No matter how many times we spoke about dying, there was a fire in us that brought us back to life.

I can still picture the face of ten-year-old Derrick Lamb, as our ignorantly despondent elementary school teacher informed him that his desire to reach the moon was a bit of a farfetched idea. It began a destructive conversation, that ultimately ended in Derrick changing his mind.

We've become accustomed to making decisions as individuals, based on the preconceived notions of our people as a collective. Dissolving the essence of each person as single entities in doing so.

Whether it's inspiration in the real world, or inspiration through someone else's creations, these flights of flattery, that we think another anything is good enough, neat enough, different enough, that we immediately want to create out of some sort of ritualistic sacrifice. Like an ode, or grave flower on the headstone of someone we probably don't even know.

When approached by a stranger, a reader, a friend, or loved one about my addiction to phenomenology, I lack the proper words to reach that point where one person understands the other. At an alarmingly sad average.

But here I sit, staring at three --  ... no... four now --  drafts just waiting to be published. And I am struck by a fear I haven't felt in a long time. That this isn't a safe place for me anymore. What could have caused it? Where did I go wrong? Fuck...

I am standing in the bathroom at work. My head is dizzy. My knees weak. I’m not sure why but there is no breath in my lungs. There’s a tick in the back of my mind that forces me to continue plodding along the current path I’m on, hoping — no, praying — that something comes along to free me from this cage I’ve gone and locked my own-damned-self in.