I think about the closed doors at the end of a suburban cul-de-sac. The guy alone in a shoebox apartment twenty floors up, screaming into takeout containers. A kid under a rusted roof in a town that doesn't even make the weather report. Everyone’s hiding something. And everything, every space, every soul, has a story. You just have to look long enough before it flinches.
I don’t care much for the good/bad binary. I find that it’s for people who want the world to be simple because their conscience isn’t. I’ve seen things labeled terrible that, under the right light, it starts to make sense. And I’ve seen kindness rot when you stare long enough.
We spend most of our lives wearing masks that feel safe. Stories we can control. Editing the best version of ourselves we think the world can handle. Then, if you’re lucky or maybe just stupid enough, you get close to someone. When that happens, all the curated bullshit starts to crack. Through those cracks, the truth begins to bleed out.
The story I’m working on now is another look into that. It’s about a man. He is not broken, just unfinished. He is trying, in small and clumsy ways, to heal wounds he never learned how to touch. Trying to relearn empathy in a world that beat it out of him early.
It’s messy. It’s small. And it is honest.