“…nothing is appropriated to man but what is done from an affection, which is of the love…In a word, whatever does not enter into freedom into man does not remain; because it is not of his love or will, and the things which are not of a man’s love or will are not of his […]
Browsing Tag: Byron McCoy
Short Story
SAYING WRONG
“Most everything I’ve ever spoken, I’ve said wrong,” he shared. “Wrong words…wrong time…wrong understanding. Learning shame from saying wrong, I’ve spent even more of life sharing nothing at all: keeping in, fearing rejection or misunderstanding—judgment for the wrongs I speak. I don’t know why that would suddenly change in me,” he continued. “I’ll […]
Journal Pages / Short Story
REPEAT THE PAST
“You can’t repeat the past.”—F. Scott Fitzgerald You staged hours before in the hangar bay of the ship by company, platoons, squads, and fire teams. You inspected, reinspected, and waited. You had an old iPod, back when they were just music, and you listened to zone out and to put your mind in a […]
Short Story
A BETTER WAY
“…it is you, spirit—with will and energy, and virtue and purity—that I want: not alone your brittle frame. Of yourself you could come with soft flight and nestle against my heart, if you would: seized against your will, you will elude the grasp like an essence—you will vanish ere I inhale your fragrance. Oh! Come […]
Journal Pages
MORNING SONGS
I rise to spring sounds of birds singing airy notes from black branches silhouetted before a navy sky. The world is not light, but it is less dark. The sounds seem as if coming from the depths of a wooded forest, but it is only a few trees in the yard and hedgerows in […]
Journal Pages
LISTEN
“…in possibility one can go astray in all possible ways, but essentially two. One form is the wishful, yearning form, the other is the melancholy fantastic—on the one hand hope; on the other, fear or anguished dread.”—Soren Kierkegaard I don’t want to go astray. I don’t want to go too far chasing dreams I […]
Journal Pages
WHEN THE WORLD CHANGED
I lived days I lost myself in thought, when discovering me again, I witnessed clouds shift, sun break, and sky show with a new and beautiful light. I don’t know what it meant, if it meant anything at all, but I observed. I witnessed how—in a thought—heavens moved, light shone, and the world illuminated […]
Journal Pages
SPOILED
It is after dark before I am home. The house is quiet, and the children are “in bed,” having a sleepover in Audrey’s room. I shower, washing free the dirt from a day in the field, and when I exit the bathroom, a child waits in the kitchen with their mother. He “can’t […]