8.25

Delight is half illuminated by the soft glow from the screen in her lap. It's a terrifying rictus that the shadows make, but my memory fills in the gaps and her face beams. Why is lighting from underneath so terrifying?

8.24

If I have written on every day of a year, am I a writer? Must I find that impulse more often, or can I let my motives rot like fallen apples? I know there is a good seed inside, ready to germinate, lift leaves, and find the sun. I know I have the power of new growth, strong enough even to push aside old trees once whipped by wind, now stoic in the face of storms. I can be the author future readers reference. I can give society an undying idea.

But my orchard is littered with fruit. The once-proud grove smells sickly sweet of death and the flies drink the sweet nectar of exploded windfalls.

[I have made forty-odd posts this year, and fifty the last. In 2011, I posted over two hundred times.]