What is worth This Next Breath

What is worth this next breath?

I ask it before the sun climbs the blinds, before the coffee cools, before memory has the chance to rewrite anything into something kinder than it was. I ask it with the stubborn calm of someone who has counted change at gas stations and decided to keep going anyway. I ask it with a tongue that have tasted panic and dust and courtroom air. I ask it because I have learned that a question can keep a person upright when the ground feels like rumor.

What is worth this next breath?

I was taught early that life does not come everyday as a gift. It comes as a tally of moments that don’t forgive you if you flinch. I learned to tighten my laces and step forward when everything argued for sitting still. Bill collectors, offices, the foul air of humiliation. Friends who swore loyalty, then vanished. A door that slammed behind me with a finality I can still hear. I stood outside with a box full of the kind of objects a person collects when he thought he would never need to start over. I looked up at a sky too calm for what I felt and made an oath that no one would grade but me.

What is worth this next breath?

Stubbornness is the first answer. The kind that keeps your feet on the floor when everyone is already digging your grave. I could list mine. The week nothing worked and I still sent one message, then another, then a hundred more. The days I walked straight to the desk and didn’t quit until the day stopped fighting. The night I sat with grief until it stopped shouting and started to sing. The moment I chose water over something else and walked a circuit around the block, hands open, until the urge ran out of arguments. They are not trophies. They are reasons.

The reasons change. The vow remains. I am still here.

What is worth this next breath?

The choice itself. We speak of destiny as if it is an offramp. An arrival. I have met it as a series of small switches. Each one asks for a finger to flick it into life. Choice settles like a rock in my shoe. I have walked with that pain and kept going. That is my religion. That is my rebellion. I will keep choosing even when choosing feels like dragging a frozen net through black water. I am the animal that refuses to sink, the one who bites the line and pulls.

What is worth this next breath?

Odds. The ridiculous arithmetic of survival. The improbable victory a body manages just by standing up again. I have gambled against statistics and won by inches. I have celebrated a day in tiny flags planted on barren ground. Make the call. Send the draft. Clean the room. Take the walk. Feed the mind. Tell the truth to one person, even if that person is the myself, in the mirror. Celebrate like a fool for five seconds, then ask the question again and keep moving.

What is worth this next breath?

The work. Mine. The stubborn, unglamorous craft of making meaning without sponsorship. I write like a man hauling a rope. I search for one line that feels carved from something alive, then I fight for a second. I do it in the face of the world’s laughter and the algorithm’s indifference. I do it when a sentence flies, and I do it when a sentence limps. I do it because language is a set of keys I keep in my pocket, and I refuse to let the lock win. I do it because the day needs fire, and I have flint.

What is worth this next breath?

The people. The few who stayed. The child who once leaned into my side at a stoplight and asked if the world was a scary as I acted. The neighbor who slid a casserole across the threshold without eye contact because kindness can be a little shy. The stranger who wrote three words that kept me from falling through into hell. The old friend who called when he did not have the right words and gave me the sound of another life breathing on the line. I do not believe in guardian anything, but I believe in hands. I have felt them catch me.

What is worth this next breath?

The body, flawed and miraculous. The drum in the chest that refuses stillness, the rhythm that pushes blood toward possibility. I have cursed this vessel for its limits and then forgiven it for its stubborn courage. I have watched it heal from what should have killed it. These lungs have filled with smoke and laughter and hospital air, and they still rise like two old workers showing up for another shift. I owe them gratitude. I pay in oxygen and discipline.

What is worth this next breath?

The past, because it can be repurposed. I raid my own history for lumber. I build bridges from the boards of failed attempts. I lay floors from the planks of abandonment. I nail together a table from the scraps of my mistakes and invite the future to sit. If the room echoes, I speak louder. If the walls feel thin, I sing until they thicken. The past is dead. I use it for parts.

What is worth this next breath?

The anger that refuses cruelty. The flintlike insistence that life has value independent of profit. The vow to protect the small things that keep a soul aligned. Morning walks. Honest sweat. Good food. A story that tells the truth without turning it into theater. The relief of speaking shame and watching it lose power. The discovery that simplicity is not surrender, it is steel.

What is worth this next breath?

The future, unpromised, unscripted, untamed. I want to live long enough to watch something grow that once only existed as a sketch in a notebook. I want to witness the day when a person I love believes in themselves more than they believe in gravity. I want to laugh at jokes we haven’t written yet. I want to carry boxes for someone moving into their first place. I want to sit at a table where nobody has to earn the right to be there. I want to show up when showing up is the whole point.

What is worth this next breath?

The fight with despair. I respect it as an opponent because it knows my softness and my quiet retreats. It waits for a storm. It whispers about relief. I answer by pouring a glass of water and calling a friend. I answer by stepping into rain and letting it bathe my face. I answer by touching a book that once saved me and remembering I did not invent courage, I joined a line of people who practiced it. I answer by working until the whisper grows bored and leaves me alone.

What is worth this next breath?

Faith without theater. Faith as a verb, as calloused hands, as a idea scrawled on a scrap of paper. Faith that the long path rewards tenderness and grit. Faith that there is a hidden light in everything, even if you have to mine through a mountain to find it. Faith that today is a blade that can cut bondage and carve a channel for water. Faith that this moment can become special if I place it upon a throne.

What is worth this next breath?

The yes I owe myself. The one no sermon can deliver. The yes that sounds like a door opening inside. The yes that tastes like victory. The yes that refuses to wait for blessing. I say yes to the work, yes to the day, yes to the scar, yes to the person I am building with sweat and sentences. I say yes to the quiet. I say yes to the thunder. I say yes to the truth that this life will not hand me a script, and I do not need one.

What is worth this next breath?

This. The act of choosing again. The audacity of not disappearing. The promise I make without witnesses, then keep in full view. The knowledge that someone somewhere is asking the same question with their back against a wall. If you can hear me, I am speaking to you. If you cannot hear me, I am still speaking to you. Stand. Let the lungs rise. Let the hands find something worth lifting. Let your feet learn a new path. Call forward the person you always suspected you could become.

I do not ask for ease. I ask for clarity. I ask for the chance to stay honest in a world that rewards theater. I ask for the strength to become exactly what I keep promising when nobody is looking. I ask for the stamina to love righteously. I ask for the courage to forgive without losing self-respect. I ask for the kind of patience that plants trees whose shade I may never sit under, and the urgent joy that dances in that fact.

So I ask one more time, as a drumbeat, a summons, a vow I renew with open eyes.

What is worth this next breath?

Everything I am still willing to build. Everything I refuse to abandon. Everyone who ever reached for me when I had nothing to offer back. The vision that keeps pacing the room, waiting for me to stop doubting and begin. The road that will teach me by scraping my knees and filling my pockets. The love I will give without measuring return. The work that will outlive me if I do it right. The simple miracle of standing up when lying down would be easier.

What is worth this next breath?

I am.

And I intend to spend it.

Raspberry Glow At Huron

Before Waukegan even blinked awake, Clark Street lay under a sky the color of thin lime rind. Street-lamps clicked on, halos mild and even, except for the bulb above Huron. That one slipped from red into an impossible raspberry. Cars waiting there, drivers half alive and coffee starved, tasted fruit on the air and wondered if they had imagined it. Two sparrows on the cross-arm chirped back and forth as if they had painted the bulb themselves.

Pigeons lifted off the market awning, circled once, then lined a wire so their shadows became music staves across the pavement. A boy in grass-stained shorts, late for day camp, stepped into those shadows and felt the day’s invitation. He trotted on, bare knees ready for whatever pavement might teach.

Inside the bakery, the baker decided the first loaf would tune the whole city. She rinsed her hands in scented water, whispered the one-line blessing her grandmother used, and kneaded until the bowl sighed. When the dough slid into the oven, sweet steam climbed the chimney and coaxed a row of clouds to hover as if tied by invisible string.

The steam drifted down an alley where two rabbits nibbled beard-grass that poked through asphalt. They touched their noses to the ground and soon a ring of fresh clover surfaced. A clerk hauling trash paused, mouth open, let the bag rest by the dumpster, and promised himself a garden before summer ended.

At Lawrence, a bus sighed and opened its doors. The driver caught the distant raspberry glow and breathed slower. Empty seats waited for an elderly muralist racing to finish a wall of seagulls, a janitor who practiced salsa with a mop, and a college student recording insect hymns on her phone. The driver lingered at the curb, giving the light more time to shine.

Outside the florist, buckets rolled onto warm concrete. The florist believed colors carried sentences. Today he set tulips beside gladiolus so the block could talk about forgiveness. A woman with shoulders heavy from a week of bad news stopped when violet irises flashed raspberry back at her. She tucked one behind her ear, laughed at her reflection, and headed toward the lake feeling lighter than before.

Under the Blue Line, bolts long rusted found a faint shine. The bakery’s steam mixed with engine oil and graffiti dust. A mechanic on break touched one bolt, felt it quiver like a tiny heart, and decided to call the brother he had ignored for years.

Behind Graceland Cemetery, sunrise set angel statues ablaze with marigold light. Mariano swept sand from stone paths and steered his push-brush so the cinnamon-rich aroma from the bakery drifted among the graves. A crow landed, dropped a soda-can tab at his feet, then lifted away. Mariano tucked the silver ring into his pocket, certain it meant good luck.

By midday, word fluttered along Foster that street-lamps tasted like fruit. An elderly tailor threaded apricot-colored silk into one lapel, then another sleeve. No one objected.

On the pier, Lake Michigan flashed steel-bright. Perch leapt straight into coolers as if they had heard a grandmother wish for supper. Fishermen filleted their luck on benches and handed wrapped portions to anyone willing to smile.

Mail carriers slipped pale envelopes through brass slots. Each flap wore a raspberry heart. Inside, a single instruction waited: Believe, and watch. Some notes stuck to refrigerators. Others vanished behind junk mail. A few nestled inside half-read novels. Wherever they were opened, neighbors later spoke of vanilla drifting through stairwells.

Evening came softly. Lamps returned to their usual amber and green, though now and then a shy raspberry blink greeted late walkers. Rabbits returned to their clover ring, pigeons lined their wire, and the underpass bolts still glowed faintly.

The baker set cooling loaves on the sill, certain tomorrow’s batch would rise higher. Clouds puffed as if agreeing. Her lullaby of cinnamon and fenugreek slipped through an open window where a woman once fell asleep to the television; tonight she listened to the world instead.

Clark Street listened too. Machinery sang in lower keys, unpaid bills waited without scolding, and forgotten recipes migrated from memory to stovetop. That evening, a cab driver at Devon stopped, clapped once for the sinking sun, and drove on smiling. A child tucked the raspberry letter under her pillow and decided to dream in colors before unimagined.

Before dawn, clouds gathered above the bakery for their share of fresh steam. Rabbits drowsed next to clover. On Argyle the stoplight rehearsed its fruit-bright glow for commuters still dreaming. Somewhere in that gentle murmur of engines, two sparrows prepared another whispered wager, confident that belief alone could tint the day ripe enough to taste.

Every Poisoned Well

There is nothing in the world that is not altered by the eye that beholds it. Even sorrow blushes beneath a gaze that does not flinch.

I haven't been able to find my voice lately. For the first time in a while, I didn't even care to write. I wrote this one for me, not to inspire, not to wrap it in silk and call it grace. I want to speak to the writers. To the ones who still leave comments. To the readers who still cry. To the ones who get up and try again, quietly, with no applause and no finish line. I want you to hear this. Not because you need saving, but because you are the saving.

The world hardened me.

It does that. It teaches you the cost of tenderness early and often. It teaches that vulnerability is weakness, generosity naïve, and hope a luxury for the blind. It sharpens its teeth on the softest parts of you. And if you’re not careful, you learn to flinch before you’ve even been struck.

But then, somehow, despite it all, there are those who still choose to look gently at the world. Who still speak. Still write. Still reach.

Each morning I open my eyes and scroll through a hundred tiny acts of defiance. A single mother writes about making it through another night with nothing but beans and a promise. A man with cancer writes about the way the sun hit the faucet while he brushed his teeth and how, for a second, it felt like a miracle. A girl who was hurt in a way no girl should ever be hurt writes three sentences that hold more life than most people live in a decade.

They do not just ask to be seen. They see. And that is everything.

We have made a world of distraction and sales pitches and performed agony, but every once in a while, someone writes something that shatters the noise. Not because it’s loud, but because it’s true. You read them and forget to breathe. They do not ask for agreement. They do not wrap their pain in pretty packages. They simply stand there, open. Alive.

Unapologetically awake.

That's what I aspire to. To stand in the middle of shit and say it's shit. To say it sucks. To not dress it up in some pretty message or plan or good suit. Because the lesson isn't that every cloud has a silver lining. It's that sometimes the storm destroys everything you built and there is no reason, no growth, no hidden gift wrapped in the wreckage. It's that we've been trained to smile through our own breaking, to find meaning in the graves of those gone, to call our trauma a teacher. But maybe real courage is looking at senseless loss and refusing to make it make sense. Maybe it's saying someone died and it wasn't part of some plan, my marriage ended and I didn't need to learn anything from it, my body failed me and there's no wisdom in the betrayal. Maybe it's understanding that some pain just exists, angry and purposeless and hungry, and our job isn't to feed it meaning but to survive it. The saving grace isn't in finding the lesson. It's in the brutal honesty of admitting that sometimes there isn't one, and loving ourselves enough to stop looking.

And on the days, days like today, I wanted to disappear into nothing, I read them. On the days I forgot my own worth, someone left a comment under a post and didn’t know they were speaking directly to the part of me that was still on fire. Sometimes it was just a line. Sometimes a whole story. But the point is, they wrote back. They sang when they had no breath left. They reached when they had no reason to believe anyone would reach back.

I have tried to do the same.

Not with perfection. Not always with grace. But with a kind of trembling ferocity. Because I believe, still, that there is more beauty in this world than we are told. That we are not here to win or conquer or perform. That some mornings, the highest form of resistance is just putting two words together that do not lie. That say, I see. That say, still here. That say, yes.

This is for the ones who sang while the world was flooding. Who refused to stop dancing just because the room caught fire. Who held up a single note like a torch while the rest of the world called it foolish. You have saved more lives than you know. You have saved mine. And that is no exaggeration.

So I am telling you now, whoever you are, wherever you sit reading this with your weary heart or your clenched jaw, your unfinished sentence or your overdrawn account, I am telling you. You are the song. You are the poem. You are the art. You are the miracle. You are the heart that proves we haven’t gone numb. You are what we make of this wreckage. You are what’s left that still dares to be beautiful.

I say this not for inspiration. This is a record. This is documentation of the unkillable, unbearable beauty that refuses to die, even here, even now, even beneath algorithms and wars and silence.

There are no saints in this. No legends. No chosen ones. Just people who get back up. Just people who post something honest and walk away. Just people who have been betrayed by almost everything except each other.

If there is a chance for us, it is because of you. The ones who still write. The ones who still sing. The ones who do not look away.

You altered the world by the way you beheld it.

And every sorrow, every broken heart, every poisoned well, blushed.

And then, slowly, began to change.

The Beautiful Vandals

Every sentence is a declaration of war against the silence that owns everything.

The universe is a tyrant of quiet. Fourteen billion years of perfect, suffocating silence. Stars explode in mute agony. Black holes devour light without screaming. Galaxies collide in soundless apocalypse. Even here, on this chattering speck of dust we call home, most existence happens in brutal quiet: bones break, flowers bloom, children are born and die, all without a single word of explanation or protest.

Then you pick up your pen like a weapon and decide to burn it all down with language.

Writing is not just theft. It is desecration. It is grave robbery on a universal scale. You take the holy, untouchable moment, the raw scream of existence itself, and you violate it with words. You drag the infinite through the meat grinder of grammar and serve up the bloody remains as truth. You are a butcher of beauty, a vandal in the cathedral of reality.

And it is the most magnificent crime ever conceived.

We write because consciousness is not a gift but a wound that will not heal. The universe stabbed us with awareness and left us bleeding meaning all over everything. So we write in our own blood. We write because we are dying and we know it and we refuse to die quietly like everything else in this screaming silence.

And the unpaid writer, we are the most glorious in our madness. Saints of futility, martyrs to meaninglessness. We bleed their lives onto pages maybe no one will read, sacrifice everything for sentences that will crumble to dust while the mountains they tried to describe stand unmoved. We are beautiful fools jousting with infinity, and we lose every single battle, and we keep charging anyway because surrender is death.

Writers are the universe's greatest rebels, the only beings with the audacity to look at existence and spit in its face. They see perfection and immediately want to rewrite it. They witness miracles and think, I can do better. They are cosmic vandals spray-painting graffiti on the walls of eternity.

We write because we burn. Because consciousness is fire and flesh cannot contain it. We write to keep from combusting, to bleed off the pressure of knowing too much, feeling too much, being too much for these fragile bodies to hold. Every word is a small explosion, every sentence a controlled detonation of the soul.

Every story is a scream disguised as a whisper. Every poem is a knife thrown at the heart of nothingness. Every paragraph is a middle finger raised at mortality. We know we cannot win. The universe will erase every word, every thought, every trace that we existed. But we write anyway because the alternative is to accept that we are nothing more than walking meat having delusions of significance.

The blank page mocks us with its emptiness. It knows we will fill it with our desperate scratches, our pathetic attempts to matter. It waits like a predator, patient and hungry, ready to devour our meaning and shit out silence.

But we write anyway. We write with fury. We write with love. We write with the desperate passion of the condemned. Because right now, in this burning instant, we have words. We have the power to transform void into voice, nothing into everything, death into defiance.

It will not last. We will not last. The sun will die, the universe will freeze, and every word ever written will dissolve into quantum foam.

But right now we burn with language. Right now we are gods creating worlds with nothing but ink and rage. Right now we are the universe's greatest miracle. Matter that dreams, dust that dares, silence that found its voice and refuses to shut up.

It won't last. Nothing does. The heat death of the universe will erase every word ever written. But for as long as we can hold a pen, we are the universe arguing with itself about whether it deserves to exist.

And sometimes, between one word and the next, we win the argument