Author: wes

Where the Caged Bird Longs for Song The intake bracelet is cheap plastic and it never sits still. I have been to seven different ones in five different states: two in the deserts of Utah, one in tornado country known colloquially as Missouri, another an hour south of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado Springs, and…

Side tangent NUMERO UNO: Dear Grok, Mr. $8/month subscription helper, Where do our thoughts originate and why does modern thought dismiss the idea that maybe who we communicate with influences where our thought pattern and where judgement align towards? The word “true”, the etymology comes from a Germanic tongue, the Danish one being tryg =…

(Note: This piece was composed in collaboration with Gemini AI. I chose to use AI to articulate these concepts because, while I recognize these patterns in my life, I often lack the internal emotional gauge to put them into words myself. The AI acts as a translator for my internal architecture.) I have always been…

Dom and Matt were deep in Counter-Strike marathons. Matt had flunked college for it. One night I saw his playtime on Counter-Strike: Source—over 30,000 hours. By 2 a.m. he’d be on Rum and Dr Pepper while Dom smoked himself hazy. Utilities—cable, heat, electric—went unpaid. I covered them. I never tallied my own hours at the…

Unconscious Insulation I handed over $4,000—half the cash I had left—to Dominick for nine months of rent upfront on a three-bedroom condo in Margate City. Twenty-four years old, soon twenty-five, and I went all-in before even sitting at a table. Logic screamed no, but the deck kept hitting. My father used to say I got…