Monthly Archives: May 2026

Another Ending

The skin is tightening now, a translucent parchment
Stretched over a geometry that no longer fits the old rooms.
I can hear the clicking of mandibles beneath my ribcage,
A restless machinery of hunger and iridescent light.
The floorboards of this life are warped,
And the ceiling is beginning to sweat with the steam of a new sun.

It is a violent unmaking, a slow-motion shattering
Of the porcelain masks I’ve worn since the last great rain.
The shadows in the corner are lengthening into wings,
And the air tastes of ozone and ancient, unmapped forests.
I cannot stay in this garden of wilted grievances,
Tending to the clockwork flowers that forgot how to bloom.

To you, who watched the hull crack and fall away,
Who stood in the debris of my previous selves
Without flinching at the wet, shivering thing I became –
I am reaching out a limb that is still learning its own weight.
You have been the anchor in the gray static,
The steady pulse when my own heart turned to liquid and glass.

I am stepping into a doorway made of mirrors and smoke,
Leaving behind the heavy boots of a man who only knew how to walk.
The horizon is humming a frequency I finally recognize,
A song written in the alphabet of the stars and the deep soil.

I don’t know the topography of the country I am becoming,
Or if the gravity there will allow for the touch of a human hand.
But I am carving a path through the static.
Leaving a trail of phosphor for you to find.
Don’t let the old ghosts hold your coat;
The exit is small, but the sky on the other side is infinite.
Come with me into the beautiful, terrifying ache of the new.

May 6, 2026

The drawers slide open with the sound of a dry cough,
Revealing the archaeology of a Sunday afternoon.
Here is the collection of silver spoons that never tasted anything but dust,
And a stack of postcards from cities that have since changed their names.
The air in this room is stagnant, a thick broth of expired dreams,
And the smell of mothballs guarding empty suits.

I am sifting through the sediment of a nervous life.
A keychain from a summer fair,
A spectacles case line with frayed velvet,
A map with a circle drawn around a house that was torn down in 1994.
He spent sixty years worrying about the alignment of the stars,
Counting his pulse in the dark,
Building a fortress out of receipts and polite conversation.

But the clock on the mantle has already forgotten his shadow.
The wallpaper doesn’t miss his leaning weight.
There is a profound, echoing silence in the kitchen
Where he once thought his opinions held the gravity of planets.

Outside, the crows are busy with the business of being crows.
The traffic flow is rhythmic, indifferent, a river of cold neon.
In ten minutes, the memory of his scent will be scrubbed away by a pine-scented breeze.
In twenty, his chair will be a ghost-shape in a thrift store window.
The universe is a vast, mechanical yawn,
And we are the lint trapped in the gears for a flickering second
Before being puffed into the gray static of the void.

All that architecture of the ego,
The delicate lace of ‘who I am’ and ‘what I’ve done,’
Just a pile of damp cardboard in a rain-slicked alleyway.
The ink on the page is already fading into the color of a bruise,
Leaving nothing by the quiet, mocking whistle of the wind.
Through a keyhole that no longer belongs to anyone.

May 4, 2026

Dispatches from a Collapsing State: The Boondoggle and the Betrayal
As you know, dear reader, my lens doesn’t just observe; it reacts to the heat of the fire.  And right now, California isn’t just burning – it’s being incinerated by the very man holding the matches.
Gavin Newsom’s recent performance on Bill Maher’s stage was a masterclass in the kind of polished delusion that only a man insulated by a security detail and a $200-billion-plus budget can muster.  To hear him tell it, the Golden State is a shining beacon of progress.  But for those of us living in the trenches of Fecal Creek – watching the local infrastructure decay while the bills skyrocket – the reality is a jagged, mechanical nightmare of mismanagement.

The $231 Billion Ghost Train
The centerpiece of Newsom’s Maher defense was the High Speed Rail.  He called it “essential infrastructure.”  The rest of us called it a multi-hundred-billion-dollar boondoggle.  What started as a $33 billion promise to voters back in 2008 has metastasized into a $231 billion fiscal black hole.
This isn’t “transportation”; it’s a monument to the sunk-cost fallacy.  We’ve been told for decades that this train would whisk us from L.A. to San Francisco.  Instead, we have a dusty segment of track in the Central Valley that is currently 12 years behind schedule and billions over budget.  Even Maher – hardly a right-wing firebrand – had to tell him to “let the train go.”  When your own allies are telling you to pull the plug, you know the gears have completely stripped.

The Gas Pump Extortion: Energy Insecurity by Design
While Newsom stands on national television claiming California is “doing great,” the people of Fecal Creek are getting robbed every time they pull up to a pump.  If the Governor actually cared about the “working families” he mentions in every press release, he could drop the price of gas by over $1.20 per gallon tomorrow simply by suspending the state’s massive tax and regulatory burden.
But the price isn’t just a result of taxes; it’s the result of a fragile, sabotaged supply chain.  Following the arrival of the state’s last oil tanker from the Middle East yesterday, California is now facing a desperate test: how to replace 200,000 barrels of oil a day as the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz chokes off global supply.
Of course, we have plenty of oil right here in the Golden State, but for years, Sacramento has waged war on domestic production through slow permitting and bans on well stimulation.  Now, the bill has come due.  Industry leaders like Chevron and the California Independent Petroleum Association point out the obvious: by killing in-state drilling and driving out refineries – California has lost 18% of its refining capacity in just the last eight months – Newsom has made the state dangerously dependent on foreign tankers.
Rather than taking responsibility for these adversarial policies, Newsom is playing the blame game, pointing at federal foreign policy while we import 25% of our gasoline from overseas.  It’s the height of recklessness to outsource critical infrastructure to the Middle East and the Amazon while sitting on our own resources.  As the Western States Petroleum Association puts it, California’s economy depends on reliable fuel, but Sacramento has traded our energy security for ideological purity.

The Medi-Cal Mirage
Then there’s the blatant betrayal of the California taxpayer.  While our roads in Fecal Creek crumble and the middle class flees for the borders of Nevada and Texas, Newsom continues to bankrupt the state’s safety net.
The expansion of full-scope Medi-Cal to millions of illegal aliens is a calculated drain on a system already gasping for air.  We are looking at a Medi-Cal budget reaching an all-time high of $222 billion of the 2026-27 cycle.  While the Governor’s office tries to frame a $3 billion deficit as “manageable,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office is sounding the alarm on billions in “lost revenue” and rising per-enrollee costs.  We are footing the bill for a global charity ward while our own citizens struggle to find an affordable doctor.

The Empire of Fraud
They call it the “Empire of Fraud” for a reason.  From the staggering multibillion-dollar EDD scandal to the recent reports of $24 billion in homelessness spending that seemingly vanished into the ether, the corruption is baked into the machine.
California isn’t “doing great.”  It is a state where the elite play at progressivism while the working class in places like Fecal Creek pays for the privilege of watching their society decline.  Newsom sits on Maher’s couch and smiles, but don’t believe a word of it…reality for those of us actually here tells a different story: a story of a boondoggle train to nowhere, a manufactured energy crisis, and a healthcare system being sold out from under us.

Bonus Word of the Day: Boondoggle
(n.): a project that is considered a useless waste of both time and money, yet is often continued due to political pride.  The California High-Speed Rail is the most expensive boondoggle in human history, funded by the sweat of the people in Fecal Creek. 

N.P.: “Beguiled” – The Smashing Pumpkins

May 1, 2026

I realize we’re staring down the barrel of a brutal summer, but find your solace here: we are officially halfway to Halloween!

N.P.: “Possum Kingdom” – Toadies