love
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TotTM – Chapter 3: Follow the Beauty
September 10, 2026 Today, I’m back at Chattahoochee Food Works, sitting at a more secluded yellow table outside the building. It’s 12:24 p.m., which means I have about an hour before I need to return to my place and get ready for work. I usually leave my room between 2:10 and 2:20 p.m. My commute…
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TotTM – Chapter 2: The Boy Who Left Home
May 26, 2025 Saying goodbye to my mother is the hardest part. In a fourteen-year span, she birthed three sons and one daughter. Though my sister took away the title of youngest in 2001, I am still my mother’s baby boy. It’s a rather cruel prank, considering that she’s the one who introduced me to…
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TotTM – Preface & Chapter 1
I’ve wanted to write a book for years, but I can never seem to finish any of the more ambitious projects I start. Lately, I’ve been binge-reading Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl series, and it’s given me a newfound inspiration for how to approach this lifelong ambition. As I understand it, Dinniman began publishing chapters…
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Be.loved
Dear Beloved, I hope you begin your day with kisses from the sun – she seems to shine a little happier when her light lands on you. I hope your heart is moved with motion, so you may recognize it when I speak your name for the first time. I hope you ground yourself in…
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The Silent Truth
I must admit: I find myself in a strangely unsettled season of life. I’ve neglected this blog for far too long, and tonight—of all nights—I watched The Housemaid, starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried. For reasons I can’t fully explain, that was enough to loosen something in me. I feel compelled to write. I don’t…
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Voca(b)ouquet
You said you longed for flowers,So I thought I’d write you a bouquet—Each bloom composed of chosen wordsTo mirror the grace you give away. First comes the moonflower’s gleam,Its radiance soft, serene, and true—A symbol of how your light still shinesWhen the world feels cold and blue. Next, an orchid, pale and rare,With hues that…
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Rainy Heys
What happened to my sunny daze? She used to only be my bae. But now when I come home to play, All I feel is rainy heys. Though she tells me it’s okay, I’m fighting hurricanes. Even when we lay, Her sun kisses so quickly fade, But now it’s time to sleep, Yet my eyes…
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The Illusion of Self and the Ever-Presence of Love
What first drew me to Buddhism was the idea of non-self—the insight that the “self” as we know it is an illusion. At first, this concept can feel deeply counterintuitive. From the moment we’re born, we are flooded with the markers of identity: our name, our birth weight, the exact time we entered the world.…
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Kouign-Amann
Señior Bustelo, upon his final days, Thought to which Goddess would he last like to play. Without a doubt in his mind, Comes Empress Kouign-Amann, The most decadent divine of his time. Philadelphia the scene, January 2025. I stumbled upon this little dream, A shop called Machine, Operated by meticulous queens, Who knew exactly what…
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Apricottom
There she is, looking so free, Exposed to the world, tell me, Sun-kissed, velvety, May I have this dance, A moment of your fine? I want to feel you on my hands, Tell me that you’re mine. So I can take you home, Wash you from that grime. Display you on the table, Embrace you…
