Journal | 2026.04.08 | 14:11
Some days, there is that moment when you blink and find you have no footing. You have been scrambling, reaching for a ground that keeps shifting since you opened your eyes. Your brain, you find, is incapable of holding on to a thought before it simply... falls apart, as if thoughts are porcelain and you, a clumsy little child.
Even thinking about the fact that you arenât capable of thinking is, for all intents and purposes, ludicrous. How would you figure out whether you can finish a thought if you canât finish a thought? And how would you know why you canât, when you canât even ask?
Or maybe thatâs just me.
It makes no difference, for today is one of those days.
There are ways, of course, to rein in a wild horse. Even when that horse is your mind, and the rein... also your mind. Impossible, I know. But anything is possible, isnât it? People do love to claim that âimpossibleâ is literally admitting âIâm possible.â But I do find that a silly turn of phrase. It proves nothing. In reality, anything is possible, simply because the world is infinite, and there is always opportunityâeven if one is too dumb or perhaps too limited by humanityâs endless limitations to find it. Or maybe Iâm wrong. Maybe itâs not.
Thatâs not the point.
What was the point?
Ah! We were looking for a rein for a certain rebellious horse.
My bad. Letâs get looking.
As I was saying, the most logical solution to the inability to finish a thought and therefore the inability to reach a solution for the inability to finish a thought to then somehow be able to finish a thoughtâand bear with me, itâs not as much of a brain-twister as itâs looking right nowâis to rely on a previously finished thought.
Or maybe I didnât, since that would require a previously finished thought about the solution to the inability to finish a thought. And how would you have that, if youâre only thinking about your failure to think straight when youâre failing to think straight, and therefore canât find a way to think straight, because you canâtâyou guessed itâthink straight?
Iâm pretty sure this is starting to sound like an incredibly inefficient and, frankly, pointless thread of thought.
And thatâs the issue. How does one unspool a pooled and knotted and twisted thread of thought, when the thread seems endless, not an ending to be sought? Maybe I donât know the answer, despite my certainty. Maybe Iâm not even certain.
This is tiring. Letâs just make a decision, however unreasonable. Honestly, the act of looking for a reasonable decision to make when you canât even reason is, in all senses of the word, unreasonable.
So letâs just do this. Writing, that is. It always seems to help.
But why?
Writing. The act of putting pen to paper, or fingers on keyboards, or maybe even thinking about fingers and keyboards because, letâs be real, who says you even have fingers.
Hm, Iâm not sure thatâs the best way to define it though.
But, then, what is writing? This interesting and, in truth, layered and mystifying phenomenon. A phenomenon that holds more power than the dictionary would have you believe. Trust me, I tried. You can too. I promise, the definitions are so enlightening you might simply combust from the blinding light they shine upon the truth! That is sarcasm, by the way.
Maybe I should try finding my own definition.
Hmmm.
Perhaps writing is not about the act. Perhaps itâs not even about the symbols you create or the surface that immortalises them, however short that immortality might beâI know that seems like a semantic paradox, but trust me, there is sense in it; you just need to change your perspective of the words.
The point is getting away from me. Again. I apologise.
Perhaps writing is about not the action, but the reactionâor better put, the consequences. Perhaps one writes not just to leave marks, but rather for what it means to leave marks.
A mark might be seen. A mark might be read. A mark might be understood, or it might be misunderstood, forever a point of contention. Perhaps the meaning is not even solely in the mark or how others perceive itâperhaps the leaving of the mark itself can also provide the meaning. For to leave marks in an order that expresses you, you must think of what it is you are and were and would beâclarify what it is you wish to express. And perhaps that is what some seek when they write: clarification.
Perhaps, in some senses, for some people, writing is an ordering. An externalisation of an internal need for expression, not just for the act of expression but for the how and the why of it. A process rather than a result. A moment of reflection.
This feels right, somehow. Did I... get it this time?
Yes, yes, I think I did.
Interesting. I think the very fact that I can give a âyesâ is also a testament that I mightâve gotten something else in the process of writing to define writing, as well. That I mightâve indeed relied on a previously finished thought and finished a thought, after all. Because I have it now. The solution to the impossible conundrum. The infamous rein for the infamous horse.
Itâs beginning to sound like itâs time to get the horse itself.
When you have a tangled thread, and you begin the excruciating process of getting it untangled, going through mud and puddle, house and horse hooves, trees and trenches and an infinite number of tapping toes, you could find anything sitting at the other end.
What you find would be the reason.
The culprit for the crime of tangling. The child that ran away with your thread. The thing that scared the horse and made it rear, running off out of your control. The cloud of, well, things within you that threw the rest of you into disarray, until you sat there, blinking, noticing the constantly shifting rug.
For some, it might be the fear of a burning world. For others, the burden of too many, too much. For a few, it might even be a simple lack of sleep. Really, it could be anything.
Journal | 2026.04.08 | 16:16
Sometimes, experiencing emotions is not a gentle embrace, a slow dawn of light or twilight, or even a tragic drowning. Sometimes, it is a brick to the face. For those of us so unfamiliar with these curious creatures, the experience of emotions is ever a brick to the face.
And as this flickering soul lay on a bed of dreams, hidden beneath a blanket that was doing all it could to hide the soul from the world and the world from the soul, a brick did indeed hit it right in the face.
Unsurprising, really. When you escape reality, you should always expect a moment of pain for when it eventually catches up with you.
Imagine, if you will, a bleak world. It shouldnât be hard, considering the one we live in; especially when you put yourself in the tired shoes of the souls living on its less privileged soils. So imagine you are such a soul. And then imagine you are a pillar.
Around you, stones and walls crack. They moan. They scream. They are threatening to fall. What is your job, but to hold it all? To hold it up. To never flail. Never cease. What would you be if you did? What would the walls be but ruins of a behemoth come tumbling down? So you hold. But you are also made of stone. And, unfortunately, you will also crack.
But when the pillar cracks, it will have no one to lean on.
How could it, when leaning on another would be the pressure that pulls on their own painâtheir own impending doom? What could the pillar do but take barely a breath before the groans begin? Before it has to run, no respite to be found?
So you hold yourself instead.
You look in, and you fill the cracks; with work that is truth, and dreams that are liesâsuch sweet, sweet lies. And it works. You stand tall. You retreat within, and you half hold yourself up with dreams; dreams of wants that are, and lives that are not. Of the right people that canât be, or the right people that are, just there at the wrong moment in time. You look within and you find those threads that play your true song, and you follow.
And so the structure holds. But only for a time.
Delusion is a bubble filled with hope. It is a temporary balm. Cement that is forged from nothing but will. Before long, you will need the real thing, or the bubble will leak. And you will fall.
And the soul you imagined? It started to leak. Dreams met the world on pause, and they wept as the pillar began to bleed. Even the blanket was a shield of pretence. Reality caught up. Honeymoon was over.
In the end, it always is.
Hello, my love, itâs getting cold on this island
Iâm sad alone, Iâm so sad on my own
The truth is we were much too young
Now Iâm looking for you, or anyone like you
We said goodbye with a smile on our faces
Now youâre alone, youâre so sad on your own
The truth is we ran out of time
Now youâre looking for me, or anyone like me
Journal | 2026.06.19 | 22:40
Two months later, the resonance of these words hasnât faded.
I wrote them beneath the shadow of a war, the shape of tomorrow entirely uncertain. Today, that same canopy hangs over us, simply in a less threatening state, and my future remains a suspended breath as I wait for news that never comes.
I wrote them on a day when I couldnât wrangle my always-spinning mind into any semblance of order. Today, I find myself stumbling again, the thread of thought just as stubbornly knotted.
I wrote them from within a quiet cocoon of loneliness, woven from the sharpest wants. Today, I sought the exquisite yet excruciating labyrinth of memory. And there, for perhaps the first time in my life, I felt the profound, physical ache of genuinely missing something.
Perhaps Iâll untangle that specific thread another day. For now, there is a strange comfort in finally prying these words from the grip of my wartime drafts. Itâs finally over.
And now, unfortunately, so is today.
