Taking the stage, this is merely your introduction.

Even in the most catastrophic wreckage, I stop to do a head count and realize we’re all here. Everything is right. Hours upon hours of mirror conversations say it so, and if you’re not putting it down, then shame on you for such selfishness. We are born seers, and may we all die sayers with not a penny in our pockets but a multitude of wealth in the words we’ve strung together for the next generation of visionaries.

And how did they find themselves so entangled in this web? If that were me looking in on something so positively self-assured, I’d find the nearest book of unlined paper and take notes. So that’s the difference between you and me, them and you, me and the rest of the world. So self-possessed and amused by the categorically opposing definitions of just one word, I do sometimes struggle with sword and shield, balancing them with the torn covers, the ink stains, and this meager cup of white, granulated sugar. It’s a neighborly thing, and if I have hope, I concede it all to everyone in life finding just that. And what is any of this without hope.

No one ever appreciates the utility of a ribbon hole, but some of us do, in deed, look to the future and remember the days of wood splinters and now seemingly futile bits that blend into the ground and alter the reflection in your eyes this eve. When you look out onto that horizon, brace yourself, for all that I’ve known is unrepentantly staring back at you. I may be mad, but in truth, I stand neither here nor there. It’s some place in between, and I can bring you to your feet to see as I do see. Lie still, breathe deeply, and let down your hands when you’ve come to photograph this place. Let down your hands, and you’ll know that these are the images one never forgets. Let down your hands, and might you see for the very first time?