9/4/25

A sprinkling of autumn

8/1/2025

And when your fourth love leaves you,
You will want to kill yourself, but you won't
Because you no longer think of suicide
As a house you will build one day.

Your fourth love,
Who is your first real love,
Who brought you peace when your whole body was a gun.
When she leaves you,
Ask your roommate to hide the knives
Because you will carve her name into all the food in the fridge.
 
Stop showering,
Warmth will remind you of her.
Masturbate in public, hope someone catches you,
Just so you can feel vulnerable in front of anyone else.
Try to burn her clothes, try to fall in love with strangers,
Try to fall asleep without her.
Open the windows,
She would've wanted them closed.
Turn off the radio, she can’t sleep without noise.
You can't fall asleep without noise
But noise will sound like her,
Whispering you into the world of lights and breakfast.
Make the rain sound like nothing,
Make the rain sound like nothing like her voice.
Don't be alone.
When you are alone, you won't do anything you do with her,
So you won't do anything.

Marvel at how she, the patient gardener,
The bringer of sleep,
She who draws the bath and lights the candles,
She who made you someone who could make himself into someone.
She made you want to live more than anything else
And now, she makes you want to leave the world
Because you have seen it.
In her, you have seen the color and shape of your perfect life.

And now the children, the house,
The arguments about tablecloths
Are all faded, like things left in sunlight.
Like any dream left too long in the light.

For months, maybe years,
Every time you see her you will want to kiss her.
When you do, you will expect pain to come
Like the old dog you could never quite put down,
But there will be none.

You will remind yourself,
She will remind you,
You will remind each other that this is for the best.
That you are physically incapable of loving one another.
And in those moments, you will be lying.
Your heart screaming
"I can. I can! I can! I can!"
But you will stay silent.

Because of her.
Because she asked for this.
Because she filled something in you that's still full,
Even though she's gone.

-Niel Hilborn

7.30.25

5/20/2025

OBSCURA MUTABILIS

and the dark and night of the soul

Reflections on becoming, an ongoing project

4.4.25

Spring

LOVE LETTER TO THE OPEN ROAD

A woman at work lost her husband last year.
She’s 65.
She doesn’t know who she is anymore.
She sits in the home that they created together.
She knows she’ll never be with another man, forever.
Maybe we don’t know who we are without others.
All this talk of self sufficiency and
independence. Maybe
it’s a scam.

I wrote a love letter to the open road last week.
It spat in my face.

I lost my health insurance today. It feels like a call to get it together (because what a mess), but all I want is to meet you there.
Middle of nowhere.

I wasn’t alone when I took these. I was with someone. It was joyous, but it feels
lonely now.

I started getting social anxiety a few years ago.
House parties and groups make me feel
like I’m naked at a job interview.
I always wanted a group of queer friends,
except I don’t know how.
Maybe that’s why the road keeps callin.

I grew up in many homes.
I have a phd in escape artistry from the school of life.
Ask me why I left. Again
and again. Theories galore. But
I don’t want to be a
bore.

The essence of life
is suffering,
or so says Jenny Lewis.
We saw her live.
I want to sell it all and drive
into the sunset. (RE: escape artistry. See above)

Who’s lost a friend to unrequited love?
All the things left unsaid?
All the assumptions and misunderstandings.
I’ve lost many. To that, to the distance, the belief that they’re better off, to the open
road.
I’ve gained a fair bit too.

And what is the open road without these thoughts in my head and my hands on the wheel?
what is the open road without the wind in my hair and a destination unknown?

kleenex

These photos were taken 2 years apart today.

The first one in a hotel in Utah. The second a bathtub in Chicago.

I’ve cried in the likes of hotel rooms and bathtubs.

Crying in the bath is particularly convenient.

No mess and easy to submerge and emerge, face anew. Voilà.

Cars. I’ve cried in so many cars.

Bars. A few of those too.

Most recently holding a very strong piña colada, across from a friend.

People need to cry more, You know?

I’m going to keep crying, I tell you.

And one day, the tears of which I’ve mourned so deeply will run dry.

Undoubtably I’ll have something or someone else to cry about because alas, It’s me, the sap.

I cry at the simplest of things now,

but I also see the beauty in the smallest things too.

That’s the thing about being sensitive.

Ugly crying on the subway. I’m talking snot.

Crying about the fact that all that love just wasn’t enough.

The woman across from me is curious,

I can tell.

Who wouldn’t be, I guess.

Let it out, she says.

Let it out.