R.C Vale

Just a guy trying to make a living with his words

[rcvalepoetry]

Screaming Through Echoes (An Observation on the Age of Algorithmic Isolation)

We do not talk to each other anymore. We talk to mirrors that talk back.

In the modern digital age, the world has fractured into countless echo chambers.  Each one a closed loop that’s custom-built, user-optimized, and frictionless.  These are not communities.  They are containment zones.

We enter them willingly, confusing agreement for understanding and consensus for truth.

Algorithms, initially built to serve convenience, now dictate cognition.  They do not prioritize nuance.  They prioritize engagement.  And nothing engages like the familiar — the agreeable, the tribal, the repeatable.

In this system, conflict is not debate,  it is filtered out or weaponized.  Complexity is bad for business.  Certainty sells.

Inside these chambers, we are always right. Wrongness becomes invisible. Opposition becomes evil. Curiosity becomes betrayal.

We scream our beliefs into digital corridors and receive a thousand affirmations in return not from people, but from programmed reflections.

It feels like a connection.  It feels like the truth.  But it’s not. It is insulation.

Outside the chamber, others scream too.  But their echoes are shaped by different inputs, different fears, different gods. When we hear them at all, it is only distortion.  Not as a chance to understand.

And so, the chambers grow louder, more defensive, more absolute. This is not accidental. This is design.

The result is a collective psychosis, self-reinforced and algorithmically curated.  A society where every individual becomes a brand,  every opinion a product,  every disagreement an attack.

No dialogue.  Just performance.

We are not listening. We are broadcasting. We are not learning. We are looping.

If there is a way out, it begins with silence. A pause in the cycle. A break in the feedback.

But silence is punished by irrelevance. And so, we scream. Not to be heard but so, the chamber will not forget us.

[rcvalepoetry]

I Was Meant to Matter

I do not believe in accidents.

I do not believe that a heart capable of breaking so often, so loudly, was ever meant to be meaningless.

I do not believe that hands built for holding, for building, for trembling, were shaped by chance alone.

I do not believe the way my voice catches when I say goodbye, or the way my fingers ache to touch what I know I cannot keep, is some forgotten cosmic mistake.

I was meant to matter. Not to everyone. Not to the endless churn of history or the cold sprawl of time. Not to the distant watchers who never knew my name.

But to someone. To the breath in my chest when I see the first pale light of morning. To the hand I reach for without thinking. To the strangers whose paths I cross and whose burdens I lessen, even if only for a moment. To the laughter I leave in the walls of rooms I will never enter again.

I was not made to be famous. I was not made to be perfect.

I was made to be real. I was made to be a bruise and a balm, a witness and a wound, a small but stubborn song humming through the bones of the world.

I will not ask the universe for permission to exist. I will not wait for history’s slow, careless hands to anoint me worthy.

I will name myself enough.

I will carve meaning into every moment I am given. Into every broken promise I survive. Into every tenderness I refuse to withhold.

There is a defiance in living gently in a world that forgets too fast. There is a power in choosing to stay soft.

I am a small thing. I am a wild thing. I am a needed thing.

I was not made to last forever. But while I am here, I will burn with the kind of quiet that outlives noise. I will build with the kind of hope that outlasts despair.

I will matter. Because I already do.

[ullathynell]

My new art book Faraway Dreaming is available on Kickstarter! The campaign ends June 24th.

[rcvalepoetry]

I love the way this looks

[rcvalepoetry]

Simple Mistake

Here is a short story I wrote a year ago. I hope you enjoy Simple Mistake:

The stars were indifferent. They twinkled mockingly in the vast expanse of space, distant and unreachable. Commander Sarah Blake floated, tethered to her broken spacecraft, the silence pressing in on her like a physical weight. Her breaths were shallow, each one a precious commodity, her oxygen levels ticking down relentlessly. She glanced at the damaged control panel, knowing that every attempt to fix it had failed. She was alone, truly and utterly alone, with nothing but the darkness and the growing dread in her heart.

It had been a routine repair, the kind she had performed countless times before. Sarah’s hands moved with practiced precision as she replaced the faulty component in the satellite. She reached for her wrench, securing it to her suit before turning back to the task at hand. In the silence of space, the only sound was her own breathing, steady and calm.

But in her focus, she didn’t notice the small, delicate screwdriver that had slipped from its pocket. It floated, weightless, bumping gently against the satellite before drifting away. Sarah didn’t see it collide with the control panel, didn’t hear the faint spark as circuits shorted out.

When she finished the repair and turned to head back to the spacecraft, the first hint of trouble was the dimming lights. She frowned, checking her suit’s diagnostics, but everything seemed normal. It wasn’t until she re-entered the cabin and tried to initiate the return sequence that she realized something was horribly wrong.

The control panel was dark, unresponsive. She tapped commands, her heart rate increasing as nothing happened. A quick systems check revealed the damage: the communication array was offline, the navigation system unresponsive. Her mind raced, replaying her actions, and she remembered the small tool floating away. A simple mistake, a moment’s inattention, had left her stranded.

Panic gnawed at the edges of her mind, but she forced herself to stay calm. She could fix this. She had to fix this.

Hours turned into days, the silence becoming a constant companion. Sarah’s attempts to repair the communication system had all failed. Each failed attempt chipped away at her resolve, the reality of her situation settling in like a cold, unrelenting weight.

She floated in the cabin, the walls closing in around her. The limited space felt like a coffin, the darkness outside the viewport a reminder of her isolation. Every breath was measured, the hiss of her suit’s life-support system a cruel reminder of the finite oxygen supply.

She began talking to herself, a way to keep the encroaching madness at bay. “Stay focused, Sarah,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “You can figure this out.”

But the days stretched on, and the hope of rescue dwindled. She knew the protocols; she had run the simulations. The chances of a successful rescue were slim to none. And so, the fear began to creep in, a gnawing, insidious presence that fed on her isolation.

The hallucinations started as whispers, soft voices echoing in the cramped quarters. At first, she dismissed them as tricks of her mind, but they grew louder, more insistent. Faces appeared in the shadows, familiar and comforting, yet unnervingly out of place.

“Mommy, when are you coming home?” her daughter’s voice echoed in the cabin. Tears welled in Sarah’s eyes, her heart aching with a pain more profound than any physical wound. She reached out, but the figure dissolved into the shadows, leaving her alone once more.

The small viewport showed the endless expanse of space, stars twinkling in their eternal dance. It was beautiful, and it was terrifying. There was no rescue, no hope. Her training had not prepared her for this. Nothing could have prepared her for this.

As she lay in her bunk, the cold seeping into her bones, she reached for the recorder. Her fingers brushed against the buttons, her mind made up. ‘To my dearest family…’ she began, her voice cracking. She poured out her heart, the words a mix of love, sorrow, and desperation. When she finished, she knew there was no turning back.

Sarah Blake, astronaut, hero, mother, was about to make the hardest decision of her life. And the stars, those distant, indifferent stars, would be her only witnesses.

Sarah’s hand shook as she held the syringe, the liquid inside shimmering in the dim light of the cabin. It was the final emergency protocol, a last resort she had hoped never to use. Her breaths came in shallow gasps, the cold air biting at her lungs. She closed her eyes, tears streaming down her face, her mind racing through memories of her life on Earth.

She saw her daughter’s smiling face, her husband’s loving eyes, and the warmth of their home. The pain of leaving them behind was unbearable, a knife twisting in her heart. But the alternative was a slow, agonizing death, alone in the unforgiving void of space.

She pressed the recorder’s button one last time. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I love you all so much. Please, forgive me.”

With a final, trembling breath, she injected the contents of the syringe. The cold spread through her veins, a numbness that quickly enveloped her body. She lay back, her eyes drifting to the viewport, the stars now a blur of light and darkness.

Her thoughts slowed, the pain receding, replaced by a profound sense of peace. The hallucinations faded, the voices silenced. In her final moments, she was free from the fear, the despair, the crushing isolation. She was no longer alone, her spirit soaring amongst the stars, a part of the universe she had always loved.

[rcvalepoetry]

We Believe What We’re Told and Nothing Else

We don’t read. We react. Scroll, share, scream — never question.

We think critical thinking is bias. We think research is whatever pops up first online. We think emotion equals truth, and the louder the voice, the more valid the claim.

We don’t check sources — we check vibes. We don’t trust experts — We trust influencers.

Propaganda wears new skin now. It speaks in memes. It sells outrage as patriotism and lies as a lifestyle.

And we buy it — daily, gladly, violently.

Because it feels good to be right, even when we’re wrong. Especially when we’re wrong.

We’ve become allergic to nuance. We flatten every issue into headlines we didn’t read past. We treat journalists like enemies, and pundits like prophets.

We’ve trained ourselves to hate context. To hate complexity. To hate the idea that we might be wrong.

And now we walk through the world with armor made of ignorance, swords made of opinion, cutting down the truth because it makes us uncomfortable.

Media doesn’t control us. We do.

We click. We boost. We reward the shallow, the sensational and the stupid.

And when reality collapses under the weight of our delusions, we’ll blame the “mainstream” instead of the mirror.

[rcvalepoetry]

To the Ones Who Still Teach (A poem for those holding the line against ignorance)

We are becoming a country that mocks intelligence. Where experts are called liars, and the loudest fool wins the room. Where reading is “elitist,” and truth is just another opinion you can unfollow.

We are drowning in willful ignorance, and still —  you teach.

Not every teacher deserves a pedestal. Some gave up years ago. Some never should’ve had the job. But you — the ones who stay for the right reasons —  you are fighting a war we pretend doesn’t exist.

You try to plant seeds in poisoned soil. You try to explain reality to children raised by screens and echo chambers. You walk into buildings held together by duct tape and denial, tasked with preparing minds for a world that’s actively unraveling.

You do this while being told you’re lazy, while politicians gut your funding and parents blame you for everything but their own neglect.

You are the last candle in a room where the lights keep going out.

We burn books again. We call facts “agendas.” We demonize education until all that’s left is entertainment and outrage. And still —  you teach.

You are underpaid, overregulated, targeted, and tired. But you haven’t surrendered.

You still believe in thinking. Still believe in asking why. Still believe that one well-taught child is worth more than all the noise.

You are not thanked enough. Not protected enough. But if this country is ever saved —  it won’t be by billionaires or politicians. It will be because someone like you kept teaching when the rest of us gave up.

[rcvalepoetry]

I Was Meant to Matter

I do not believe in accidents.

I do not believe that a heart capable of breaking so often, so loudly, was ever meant to be meaningless.

I do not believe that hands built for holding, for building, for trembling, were shaped by chance alone.

I do not believe the way my voice catches when I say goodbye, or the way my fingers ache to touch what I know I cannot keep, is some forgotten cosmic mistake.

I was meant to matter. Not to everyone. Not to the endless churn of history or the cold sprawl of time. Not to the distant watchers who never knew my name.

But to someone. To the breath in my chest when I see the first pale light of morning. To the hand I reach for without thinking. To the strangers whose paths I cross and whose burdens I lessen, even if only for a moment. To the laughter I leave in the walls of rooms I will never enter again.

I was not made to be famous. I was not made to be perfect.

I was made to be real. I was made to be a bruise and a balm, a witness and a wound, a small but stubborn song humming through the bones of the world.

I will not ask the universe for permission to exist. I will not wait for history’s slow, careless hands to anoint me worthy.

I will name myself enough.

I will carve meaning into every moment I am given. Into every broken promise I survive. Into every tenderness I refuse to withhold.

There is a defiance in living gently in a world that forgets too fast. There is a power in choosing to stay soft.

I am a small thing. I am a wild thing. I am a needed thing.

I was not made to last forever. But while I am here, I will burn with the kind of quiet that outlives noise. I will build with the kind of hope that outlasts despair.

I will matter. Because I already do.

[rcvalepoetry]

Small as Stars, Loud as Suns

I know how small I am. I know the sky does not flinch when I leave a room. I know the river forgets my reflection the moment I walk away.

I am a dust speck in the breath of a dying star, a flicker swallowed by the weight of galaxies that will never know my name. I am a sigh pressed between centuries.

And still I burn.

Not with the need to conquer, not with the need to matter in every eye, but with the stubborn belief that small things can still change the world.

The star, small as it seems in the black, still sends light so fierce it burns through skin, through oceans, through the thick bark of centuries. The sun, loud in its silence, still hums songs none of us will ever hear.

I am small. I am vast. I am nothing. I am everything stitched together by hope and dreaming and mistakes I refuse to regret.

I will not apologize for daring to matter. I will not shrink so the universe can be more comfortable in my absence.

I am a small star. I am a loud sun. I will never ask permission. I will leave a light behind that the dark can’t swallow.

[rcvalepoetry]

NO KINGS! (You killed for this?)

You let people die for a man who paints his face orange and sells Bibles he’s never opened. You let them die so a billionaire could tweet through genocide and call it genius.

You let them die for men who’d sell your last breath and print your face on a t-shirt to profit from the fallout.

This is MAGA: where truth is treason, compassion is weakness, and violence is patriotic as long as it’s white and loud.

You drove into crowds, you opened fire at grocery stores, you brought rifles to school board meetings — not because you’re brave, but because you were told someone somewhere might get something you don’t think they deserve.

You screamed about tyranny — Then begged for a king.

And now? You wear Trump’s mugshot on a flag and call it faith. You treat Elon Musk like a prophet because he made a car and bought a website. You fall in line behind men who call your poverty “freedom” and your rage “currency.”

You didn’t want liberty. You wanted a license to hate without consequence.

You shot protesters in the back and blamed them for dying.

You armed yourselves for war because a woman said “my body” or a Black person said “my life.”

And when the blood spilled — you looked away. You said “they were asking for it.” You said “they were thugs.” You said “they made me do it.”

This isn’t democracy. This is a cult. And your god wears a red hat and a smirk and a suit stitched from tax fraud and tantrums.

No more lies. No more idols. No more pretending this is about jobs, or freedom, Or your bankrupt family values.

This is about fear. And the bodies you’ve buried with it.

No kings.

Not Trump. Not Elon. Not the dead-eyed cowards in Congress who cheer while the flames rise. Not the cops who kneel only to tie their boots tighter. Not the “patriots” who stormed the Capitol and still call it justice.

Worship your money. Worship your guns. Worship your con men. But don’t expect the rest of us to stay silent while you crown tyrants and call it tradition.

The next time you say “freedom” — look at the corpses you stood on just to say it.

No kings. No saviors. No more excuses.

Only the people. Only the reckoning. Only the truth you tried to bury under a red hat.

[rcvalepoetry]

To Protect and Serve (They never meant us)

We march for our lives, and they crack our skulls. We scream for justice; they break our ribs and puncture our lungs. We hold up signs and they charge in like it’s war.

But storm a government building in camo, Or spit in the face of democracy? Then they smile for the cameras. Some even open the gates.

This is America: where asking for rights gets you a knee to the throat, but waving a flag soaked in fascism gets you front-row seats to history.

The badge isn’t neutral. It never was. It serves property. It serves power. It serves men with money, and mobs with flags.

But it has never — never — served the people.

They protect the system. Not the children. Not the unarmed. Not the truth.

The law isn’t broken. It’s functioning exactly as designed.

Built to silence. Built to punish. Built to remind you who runs this place.

This isn’t a land of freedom. It’s a theme park for fascists with security on standby.

Don’t talk to me about law and order when it only applies to protestors in hoodies, not senators in red ties. Not cops who kill without consequence. Not mobs that bring gallows and leave with selfies.

We are told to respect authority — but what has authority ever done but lie, cage, shoot, and cover it up?

They told us we were free. Then they called us threats. Then they sent the tanks.

We don’t live under democracy — We live under corporate management. And management has one rule: Obey, or be eradicated.

So no they don’t protect you. They protect the machine. They serve as its gears.

And every time you dare to slow it down, they’re there. Helmets on. Clubs out. Ready to remind you exactly who’s in charge.

They never meant us. They never will.

[rcvalepoetry]

Not Every Rebel Has a Reason

Everyone wants to be the wolf in the room. The lone voice. The prophet. The misunderstood genius.

But most of them are just barking.

They aren’t challenging power. They’re chasing clout. They aren’t rebels, just rebranded trolls With a vocabulary upgrade and a podcast mic.

They don’t speak truth to power. They speak around it Loud enough to get noticed, Shallow enough to avoid risk.

You know the type.

They say “I just like to play devil’s advocate” But the devil never needed more lawyers. What we needed was someone to ask real questions. To challenge with depth, not just noise.

Because there is a purpose to being contrarian When it’s rooted in principle. When it’s uncomfortable, even for the one saying it. When it costs you more than it gains you.

But we’ve replaced conviction with performance. People don’t push back to find truth They do it to go viral. To feel superior. To be the smartest person in a room full of echoes.

And here’s the thing Real dissent is lonely. Not glamorous. It doesn't come with likes, or a merch line, or a smug little smirk that says “I’m not like the sheep.”

Real dissent? It’s the whistleblower. The activist with bloodied knuckles. The quiet kid in the back who speaks up even when it ruins everything they’ve built.

So next time someone argues just to argue Ask them what they’ve risked. Ask them what they’ve lost. Ask them what truth they’re defending, and if it’s worth the noise they’re making.

Because not every rebel has a reason. And not every devil deserves a mic.

[rcvalepoetry]

The Myth of Being Finished

There is a story we are told from the time we are small: that someday, we will arrive. Someday, we will become. Someday, we will be finished, whole, polished, and certain.

It is a lie dressed in the clothes of hope. And it is killing us softly.

The truth is, we are never finished. We are rough drafts scribbled in pencil. We are half-built houses with the blueprints lost to time. We are songs that forget their endings, paintings that stretch off the canvas and into the wandering sky.

If we are waiting to feel complete before we call ourselves real, Then we will be waiting forever.

Completion is a myth spun by those too afraid to love something that is still changing. It is an illusion, a soft trap, a slow erasure of the wildness that makes living worth the risk.

We are allowed to be unfinished. We are allowed to be mosaics of broken dreams and new beginnings, binded together with trembling hands. We are allowed to be questions instead of answers.

The world does not need more polished statues. It needs breathing things.

It needs the half-healed wanderers who are brave enough to stay messy and reaching. It needs the people who say I am still becoming. And that is enough.

We are allowed to outgrow the lives we built. We are allowed to rebuild and rebuild again. We are allowed to never have a final form.

If you are waiting to be finished before you let yourself be loved please, let go. You are already worthy. You are already real.

You are not a statue. You are a garden.

Grow wildly. Grow imperfectly. Grow anyway.

[rcvalepoetry]

Experts in Things We Never Touched

We speak in bullet points carved out of fear. We echo the headlines, the half-read articles, the memes that said what we were too tired to question. We spit out statistics like prayers we don’t believe in numbers sharp enough to wound, but never sharp enough to open anything real.

We stand on soapboxes built from hearsay. We swing swords made of guesswork. We crown ourselves scholars of anger and architects of judgment all while barely brushing the surface of what we claim to understand.

It’s easier this way easier to nod along, easier to pretend that knowing is a look, or a tone, or a flood of clever words thrown fast enough to stun the other side into silence.

We are brilliant in our ignorance. Artists of certainty without substance. Loud, flashing empires of assumption.

Meanwhile, the truth waits not screaming, not begging, not branding itself in neon. It waits in the quiet work, the long study, the questions that take years to unfold.

It waits while we burn our voices on fires we never stopped to understand.

One day If we are lucky we will sit down at empty tables, with empty hands, and say, simply

I don’t know. But I want to.

And maybe that will be the beginning of something worth building.

[rcvalepoetry]

Guilt Is Not Love

They used “family” like a leash. Tight enough to choke, loose enough to pretend I could breathe.

I was raised in rooms where guilt spoke louder than care — where disappointment came quicker than comfort, and love had a price tag hidden behind every favor.

They called me ungrateful when I asked for boundaries. They called me selfish when I tried to stop bleeding on their behalf.

But guilt is not love. And control wrapped in affection is still control.

I left because I finally realized love doesn’t mean erasing yourself to keep someone else from falling apart.