Father don't you know You have made me into a quiet man ... look at me I see you as you see me...look at me Change your heart cause I am already spoken for Change your heart
I may not know which parts are memory and which are invention, but the emotional truth feels real. The basement, the exams, the letters that arrive too late, and the girl who becomes the measure for love all carry that lived kind of weight. You write it in objects and small routines, and that makes the longing feel human, not just stylistic. It feels like something you didn’t just write, but had to live through.
necessity is the mother of invention; or so they say.
as for the emotional truth of it all, i am too stupid to lie about affairs of the heart or the mind when drilled down to such levels.
that is not to say i am important, or that this is special, in the grand design of things; each and every one of us have lives this complex, this aerated with champagne bubbles of purely existing. we are special and not-special all in the same instant, the same breath.
i tend to wear my heart on my sleeve when writing, but that is not to say everything i put down to paper or ONSCREEN [apologies to ST's TNG's CaptainJean-Luc Picard] should be taken as gospel
of course i will always leave the back door open when it comes to a discussion of affairs that are a bit more edgy than the average bear; plausible deniability is a necessary attribute when writing anything in this day and age. everything is being recorded, screen captured, everyone is a victim, everyone has an axe to grind with everyone else.
following this path a bit more - the way the world currently works has grown unspeakably ugly to me. at least in my small corner of the world. it is nearly impossible to communicate without having to consider "is the person i am speaking with emotionally capable of having this conversation, or will this necessitate a trip to HR, the police station, etcetera, etcetera. was this thing written something creative or a manifesto. the lines of artistic expression seem to dissolve more each day.
i remain largely neutral, like Switzerland, when it comes to most things, because it is necessary in a life where everybody's dealbreakers are front and center on the heads-up display of their lives. this person said, this, so we eschew them. this person said that, and therefore they are racist. this person said this, and that makes them hateful towards women, so out the door they go. christopher said xyz, so therefore he is anti-god, etc. et. al. it is better just to remain staid and to avoid bloviating in any large matter rather than be charged with a crime you did not commit in absentia.
thank you ever so much for reading, commenting, and of course, listening to what is i have to say. know that it will never be taken for granted. i appreciate you.
which part and why, pie-oh-my? i need at least one example or i can't learn from this or live with myself. and i like living with myself! please and thank you.
I can close my eyes and go to sleep and wake up three days later and the need will be gone but then so will my grade point average.' is one of my favorite parts, I like the melancholic love and the reflective energy flowing through every part.
Your work is not merely an image captured or a thought written , it is a silent testimony to the way a human being experiences time. There is something profoundly human in the way you manage to transform an ordinary moment into a question addressed to existence itself: Who are we before light, shadow, and space? Every element of your creation seems to restore the relationship between a person and their inner truth. It is a work that does not seek to impress, but to awaken ,and that is the highest form of art.
There’s something painfully familiar in this—how conviction can come from the very place that feels most broken. I read this and felt the weight of a person staring down their own lack of momentum, almost daring it to move. It takes courage to admit that the engine has seized; it takes more to keep turning the key instead of walking away from the car that won’t budge.
The most striking thing here isn’t the heartbreak over Jane, or the ghosts of what could have been, but the realization that discipline and clarity can be as intimate as love itself. The way he speaks of mathematics, of safecracking a woman’s pleasure, of wielding a staff alone in a yard—these aren’t tangents, they’re proof he still wants to master something. That desire might be the truest sign of life.
I’m moved by how he refuses to let nostalgia become tenderness. He wants to earn his way back into the light rather than simply remember that it once existed. That feels honest. It feels human. And maybe it’s in that honesty—raw, unfiltered, without performance—that the possibility of starting again becomes real.
Dr. Salmon, you ought to charge by the hour. Your scalpel blade continues to bisect each bit of longform pages I post with that kind of incredulous magic you carry that is more halo than borderland.
I would not be as capable a writer if there weren't men and women like you continuing to support and promote my work, such as it is.
Your character analyses are so spot-on it frightens me. Half the time I don't even remember what it was I said, yet you are there to continuously point out the arcs I have made, the study of this narrator or that one, the troubles my pro/antag. are compromised by.
Discipline and clarity are so very important because of the structure they provide. Love is the furthest thing from a linear emotion, though there is structure to it, rules of fair play, etc. et. al.
I appreciate your company and counsel especiallye because you force me to step outside of what I have created instinctually and look at each world I have built brick by brick, row by row.
Nostalgia cannot become tenderness in situations such as this; you must master yourself, your thoughts, your work, your craft, your body - who you are as a man and what you allow yourself to believe is possible.
I believe in myself far too much to dispel the notion of my character[s] starting again, not doing everything he can every moment of his life to propel himself where he needs to be.
Thank you again, Doctor. Your reviews of late have meant so much more than you can know. As someone in a perpetual state of *becoming*, anything that assists with the process - consider it molting, or changing, chrysalis, imago....whathaveyou, is gloriously appreciated.
LC, what you call “molting” or “becoming” strikes me less as a transformation and more as the slow realization of what was there from the beginning. Your work doesn’t feel like a search for a voice—it reads like someone learning how to trust the one he already has. The pages aren’t experiments; they’re confirmations.
If I point out the arc or the fracture or the buried motive, it’s only because you’ve already built the structure to hold it. The discipline you speak of isn’t cold or distant; it’s the same force that lets feeling survive long enough to mean something. You don’t write toward clarity—you write until clarity has nowhere left to hide.
I’m grateful for the conversations your work opens. They make me want to look closer, not at what’s missing, but at what’s forming. Keep building, brick by brick. You’re not beginning again—you’re refining what’s been waiting to take shape.
This piece of long poetry in prose form is alternately aching and uplifting. Men indeed, have deadlines, must make decisions to be qualify as men, sexist as that may be. We are trapped in that and you express it in dark passages.
Men will forever have their own ways of walking through this world; those who haven't been born into it will never know the responsibilities, decisions and qualifications therein. Period. It is easy to decry the scare-quoted and so-called [toxicity] of masculinity when you have never had to carry that particular fire. I appreciate your continued recognition and analysis of the work I do. It is not taken for granted.
I hope you find love--and pass math! May you never have to use it! At least once a week I have nightmares about math tests, how I didn't study, didn't go to class, didn't even realize I was taking the class. Everything I learned in math I have never used, but I had to jump through the hoops. Be patient with yourself. Growing takes a lifetime. Have high standards.
I have found love, lost love, found it again, lost it again, and will continue to find and lose it until I shuffle off this mortal coil one day entirely.
I went to class when I originally was supposed to be learning these things because it was mandatory - it was a reformatory. We got one half-year of extremely basic geometry and one-half year of even more rudimentary algebra for the total sum of those six years of middle and high schools. No one went to college. They went to prison.
I remember that they called to do a survey as to where I was several years after I had escaped those programs only having been stabbed three times along with several beatings that normally would have kept me out of school if I got to go home at night. I happened to pick up the phone and was in a good mood, so I answered their questions. When they asked where I was at this point in time I told the truth - I had a residency at The New Yorker Magazine and was at my state's most elite flagship university. The wide-eyed social work grad school student [a bubbly female, of course, likely believing she was*making a difference, saving the world*] thought she had called the wrong damn house and had me spell my name and read my birthday back to her twice. I chortled and hung up the phone, happy that I had queered their stats. It seriously must have looked like: PRISON, DEAD, PRISON, PRISON, DEAD, DEAD, KILLED IN PRISON, ARMED ROBBERY, DEAD, SHOT BY POLICE, RAHWAY STATE PENITENTIARY, THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE.
I have the highest standards imaginable. I have traveled the world, kissed more women than I could have ever thought possible as a quiet boy in a town built upon a chemical landfill. I have been with doctors, lawyers, politicians, dancers [legitimate], actors, models, whores, pr0nstars, entrepreneurs, librarians, my favorite girl singer ever - how did THAT happen?!
The reason I am alone is because I am better company to myself than settling with someone who is only a stopgap, a half-measure, someone who doesn't fold my heart when she writes my name in careful script and leaves it upon a pillow for me to find after. I have known many men and women who have done this and it does not make sense to me. Like Neil McCauley in Michael Mann's seminal film Heat [1995], I am alone; but not lonely. I could never be lonely. Look at all these words. These books. These pages left to fill.
Thank you kindly for your words and whipsmart advice. It means a lot that you would think to offer such pathways for me to consider and explore. Keep on.
Well, I think you are quite amazing, and it’s a miracle that you have managed to avoid death and prison, although, yikes, it sounds like you’ve come close! And now the New Yorker, that’s just awesome. Just be (more) careful with your health, considering the toxic chemicals you grew up around! You have many good things ahead of you, and it seems like you will not be one of those people who “settles.” When real love looks you in the eye, you’ll know.
I also never had much math in high school—geometry was it, and that was all that was required. I had to catch up in community college, which was hard, but it can be done. It was in one neuron and out the other, unfortunately, like a lot of things I’ve learned. It did not come naturally. Hang in there, and it will be over eventually.
Thanks for responding. I enjoy reading your posts. They challenge my imagination and charge up my creative neurons. Many blessings to you (and the kitty)!
You're so good. I opened my computer to this, and it completely captivated me. Your style of writing is both honest and direct while also holding an irresistible aura of nuance and mystery. You dig so deep into the human experience, and I'm right there next to you, seeing with my feelings.
While being very grateful for the kind words, I'm going to press you, here. E.g., a little bit more. Be more specific. Give me a concrete example to pin your beautiful accolades upon. It makes me better at what I do.
It would be labeled a sexism remark but too bad. The burden of responsibility rests heavily on most men, unrecognized because it’s simply expected, normal, noticed only when it’s absent.
I may not know which parts are memory and which are invention, but the emotional truth feels real. The basement, the exams, the letters that arrive too late, and the girl who becomes the measure for love all carry that lived kind of weight. You write it in objects and small routines, and that makes the longing feel human, not just stylistic. It feels like something you didn’t just write, but had to live through.
necessity is the mother of invention; or so they say.
as for the emotional truth of it all, i am too stupid to lie about affairs of the heart or the mind when drilled down to such levels.
that is not to say i am important, or that this is special, in the grand design of things; each and every one of us have lives this complex, this aerated with champagne bubbles of purely existing. we are special and not-special all in the same instant, the same breath.
i tend to wear my heart on my sleeve when writing, but that is not to say everything i put down to paper or ONSCREEN [apologies to ST's TNG's CaptainJean-Luc Picard] should be taken as gospel
of course i will always leave the back door open when it comes to a discussion of affairs that are a bit more edgy than the average bear; plausible deniability is a necessary attribute when writing anything in this day and age. everything is being recorded, screen captured, everyone is a victim, everyone has an axe to grind with everyone else.
following this path a bit more - the way the world currently works has grown unspeakably ugly to me. at least in my small corner of the world. it is nearly impossible to communicate without having to consider "is the person i am speaking with emotionally capable of having this conversation, or will this necessitate a trip to HR, the police station, etcetera, etcetera. was this thing written something creative or a manifesto. the lines of artistic expression seem to dissolve more each day.
i remain largely neutral, like Switzerland, when it comes to most things, because it is necessary in a life where everybody's dealbreakers are front and center on the heads-up display of their lives. this person said, this, so we eschew them. this person said that, and therefore they are racist. this person said this, and that makes them hateful towards women, so out the door they go. christopher said xyz, so therefore he is anti-god, etc. et. al. it is better just to remain staid and to avoid bloviating in any large matter rather than be charged with a crime you did not commit in absentia.
thank you ever so much for reading, commenting, and of course, listening to what is i have to say. know that it will never be taken for granted. i appreciate you.
Your dedication to your craft never fails to amaze me. Well done!
Me? What is this dedication of which you speak? I thought I was just here the same as anybody else.
Delineate.
one of my favorites of yours!
which part and why, pie-oh-my? i need at least one example or i can't learn from this or live with myself. and i like living with myself! please and thank you.
Not easy to decide, but 'I hate needing.
I can close my eyes and go to sleep and wake up three days later and the need will be gone but then so will my grade point average.' is one of my favorite parts, I like the melancholic love and the reflective energy flowing through every part.
Your work is not merely an image captured or a thought written , it is a silent testimony to the way a human being experiences time. There is something profoundly human in the way you manage to transform an ordinary moment into a question addressed to existence itself: Who are we before light, shadow, and space? Every element of your creation seems to restore the relationship between a person and their inner truth. It is a work that does not seek to impress, but to awaken ,and that is the highest form of art.
I have loved and kept that screenshot close for many years. :D
There’s something painfully familiar in this—how conviction can come from the very place that feels most broken. I read this and felt the weight of a person staring down their own lack of momentum, almost daring it to move. It takes courage to admit that the engine has seized; it takes more to keep turning the key instead of walking away from the car that won’t budge.
The most striking thing here isn’t the heartbreak over Jane, or the ghosts of what could have been, but the realization that discipline and clarity can be as intimate as love itself. The way he speaks of mathematics, of safecracking a woman’s pleasure, of wielding a staff alone in a yard—these aren’t tangents, they’re proof he still wants to master something. That desire might be the truest sign of life.
I’m moved by how he refuses to let nostalgia become tenderness. He wants to earn his way back into the light rather than simply remember that it once existed. That feels honest. It feels human. And maybe it’s in that honesty—raw, unfiltered, without performance—that the possibility of starting again becomes real.
Dr. Salmon, you ought to charge by the hour. Your scalpel blade continues to bisect each bit of longform pages I post with that kind of incredulous magic you carry that is more halo than borderland.
I would not be as capable a writer if there weren't men and women like you continuing to support and promote my work, such as it is.
Your character analyses are so spot-on it frightens me. Half the time I don't even remember what it was I said, yet you are there to continuously point out the arcs I have made, the study of this narrator or that one, the troubles my pro/antag. are compromised by.
Discipline and clarity are so very important because of the structure they provide. Love is the furthest thing from a linear emotion, though there is structure to it, rules of fair play, etc. et. al.
I appreciate your company and counsel especiallye because you force me to step outside of what I have created instinctually and look at each world I have built brick by brick, row by row.
Nostalgia cannot become tenderness in situations such as this; you must master yourself, your thoughts, your work, your craft, your body - who you are as a man and what you allow yourself to believe is possible.
I believe in myself far too much to dispel the notion of my character[s] starting again, not doing everything he can every moment of his life to propel himself where he needs to be.
Thank you again, Doctor. Your reviews of late have meant so much more than you can know. As someone in a perpetual state of *becoming*, anything that assists with the process - consider it molting, or changing, chrysalis, imago....whathaveyou, is gloriously appreciated.
-LC.
LC, what you call “molting” or “becoming” strikes me less as a transformation and more as the slow realization of what was there from the beginning. Your work doesn’t feel like a search for a voice—it reads like someone learning how to trust the one he already has. The pages aren’t experiments; they’re confirmations.
If I point out the arc or the fracture or the buried motive, it’s only because you’ve already built the structure to hold it. The discipline you speak of isn’t cold or distant; it’s the same force that lets feeling survive long enough to mean something. You don’t write toward clarity—you write until clarity has nowhere left to hide.
I’m grateful for the conversations your work opens. They make me want to look closer, not at what’s missing, but at what’s forming. Keep building, brick by brick. You’re not beginning again—you’re refining what’s been waiting to take shape.
—Howard
This piece of long poetry in prose form is alternately aching and uplifting. Men indeed, have deadlines, must make decisions to be qualify as men, sexist as that may be. We are trapped in that and you express it in dark passages.
Men will forever have their own ways of walking through this world; those who haven't been born into it will never know the responsibilities, decisions and qualifications therein. Period. It is easy to decry the scare-quoted and so-called [toxicity] of masculinity when you have never had to carry that particular fire. I appreciate your continued recognition and analysis of the work I do. It is not taken for granted.
I hope you find love--and pass math! May you never have to use it! At least once a week I have nightmares about math tests, how I didn't study, didn't go to class, didn't even realize I was taking the class. Everything I learned in math I have never used, but I had to jump through the hoops. Be patient with yourself. Growing takes a lifetime. Have high standards.
I have found love, lost love, found it again, lost it again, and will continue to find and lose it until I shuffle off this mortal coil one day entirely.
I went to class when I originally was supposed to be learning these things because it was mandatory - it was a reformatory. We got one half-year of extremely basic geometry and one-half year of even more rudimentary algebra for the total sum of those six years of middle and high schools. No one went to college. They went to prison.
I remember that they called to do a survey as to where I was several years after I had escaped those programs only having been stabbed three times along with several beatings that normally would have kept me out of school if I got to go home at night. I happened to pick up the phone and was in a good mood, so I answered their questions. When they asked where I was at this point in time I told the truth - I had a residency at The New Yorker Magazine and was at my state's most elite flagship university. The wide-eyed social work grad school student [a bubbly female, of course, likely believing she was*making a difference, saving the world*] thought she had called the wrong damn house and had me spell my name and read my birthday back to her twice. I chortled and hung up the phone, happy that I had queered their stats. It seriously must have looked like: PRISON, DEAD, PRISON, PRISON, DEAD, DEAD, KILLED IN PRISON, ARMED ROBBERY, DEAD, SHOT BY POLICE, RAHWAY STATE PENITENTIARY, THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE.
I have the highest standards imaginable. I have traveled the world, kissed more women than I could have ever thought possible as a quiet boy in a town built upon a chemical landfill. I have been with doctors, lawyers, politicians, dancers [legitimate], actors, models, whores, pr0nstars, entrepreneurs, librarians, my favorite girl singer ever - how did THAT happen?!
The reason I am alone is because I am better company to myself than settling with someone who is only a stopgap, a half-measure, someone who doesn't fold my heart when she writes my name in careful script and leaves it upon a pillow for me to find after. I have known many men and women who have done this and it does not make sense to me. Like Neil McCauley in Michael Mann's seminal film Heat [1995], I am alone; but not lonely. I could never be lonely. Look at all these words. These books. These pages left to fill.
Thank you kindly for your words and whipsmart advice. It means a lot that you would think to offer such pathways for me to consider and explore. Keep on.
Well, I think you are quite amazing, and it’s a miracle that you have managed to avoid death and prison, although, yikes, it sounds like you’ve come close! And now the New Yorker, that’s just awesome. Just be (more) careful with your health, considering the toxic chemicals you grew up around! You have many good things ahead of you, and it seems like you will not be one of those people who “settles.” When real love looks you in the eye, you’ll know.
I also never had much math in high school—geometry was it, and that was all that was required. I had to catch up in community college, which was hard, but it can be done. It was in one neuron and out the other, unfortunately, like a lot of things I’ve learned. It did not come naturally. Hang in there, and it will be over eventually.
Thanks for responding. I enjoy reading your posts. They challenge my imagination and charge up my creative neurons. Many blessings to you (and the kitty)!
A beautiful confession. Raw, defensive, searching, proud, ashamed, and yearning at the same time.
The sound of a voice stirs.
And ruins.
It may ruin a reset, because it collapses the distance.
You're so good. I opened my computer to this, and it completely captivated me. Your style of writing is both honest and direct while also holding an irresistible aura of nuance and mystery. You dig so deep into the human experience, and I'm right there next to you, seeing with my feelings.
While being very grateful for the kind words, I'm going to press you, here. E.g., a little bit more. Be more specific. Give me a concrete example to pin your beautiful accolades upon. It makes me better at what I do.
Damn, this is so so good!! 🩶
Thanking you so very much.
i was waiting to read this until i had enough time to fully focus and it was definately worth it, what a brilliant bit!
I appreciate it, sir.
It would be labeled a sexism remark but too bad. The burden of responsibility rests heavily on most men, unrecognized because it’s simply expected, normal, noticed only when it’s absent.
Ah yes.
Out of this world times two. I may just have to burn one down now.
That was out of this world, thank you Sofia.