Misrepresented.
The artistic renderings
Had cast me as a saint.
Separation
Makes the heart grow fonder.
But it doesn’t teach you how to paint
A man you never really saw.
The one that left never came back.
I did.
No firetrucks came
To put out my burning life.
It was consumed like wood, hay and stubble.
Deconstructed
By hellfire missiles.
As I sort through the rubble,
At the bottom of that pile
Is a mirror.
In it, I see myself.
Unorthodox.
That’s my new shape.
At least that’s what I’m -told-.
Unfit,
So cracked by PTSD that
I no longer conform to the mold
Of Mainstream Normal Faith.
True, my stream isn’t the main one,
It’s the one without the rubble.
I swim naked in it.
Depth was blasted
Into my character
Leaving calderas in my soul.
Bomb crater Truth is scary
Because it doesn’t conform.
But tell me then, what’s the goal?
To stay in the Mainstream,
Or to follow Veracity’s narrow flow?
Come dive in with me!
j.w. McKinleyville 11/3/25