The Way Life Should Be

by William Dameron

Children bear the punishment for their parents’ insecurities.

We think we know our spouses better than they know themselves, because in a way we create them, as if before us they were waiting to be brought to life.

Sometimes a marriage runs its course, and because we want to believe so desperately that love is infallible, we seek a single point of failure, as if we can create a map of all the land mines to avoid.

What we try to hide speaks louder than what we attempt to show.

those like DJ, who view the world as binary, good and evil, black and white, have difficulty discerning shades of gray, much less a rainbow.

We don’t notice what we don’t want to notice, and forget what we don’t want to remember.

We’re old. We don’t have much time left, and this gives us something to live for.”

They would care for the man who had cared for them. It was not a duty but an honor. Though honor does not exist without sacrifice.

Change comes in the form of daily decisions that you may never have considered unless presented with the opportunity.

Sometimes we carry other people’s memories, because the burden becomes too heavy for one person to bear, and sometimes we carry their memories to bear witness, so that they may never fade away.

Each of us carries a ghost child inside, whispering their fatal injuries in a language that can take the rest of our adult lives to hear.

“Scars are tattoos with better stories.”