ahead of us at the life that now is missing that cornerstone, that parent, that friend, that piece of your heart that once made everything glow like a sacred memory. But eventually we must look up again. We must look up to see that while they may be gone, our road isn’t. We mustn’t let one death become two. Instead, take hold of that memory of them and walk. Don’t die for them... Live for them. Live HARDER because now, because now their memory rides shotgun beside you.

We can feel gratitude. To be grateful for the time we did have, however long it was. That we got to be with them long enough to love them, long enough to miss them, long enough for them to matter to us through all the static noise of the thousands of cuts life inflicts on us each and every day. If we hurt it’s only because they mattered. It’s good to have met someone that truly did.

There will eventually be peace. Yes, in the immediate aftermath, and in quiet echoes years later, there may be conflict, some of which we may forever struggle to reconcile. But that’s okay... In a way you may reach a place where you can almost “Agree to disagree” with yourself. But in time, there will be peace. Because life goes on. The pain will settle.

That void in your chest will never go away, but over time as you fill it with memories, when you gaze into it you will no longer see what you lost.

You’ll see what you were blessed to have.

-KC

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Maybe it was planned.
Maybe it wasn’t.

Just a casual hangout that accidentally ran a little too late… until staying over was the only option left.

Those were some of the best nights, weren’t they?

Your friend might say, “They went shopping today.” Translation: We’ve got tons of snacks.
Maybe someone just got a new game.
Or there was school drama that needed to be unpacked by the full council.

You’d spend hours chilling in their room, talking and laughing into the late hours...
The night fueled by smuggled sugar, illicit caffeine, and the worst case of symbiotic giggles anyone had ever seen.

Usually over something dumb.

Always over something dumb.

Volume control? Nowhere to be found.
Because as kids, we really had no idea how loud we were.

Especially after ignoring the 1st, 2nd, 3rd... and maybe even the 4th warning from the parents.

We’d quiet down for, what, five minutes? Ten tops?
Grossly exaggerated whispers trying to contain the uncontainable.
Until the laughter came bubbling up again like Mentos in a 2 Liter of Coke.

And then... came the consequences.

Generally, not too bad.
Sometimes, we’d have to switch houses for a while.

But for the most part?

Totally worth it.

Those nights gave us memories that would last decades.
Inside jokes.
Heartfelt streams of consciousness.
Late-night hijinks that sealed our friendships and gave us new brothers and sisters.

Sometimes even bonded our families together.

Our parents becoming unexpected allies in defense against our collective nonsense.

And it was always interesting, wasn’t it?
Seeing how someone else’s parents parented differently than yours.

The old “contrast and compare.”
Tiny windows into the lived experience of other kids.
Little glimpses of how home can mean different things to different people.

-KC

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My journey from Massachusetts to a new start in Pennsylvania began with 8 boxes, a few duffel bags, and a thoroughly wrapped painting I had inherited from my mom. I had downsized considerably prior to this trip, shedding nearly all the trappings of the life I had built in the Commonwealth. Not bitterly, not sadly, just distilling my life down to what was absolutely necessary. At that point in my life I had already moved nearly a dozen times, but this time would be different.

In PA my first apartment was the pragmatic choice. A thoroughly beige two bedroom apartment, with just enough of everything to make me not necessarily happy but enough to make me deeply content. Which matters in ways you only appreciate in those intermittent moments of quiet reflection. When you sit back and check the receipts on where you’ve been, contrasting to the where you’re hoping to go.

I speak frequently about the joy I find in moving, how it allows me to reinvent myself and try new things and explore the different facets of myself in a new setting. Once I had furniture, I remember going to Home Depot, looking for... anything really. I didn’t have a particular thing in mind that I needed really, I just knew I needed something. Home Depot can surprise you sometimes, at the time they would periodically have great deals on lamps, art prints and “unique” wall hangings. (as unique as something can truly be in a big box store right?) But that was where I came across this art print that was...perfect.

A greyscaled image of an old growth forest clearing with sunlight pouring down into a small clearing, almost ghostly in greyscale. The spectral light depicted seemed to push back against the creeping shadows at the periphery. The shadows somehow weren’t ominous, there was no perceived latent hostility. It was large, maybe 36x24, frameless and exactly what I didn’t know that I needed. Plus it was only $19.99! The print may not have realized it then, but it belonged in my bedroom for reasons I STILL can’t clearly articulate, and that’s where it went.

Once I had it hung, I would spend time staring at it, the near continuous percolation of thoughts quieted to an ambient background simmering. In retrospect it was nearly a Ghostbusters 2 moment, but far more pacific, and virtually no pink slime. I do like Motown though. This was well before my art obsession had matured into its current state, and what I now find odd as I write this is that I never matched any of my later pieces to it.

Understand that thematically my collection has threads that tie everything together, however thin or tangential. Across dozens and dozens of pieces, regardless of size and frame, there existed some form of continuity. But this forest scene is a stand alone, and it would occupy a central place in my bedroom for the next ten years... until now.

I couldn’t tell you what changed, other than it just doesn’t feel right anymore. When I look at it these days, sitting in its new place in the attic, leaning against neatly stacked totes and stored packing materials. I regard it with almost a sense of peculiar gratitude. As one would feel towards a trusted but somehow distant companion who might not have held your hand, but still was there to witness. Even... steward you through... something?

Maybe I didn’t need to travel to the places its shadowed branches and contrasted ambiance guided me anymore. Maybe I no longer needed whatever form of comfort or grounding it provided as it held lecture on my bedroom wall. Maybe it was just time to move on.

I willingly concede that to feel any kind of regard or gratitude to a $19.99 art print from Home Depot is unusual. Doesn’t change anything though, it’s good to be grateful. There may come a time when it will find a place on my wall again. Perhaps it may one day be gifted to someone else, to take up its watchful duty in their home instead.

I wonder if it will take them to the same places it took me.

Or if it was ever truly mine in the first place.

-KC

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When I left Pittsburgh for Detroit back in ‘22, winters had fallen into a semi predictable rhythm. A dusting of snow, followed by a thorough brining/salting, followed by rain to wash that thorough brining/salting away. And of course, a deep freeze afterwards to turn it all to ice, and make driving across Pittsburgh’s hundred plus bridges, and crazy hills a homegrown version of the X Games.

After a few years in Michigan, I returned to Pittsburgh to find winters while I was gone had become snowier, maybe... a little colder. But manageable just the same. Being the night owl that I am, one night I found myself in my driveway at 3am to head to the gym. I had every intention of loving on that elliptical for 120 minutes. Outside I stood, 7 degrees, moderately dressed, with a car that refused to start.

I say moderately dressed because I personally hate changing at the gym, so I try to leave the house with the best version of whatever middle ground of weather appropriate looks like. Tonight it was my three pom pom winter hat, a regular zip up hoodie, and windbreaker swishie pants. It’d do. So anyway.

Entering my car, the cabin lights had lit up as they always did, headlights auto illuminated the back of the driveway as they always did too. But when I pushed the start button, a sharp series of *clacks* rapid fired ahead. Gaining a sudden and acute awareness of the temperature outside, it quickly dawned on me that my battery was likely shot, but why not pop the hood and take a look?

When I opened the hood, the negative terminal was covered in thick white/blue whatever that powdery substance is called. But fortunately... I had the tools I needed to really try and earn a second chance at making it to the gym. I grabbed one of my many flashlights, socket wrenches, and the wire brush I had purchased last month because I accidentally didn’t plan for the wax from one of my larger candles to find its way outside of the dish... down the grate of the radiator cover...the patterned... radiator cover. All the way to the floor.

Outside, I did the whole disconnect the negative terminal, gave it, and every part of the connection a good scrub-scrub. Nothing. More *clacks.* At that point I phoned it in for the night, disconnected the battery entirely and took it inside to warm up, maybe earning another shot in the morning. If not? I’d just walk down the street to the Goodyear and buy a new one for a little more than I’d pay at Costco of course. But hey, call it a convenience tax I guess right?

The thing is? In all of this I was never mad, irritated, or remotely put off. Because this? this was a blessing. Think about it. My car was inoperable, with what could be considered a reasonably inexpensive fix, that falls under routine maintenance. Nothing pointed at the alternator, or the starter.

It happened at home, in between my days off of work. I had the tools, including the wire brush I needed, to make some meaningful progress at fixing this myself. I got paid on Friday, and my bills were already paid, so I had the extra coin to absorb the cost of the fix. I didn’t have to rob Peter to pay Paul as the saying goes.

Other things that didn’t happen? It didn’t happen at 2:30AM in downtown Pittsburgh when I got out of work after a 12 hour shift. Or miles away from the house on a very promising first date. Or when I was broke. Or in any number of WAY worse scenarios that could have made this a literal nightmare.

Now, whether it’s God, or the universe, luck, or whatever *gestures vaguely about* “greater than thou” concept you follow, it makes me think sometimes that times like these are the blessings and subtle interventions that are the answers to the prayers we consciously or unconsciously make. It could also be just a benefit of viewing things through a different perspective. Regardless, it’s good to be grateful just the same. To God, to the universe, to fortune, or your own personal brand of “Whatever.”

It’s wrapping the “it could always be worse” cynicism in the wrapping paper of a zoomed out view. Because it could be. But tonight, it wasn’t. In fact, in the broader scheme of things, it wasn’t a bad thing at all. My 4 year old Optima yellow top died in the most gracious way possible, and for that, I am grateful.

We’ll see what happens in the morning.

In the meantime?

I think I’ll brew a pot of tea and maybe crank out some push ups.

-KC

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Big. Yellow. Loud.
Trying to get a seat next to your friends...
Or your secret crush.
At the very least, away from the kid you didn’t like. The one who maybe (definitely) picked their nose.

Then there was that single seat in the way back.
You either loved it... or didn’t.
I personally did. But I’ll admit, it was an acquired taste.

And all of this.

With no seat belts.

It’s funny, isn’t it?
How a simple field trip could open a window into who we’d eventually become.

You had the ones with their CD players or Walkman (remember Anti-Skip?!), gazing out the window, lost in their chosen escape.

The bookworms, noses buried deep in whatever world they brought with them.
The social butterflies, half-kneeling in their seats, turned around to talk, tease, or stir up trouble.

And of course, the poor teachers up front, deciding which rules were worth enforcing and silently praying for peace.

The windows?
Clunky. Clumsy. Felt rusted even when they weren’t.
Always a little too hard or a little too easy to slide.
But that was part of it, wasn’t it?

The ritual.
The rhythm.
The magic of it all.

Who knew those would be some of the best times of our lives that we forgot?

So, where did you sit?

Do you remember?

-KC

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I’m a collector.

A sentence that context could not possibly matter more right? A sentence that if spoken in a particularly aloof and high brow tone, carries the massive weight of built in mahogany bookcases, ascots, and Earl Grey tea. I am not that kind of collector. I am the ADHD dopamine hunting, novelty seeking, and security minded type. The “Hey that’s cool!, let me get more of these things!” type. The “I’m going to pick this up so I can attach a memory anchor to it.” type. The “I want this because it answers some deep seated need for material security and self validation” type.

Collecting has always felt good, and while sitting here writing this piece I am throwing my gaze backwards through time and exploring the *why* of them. Some are easy. Growing up I was plagued with eczema. The rashes would show up on my eyelids and elbow joints mostly, and at that time the most common remedy medicine could offer was hydrocortisone cream, which if you ever used it, 1. Doesn’t smell very good, 2. Doesn’t actually moisturize, and 3. Prolonged use actually thins the skin out. I found far more relief sampling my mom’s more emollient lotions, and as I got older, investing in certain higher quality soaps... which is where my soap collecting habits began. The milk soaps (sheep, goat), triple milled french soaps, the olive oil soaps, etc. paid dividends for me. Richer lather, intense moisturizers and what not, helped ease my eczema, with the added bonus of the lather was more than thick enough that I could use the same bar to shave my head. The dozens of bars I stacked in my closet might as well have been bars of lilac and cardamom scented gold. With the added bonus of they would almost certainly be useful bartering goods in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse.

I collected ties for a time, back when I wore them for work. While color was important, I focused more on the overall... energy of the tie. Something that I do with almost anything of permanence that I place in my home. I had to consider not only the head space and image I was projecting, but also what I wanted whoever I interacted with to perceive. Understand that in many ways, the tie, is the core of the visual handshake when you meet someone wearing a suit. It reflects their personality, a micro sliver of themselves that they push out into the world. Now? I have about forty, and yes, color coordinated, chilling in my closet. These days, I may wear one only a handful of times during the year but know that when I am, it was chosen with intention.

When I have guests over, my stuffed object (I want to say animal, but they aren’t all animals) collection often elicits bemused expressions, questioning looks that quickly melt into slow smiles, and gentle laughter when they see a memory marker that they share. Doubtful? Tell me you wouldn’t crack a grin seeing a stuffed Mario Kart banana, Falcor (Yes, THAT Falcor... as if there could be another!), Or a smiling bag of jelly beans, with MORE stuffed jelly beans inside! That also happened to be smiling! I have several dozen of them, and each of them tied to a specific memory. Some good, some...not. But they all serve the purpose of when I look at them, they pull me back for even the briefest of moments to a different time. Because even during the darkest times, there was still a reason to be grateful for something. And those times are often what taught me the hardest, but most necessary lessons that I carry to this day.

The wall art I have? I recently wrote about the piece I found at Home Depot, the haunting greyscale forest scene I hung for years. Since then I have expanded my collection to probably fifty plus pieces, even having given some away over time to people who I felt needed whatever particular...thing... that piece gave. I just love wall art though, seeing the spirit of the piece, the *Gravity* of the image, and how each influences the overall ambiance of the room around it. Some pieces seeming to anchor the room in seriousness or reflection. Others lifting the energy of the space, making it reflective or somehow soothing. Whether canvas and wood, metal, or glass, or some hybrid, if it feels right and resonates? It’s getting added to the collection, even if its for a house in the unknown future that is currently waiting for me to come home.

The rest?

The shelves of knickknack that serve as post cards from friends lost to time. Adventures that ended in unexpectedly discovered treasure. And honestly, some pretty cool conversation starters at minimum.

The many silly hats that in the mirrors reflection, I no longer see the 44 year old man with the goofy grin. But the eleven year old secreted away deep inside, laughing to tears in the most purest of joy that only truly happy children remember how to feel.

Gnomes, scented candles, and the other odds and ends have their places as well. Each, a thing with a story, a memory, or a crazy good sale that may have out sized value one day. Either to those that outlast us, or those still around rebuilding after the aforementioned zombie apocalypse.

Throughout all my collections, I suppose the items are just a proxied veneer over the real root cause of what I’m doing. Sure, the dopamine is awesome, the “Ooh Shiny!” reflex is real, and the other justifications aren’t really warranted. But when zooming out what I’ve really been doing is expanding the definition of myself. A dozen compiled reminders of what the most authentic version of myself actually is, and what makes me happy. That when someone comes into my space, they are received by a host that doesn’t hint as to who they are, but shows it.

-KC

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Red, white, green, yellow, or blue, it doesn’t really matter.

Do you remember what your favorite color was?
How you immediately started aligning yourself with cartoon characters who wore it?

The emotional betrayal when your favorite character said something out of pocket?
Or worse, when the story turned on them?

You know the ones.
Your favorite Power Ranger.
Your chosen X-Man.
The specific turtle from TMNT.
The Powerpuff Girl who “got” you.
That one member of Voltron or GI Joe who felt like your reflection.

Sometimes it’s fun to look back on the little ways we began building our identities.

As kids, we didn’t have much say in anything.
Not dinner. Not bedtime. Not what we wore or where we went.
Maybe, maybe our friend group. But even that was sometimes a matter of who lived next door.

But we did get to choose our favorite color.
And for a while, that meant everything.

It was our first soft declaration of self.
A quiet claim to who we were, and maybe, who we were going to be.

Does any of it still hold true today?

- KC

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What a cliche’ term right? Biblically, we are promised somewhere between 70-80 years which currently seems to be a fairly accurate average I suppose. Very broadly speaking. We all know someone who has exceeded those limits, or sadly, did not. But we’re not here to play with semantics tonight. Instead I want to reflect on the quality of those years over their quantity.

My mom ended up shorting herself 6 years when cancer took her at 64. I don’t blame the cancer. Not really.

Because guns don’t kill people, bullets do.

For the majority of my life I watched her burn herself, working 3-4 jobs. Her normal 3rd shift 40 hours at one hospital. Weekend 12-16’s at another facility. Extra 8s during the week at a 3rd when they needed. Her “1 weekend a month, 2 weeks a year” for the Army Reserve.

At first I am sure it was necessary to make ends meet. To pay tribute to the holy “grind” that American life commonly demands of us. I’ve been there myself, I understand. She’d often say during times of stress “You don’t see me out on the street selling myself do you?! I work because it’s the only way I know how to pay these bills!” This piece is not to litigate or have an AAR about her life, or the consequences of her choices for that matter.

See, she had dreams too. Big dreams once. She’d always say that if she hadn’t had me (I was an accident lol) She’d have been one of those “degree collector” types, perpetually in school, getting degrees like merit badges. She had wanted to travel, to explore this grand creation around us. A version of her wanted to get married and have a thousand kids. Another desired land and property. When I came around she pivoted, settling into increasingly lesser versions of such dreams, until in time all she had left was faith and the remote hope of a lottery win.

The grind is ever hungry, and it suffers balance as one would an allergic reaction. Though devastating to me, her life concluded as a non event in the great scheme of things. When I got home from the hospital, having just said my last goodbye the phone rang. A bill collector asked if they could speak to her about some trivial debt, and when I replied that she had just passed, the collector pivoted and asked if I would be willing to make payments on her behalf. By then I am sure housekeeping had already turned over the hospital room for the next patient.

Stress is a poison. Insidious in its progression, terminal in its prognosis. Windblown sand against stone, wearing us down until what’s left has lost its edge. Thinning out the very aspects of us that give meaning to our lives until all that’s left are hopes that others can enjoy the lives we may have once wanted for ourselves. Whether it’s a heart attack, cancer, stroke, or some other eventuality, chronic stress will eventually demand its due. And it does not ask politely.

We compromise against ourselves. Promises to catch up the sleep we’ve been shorting. The too much coffee, nicotine, booze or a thousand of other bargains struck that we make to cope, but no longer enjoy. If we ever actually did. Not as an effort to pursue joy, but to make existence more tolerable.

I wrote this not to chastise, or vilify *anyone.*

I’m just tired of seeing too many lives ending without having actually lived. Poured into jobs that would replace you the very afternoon they shuttled your body down to the morgue. I wanted to shine a light and humbly ask you to take a good long look at your life and ask if you’re happy. If the life you lead brings you fulfillment. To ask you what you do for fun. When the last time you had a restful night sleep was. Did your last dream have you waking up with a smile on your face.

You don’t have to answer.

Not to me.

Just please remember to put the safety back on.

-KC

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We all have our culinary aesthetic.
Our closely held food quirks.
The guilty pleasures that might get us politely escorted out of supposedly polite company.

No, I’m not about to waste your time on something as tired as the pineapple-on-pizza debate.

What I’m talking about is more profane.
More blasphemous.
More... heretical.

My guilty, and frankly sultry, pleasure?

Taco Bell Supreme Tacos with canned cranberry sauce.

Whole berry or jellied, I don’t discriminate.
And no. It’s not gross.
It’s divine.

You’ve got the salty, savory crunch of the taco.
A hit of sour cream.
Then the tart-sweet velvet of cranberry sliding into the mix?

You’ve only cosplayed life until you’ve tasted that combo.

There’s a world of weirdly wonderful pairings out there.
Lamb with mint jelly.
Buffalo wings with Domino’s sweet icing.
(Yes, that icing.)

Apparently my palate thrives on that sweet n savory dynamic.
Probably why I melt over Indian and Thai food, too.

Listen.
This is a safe place.

What are your strange food desires?
Go on.
Get weird with it.

- KC

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P.S. Pineapple pizza is amazing with bacon, sausage, or pepperoni.

Yup!

I didn’t stutter, I said what I said! Breakfast for dinner, in the style of an unsupervised 10 year old. I’m 200 grams of sugar deep and I feel no pain—nor guilt tonight! (I’m def hitting the gym tomorrow, but tonight...)

Let’s have a little chat about one of the best parts of adulthood that we often overlook. Too many of us rushed through adolescence, chasing the future, that we forgot to stop and enjoy the ride. And now that we’re here, we rarely look back at what we left behind.

Life now as an adult is serious, with no shortage of things to worry about, from our health insurance premiums going up while covering less, to your knees creaking a little more today than yesterday, to having to grind some OT to afford groceries. It’s a lot. And it sucks.

If you can remember that episode, where the wise prophet and cultural icon, Homer J Simpson said: “All work and no play make Homer go something something.”

Yes. 100%

So this week I challenge you to step into your mental Tardis and pay your younger self a visit. Remember some of the things you used to do when left to your own devices to have FUN, to UNWIND.

Try to pull an all nighter playing video games or watching horror movies under a pile of blankets.

Pig out on a box of your favorite childhood cereal, and stream some old cartoons. If you look, you can find them. (Prime has Looney Tunes and old stuff too, they were free last time I checked. If not prolly Youtube or whatever streaming service you use.)

Break out the Risk board, or your old Pokémon or Magic Cards… Legos anyone?

(Check out the prices on those Pokémon and Magic Cards, those things are worth A LOT now!)

Go to the local park and play on the swings or the slides.. maybe hide and seek or capture the flag if you can find the people!

Take a walk in the woods, and crack rocks just to see what’s inside!

Pop in one of the albums of a band you used to like and listen to the whole thing back to back and try to remember what you were doing when listening to it.

As the years pass, our lives subtly succumb to distractions. It’s easy to get bogged down by responsibilities and obligations and forget the magic and harmless whimsy that ran through our realities. For me? It was cereal and old 80s classics like Spaceballs and Flight of the Navigator.

What about you?

What’s one thing your younger self would love to see you do again?

-KC

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It was a single, perfectly detached rear quarter of a deer that first welcomed me to Pennsylvania. It was sitting on the side of I-80, between the yellow shoulder line and the jersey barrier with nothing around it. Just hanging out on the shoulder like the highway equivalent of a morbid yet appropriate table setting. I had questions of course, how did it get there? Where... was the rest of it? As I drove on it stuck with me though. How many things we pass by on the roads, highways, and throughways over course of our travels that we see, yet go unseen?

Eyes on the road right? Hands at 10 and 2, during our commutes and our errands. Heads absently bobbing up, down, or side to side to music. Or sentence fragments muttered in half committed responses to whatever the discussion is between the talking heads on the radio. Our eyes are open. We’re alert, the partially finished coffee sitting in the cup holder makes sure of that. Yet the autopilot has been thoroughly engaged, our consciousness checking in 5 minute blocks, but ready to respond a quarter second’s notice. Not unlike the parent of a toddler who had moved to an adjacent room to fold laundry, listening for anything outside of the expected chaos. Unsupervised, yet not unsurveiled.

If you pay close attention, you can almost feel it happening. When you slip back into the drivers seat, and when you step away again. More interestingly, try to catch what things bring you back. Unexpected roadwork draws me in for a few moments, just long enough to figure out if I need to worry about being late to my destination or if I need to brave the back roads. I’ll snap back in if I start getting that strange intuition you get when you know someone is about to merge, not right now, but you can tell they are definitely thinking about it. The pilot in me refuses to leave again until some kind of resolution is reached; so I tend to either slow down to give them an abundance of room, or speed up and pass to either force the decision, or remove it entirely. I’m not sure what that inner pilot is doing in that other room, but I hope it isn’t folding laundry.

It isn’t always something grisly like that deer haunch. The other night on my way home from work it was a perfectly upright potted plant. Its generic home improvement store plastic base didn’t look too damaged. It was intact enough to consider its survival a small gesture of divine providence, even in its slightly injured state. Aside from the obvious questions of “How?” I thought about the others. Did it fall off the back of something? Was it deliberately placed there as some sort of high risk prize for the one daring enough to stop and pick it up? The concerns about its final outcome faded quickly though, as I had some more laundry to fold I guess.

The hats, caps, and odd sneaker every now and again might receive a momentary flare of awareness, but their explanations are too mundane. Too easily explained by an unexpectedly windy day with the top down, your shotgun riding navigator with a foot out the window with untied shoelaces. Then there’s the wild card sibling battle where the checkmate was always throwing something out the window at 75mph.

Mattresses and box springs I understand completely though, but don’t at the same time. They are a royal pain unless you have a pickup with a bed big enough or box truck. Securing it to the roof of the car? Bungees, rope, or winches, whatever you got, you hope you have enough of it to keep it stable. Behind the doors or through the windows, and how exactly do you tie it lengthwise? The joke though is even with your best amateur effort, you still run the risk of physics demanding sacrifice. But even if the wind snatches it off the roof of your car...why didn’t you go back and get it? If it was worth going through all that trouble, was a little road dust now the proverbial straw?

I once came across a couch. It was no longer white, but it looked like it was trying to remember. Weather and the highway’s own systems of entropy had clearly taken its toll. Terrible pun aside, I considered the couch as it faded from the rear-view. Was it a moving day casualty? How did it come to be discarded so far from home? It seemed serviceable enough, maybe it and its owners had shared memories enough that made this unceremonious goodbye easier. Who can say?

Driving is a happy pastime for me. Always has been. A moment away where I turn my inner monologue into a full conversation to the backdrop of whatever genres I happen to be into at the time. Continually alert, but with a solitary hand at noon. The pilot makes sure to pop its head in from time to time, before going back to folding socks.

-KC

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My favorite part about Christmas was never the presents under the tree. Generally, you always knew, or at least had a pretty good idea, of what you were getting, so the element of surprise was rarely there at full power. The stocking, however... that’s where you got to see the real creativity, the real effort, in my opinion. All this to say, I love surprises.

Which is also why I love rocks.
Yes... rocks.

You ever look at a boulder and wonder what’s inside it?
Underneath it?
See a mountain and start imagining what it would look like if you could just... smash through it?
Just to see what secrets it may or may not have held?

I did.

Hell, I still do even now.

Fortunately, I had some friends that felt the same way.
Like a motley crew of deviants, we’d go out into the woods with day packs and sledgehammers, adventuring out to appreciate nature in a particularly unique way.

Smashing rocks.

There was no science behind it. Just boys doing boy things, having fun, talking shit, and celebrating whenever we found something cool. Given how low our standards really were for entertainment at the time, that was pretty frequent.

But every so often, we’d find a real prize: a small quartz or amethyst geode, maybe a surprise vein of pyrite or the like.

I think back to these times often, because how often do we overcomplicate things that need not be so complicated? Throwing in all these extra steps that just serve as hurdles keeping us away from our goals, or simply doing what we want to do?

Sometimes, it’s as simple as just getting that sledgehammer.

And smashing some rocks.

–KC

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Musings about the world of modern hand drying. Some battles are small. Others are damp. This was both.

The “Kind Chicken Regular” was a series I wanted to try when I started Kind Chicken. A series of strange spoken word shorts that range from the lightly surreal to thoughtful and ridiculous.

I’d love your feedback!

-KC

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This line comes from a translated haiku by Mizuta Masahide, a 17th-century poet and samurai who, legend has it, penned it shortly after his home burned to the ground.

It definitely says something that instead of a string of profoundly colorful epithets, he wrote a haiku.

But I digress.

At 7:50am on August 17th, 2010, my mom lost her battle with breast cancer. With her passing, I inherited two absolutely ridiculous dogs: a spindly, confused-looking Boston Terrier/Poodle mix named Josh, and a black-and-white Sheltie named Izzie.

Josh had long skinny limbs and a sparse, wiry coat — think a thin-limbed Yorkie with alopecia. His mirror, Izzie, sported the trademark luxurious Sheltie quadruple coat and a blank, beady-eyed stare.

Josh was the personality of the two, all terrier stubbornness, with a presence ten sizes too big for his 12-pound body. One of his ten thousand nicknames was “Mr. Bun,” because when he curled up, he kind of looked like a little croissant… and that had way too many syllables, so Mr. Bun had to do.

Izzie had the personality of a cereal box, but he was so innocent and funny. Always found wherever Josh was getting into trouble. A truly bonded pair.

I was working my way through school at the time. Suffice it to say, for a while, things were tough. But through a little (read: a lot) of help from God, my friends, and my roommates, I was able to finish school and start my career as an RN.

The idea of giving them up for adoption was out of the question. They were the last living connection I had to my mom. I wouldn’t forsake that. They were family.

I may not be Vin Diesel, but… you get it.

It was May, not long after I got my feet under me as a nurse, Josh, ever the eternal diplomat, escaped the backyard and wandered into a neighbor’s yard, where he was attacked and badly hurt. I had to let him go that night.

A couple months later, in July, liver cancer took Izzie.

I prayed they found each other in the hereafter. And though I was heartbroken, I was, and still am, grateful I got to be there for both of them, and say goodbye. That’s a privilege not everyone gets.

2016 was a rough year.

But as I mourned and healed, I realized I no longer had ties. My family was gone. My friends were starting their own. But for me… my roots were now wherever I decided to take sun and water.

Two months after Izzie passed, I was on the move, and starting my adventure.

I headed west, bouncing from place to place, meeting new people, making new friends, and finally living life the way I intended. Free from the demands of legacy or expectation. Since then, each day I wake up is another chance to chase a new dream and step into a new chapter.

Those of you who’ve known loss know that some wounds linger longer than others. Some pains don’t disappear, we just learn how to carry them.

For me, I still remember.

But now, as I live, they ride shotgun with me in memory. Dog hair and all.

Because every time my barn burned down — I never lost sight of the moon.

— KC

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Sometimes a man finds a book that shakes everything he knew about his place in the world.

Or at least his confidence.

The “Kind Chicken Regular” was a series I wanted to try when I started Kind Chicken. A series of strange spoken word shorts that range from the lightly surreal to thoughtful and ridiculous.

I’d love your feedback!

-KC

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I remember when you said “Daddy, the branches look like they’re arguing.”

The vinyl of the lawn chair creaked against my back as I looked up towards the canopy, branches crooked in crazy, impossible angles.

“Yea Buddy, you might be on to something.”

I said, while your body savored the last bit of momentum on the tire swing. Size three Chuck Taylors bobbing absently in thought.

You were so smart, seeing the world like everything was a version of something and someone else. And each—a friend you just hadn’t met yet.

“What’cha doin?” I heard your voice from below the ladder. Peering down, our eyes had met, yours so big and curious. Of course, you had your tractor in tow—didn’t you always?

“Fixin’ the rope buddy, if it broke you could hurt yourself.” Hemp rope worn thin around the branch of the elm—needed to be replaced. A father’s job.

“Oh. Does the rope hurt the tree?” You asked, probably noticing the shallow groove the old rope had carved into the bark. My hands paused while I considered the question.

“I don’t think the tree minds much. They’re tall and strong.” My beard had itched more then, more pepper than salt. “Just like you’re gunna be one day.” So many knots I still needed to teach you.

“Do you think the tree wants to play with my tractor?” I couldn’t help but laugh, as I finished drawing the bowline tight.

“Well I don’t—” At the bottom of the tree, a little yellow tractor sat between the elm’s roots. You had already run off after a dragonfly, arms spread wide preparing for flight.

The tire swing and chair are still there.

Maybe a little older, maybe with a little more rust in places.

At night, I see the fireflies in conversation with the stars overhead, your voice, soft in the wind asking “Dad? Where do the stars go when it rains?”

“Buddy... I can’t wait to tell you one day.”

-KC

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