Real is rare
rarely there
in the polluted saluted
sleep-tight sludge-fucker world
smile-fuckery handshakers
marionettes needled to their knuckles
prefabricated friction
created to fake out frauds
lost in the empty lie-down crowd
where is God?
stuck in the elevator of his own creation
take the ventilator out
breathe your own fire
into the chaos
What’s the oldest things you’re wearing today?
What’s the oldest thing I’m wearing today?
Not the boots.
Not the jacket.
Not the watch pretending time means anything.
It’s the uneasy stomach.
The golf ball lodged in the throat.
The cracked heart stitched together with bad sleep, caffeine and whatever people call “moving on.”
Those are old.
Ancient, really.
Hand-tailored over years by loss, disappointment, memory, guilt, love and the quiet observations you never talk about out loud because everyone else is busy performing wellness like it’s an Olympic sport.
I wear old conversations that never ended properly.
Old funerals.
Old versions of myself I buried but still hear scratching around under the floorboards at 2 a.m.
None of it was designed by me.
It was made for me.
By every slammed door.
Every hospital hallway.
Every “I’m fine” that wasn’t.
Every moment you realized the world keeps spinning with horrifying confidence no matter what it takes from you.
That’s the oldest thing I’m wearing today.
And somehow, against all logic, it still fits.
What tattoo do you want and where would you put it?
I Almost Tattooed Rage on My Face
(For Jack & James)
I almost did it.
Sat there long enough to picture it—
ink crawling out from the corners of my eyes
like something that refused to stay buried.
Not decorative.
Not symbolic.
A warning.
The kind of thing that says,
don’t get too close unless you mean it.
I told myself it would be honest.
That it would save time.
No small talk.
No pretending.
You’d see me—
or at least the version of me
I thought was still in charge.
The one who keeps score.
The one who remembers everything.
The one who could burn it all down
and call it justice.
I thought about wearing it
where no one could ignore it.
Right there.
Across the face.
So I wouldn’t have to explain
why my voice goes quiet
when people say things like
“everything happens for a reason.”
So I wouldn’t have to pretend
I don’t still feel it—
that split-second flash
where the world narrows
and something ancient in me
steps forward.
I almost gave that version of me a name.
A uniform.
A permanent place to live.
But then I realized something—
I’ve already worn it.
Not in ink.
In glances.
In silence.
In the way I left rooms
without saying goodbye.
In the way I held onto anger
like it was the last thing
I had left of him.
As if letting go of it
would mean letting go of him.
And that’s the lie, isn’t it?
That rage is proof of love.
That if I soften,
I’ve forgotten.
But he didn’t live like that.
Not really.
He fought, sure.
He burned bright.
But he laughed too easy
for someone who was supposed to carry what I carry now.
He didn’t stay in the worst moment.
So why would I?
I sat there thinking about that—
about putting something permanent on my face
to mark something
that was never meant to be permanent.
And for the first time,
it felt… unnecessary.
Like writing a headline
for a story I’ve already outgrown.
I don’t need to wear rage anymore
to remember him.
I don’t need to prove
how far I could go
if I stopped caring.
Because I do care.
That’s the whole thing.
That’s the part I was trying to hide
behind something sharp.
So no—
I didn’t get the tattoo.
Not on my face.
Not anywhere you can see.
But something is there.
Something quieter.
Not a warning—
a presence.
Not stay back
but walk with me.
And if you look close enough—
not at my skin,
but at the way I move through the world now—
you might see it.
Not the rage.
But what’s left
after I finally stopped needing it
to speak for me.
What makes a good leader?
The Physics of the Line
he must be a man who has
tasted the barrel of the gun
and found the metal
cold and honest.
he must have burned down
his own house,
sat in the ashes,
drinking cheap scotch from a
cracked mug,
and decided to build it back
without a single nail of
pity.
he must be dangerous.
a violent thing
wearing a quiet suit.
a wolf who learned
a knife and fork
so the children don’t notice
the teeth.
he takes the screaming chaos
of the universe,
runs it through his ribs,
and hands it back as
calm instructions.
he is the wall in the wind.
the father who stays awake
so the family can dream
of meadows.
we write books about him.
we carve his face
into mountains.
we argue over
vision,
grit,
the holy mechanics
of command.
burn the books.
sand the statues down
to dust.
spit on the philosophy
until only pavement
is left.
the answer is not in the man.
it is in the space
behind him.
you ask what makes a
good leader?
turn around.
if there is no one there,
you are just a man
taking a walk.
if there is a line of
warm bodies
mistaking your shadow
for a map,
following your heels
into the fire—
congratulations.
you are a leader.
the rest is just
marketing.
January Is a Mirror, Not a Door
The calendar did not absolve you at midnight.
It did not forgive December.
It did not sprinkle moral disinfectant on your habits while you slept.
January 1st is not a beginning. It’s a receipt.
If you were moving toward something in October, you’re already closer now.
If you were lying to yourself in November, you brought that lie with you—carry-on, not checked.
Resolutions are charming in the way apologies are charming when they arrive late and rehearsed.
They sound noble.
They feel ceremonial.
They allow us to pretend that discipline is seasonal and courage can be scheduled.
But character doesn’t wait for fireworks.
Anyone who truly meant it—the running, the quitting, the writing, the calling back, the drinking less or loving better—quietly started when no one was watching. Usually on a random Tuesday. Usually without an announcement. Usually without permission.
That’s the part no one sells you.
Change doesn’t arrive with a slogan. It creeps in through boredom, discomfort, repetition.
It shows up looking unremarkable and asks if you’re willing to be consistent instead of inspired.
So keep your resolutions if you like. They’re harmless theater.
But don’t confuse the theater for the work.
If you want to begin, begin now.
If you already began, don’t stop just because the calendar caught up.
January doesn’t make you new.
It merely exposes whether you were honest before the countdown.
And that, inconveniently, is the only resolution that ever mattered.
Gratitude isn’t a prayer or a posture.
It’s a scar that still throbs when the weather turns—
a reminder you’re somehow still here
while the world keeps finding new ways
to set itself on fire.
It’s outliving a son
and carrying his brilliance like contraband
through a year that tested everyone’s faith
in everything.
It’s knowing the gods are broke,
the politicians are puppets,
the prophets are running side hustles,
and the news is just a fear carousel
you didn’t buy a ticket for.
Gratitude doesn’t live there.
It lives in the cracked places:
the dog who curls against you
like she’s guarding what’s left,
the laugh you didn’t think you had in you,
the friend who calls before the collapse,
the night that lets you pass without a toll.
It lives in the chaos we survived
and the beauty that somehow survived us.
Keep it small.
Keep it sharp.
Pocket-sized and battle-ready—
your own stitched-together compass
for a world that keeps losing north.
Remember:
you’ve been broken open,
but you’re still walking.
You’re still dangerous.
You’re still here.
Mccarthy AKA FATHER SICARIO
Series: Filter Failure: Beneath the Noise
Short Announcment: You never really leave the house you grew up in. It leaves pieces of itself in you.
In the house I grew up in I found the McCarthy crest yesterday — buried in a box by the stairs, right where the house keeps its secrets.
Same one I’ve got inked over my heart — Jackiemac4ever.
A promise that never healed right.
Funny thing about symbols: they start as pride and end as proof.
Proof that somebody once stood here and mattered.
Proof that love still bleeds through the cracks of time.
Next to it was my father, trapped in a photograph — late thirties, early forties, somewhere between wisdom and warning.
He’s standing on a sailboat, face tilted toward the wind, a man still convinced there’s more horizon left than storm.
I was twenty-three when I lost him.
Jack was nineteen when I lost him, too.
Two men — the bookends of my life — both gone before I figured out what any of it meant.
Mom sat in her chair, smaller now, soft around the edges, like the world’s been quietly erasing her outline.
We talked about moving her out of the old house.
Said it like logistics, but it felt like betrayal.
Every wall in that place still hums with our laughter, our fights, our noise.
Every step sounds like an echo of who we were trying to be.
The air was thick with dust and ghosts.
Not the kind that scare you — the kind that wait for you to understand.
Every photo frame, a silent sermon.
Every object, an altar.
When I left, I didn’t cry. Or maybe I have selective retention.
I Didn’t say goodbye.
Just stood in the driveway, hollowed out and human — the last McCarthy man in a story written in vanishing ink.
But I don’t call it grief anymore.
Grief sits still.
This — this is participation.
A ritual of remembering.
A man standing in the ashes of what built him,
saying softly to the wind,
I’m still here.
Some of us were dumb enough to think we were chosen. Destined for greatness. I was one of those fools.
Then life swung for the skull—my father gone when I was just twenty-four, my son gone at nineteen. That’s the punchline. And I’m still here, scribbling like a clown juggling knives at his own funeral.
Every line I write turns to rope. And rope’s a funny bastard—you can climb it, you can hang from it. Lifeline and noose, same damn thing.
And here’s where I laugh at myself: I can’t stand writers who always find a way to make it about them. But don’t mistake this for that—this isn’t me making it about me. This is me making it about you, making it about me. That’s the kind of pretzel you twist into when you’ve got nothing left but your own shadow to wrestle with.
Greatness? That’s the carrot they dangle so you’ll chase yourself into the grave. The truth is simpler: I’m under the gallows, grinning through broken teeth, laughing at my own execution, and the only reason I keep writing is because hanging myself with my own words is the one thing I’ve ever done well.
How the fuck do you crawl out of rage?
How the fuck do you scrub sadness off your teeth?
Answer: you don’t.
I call in the heavyweights,
the intellectual cavalry,
and it’s a goddamn carnival.
Nietzsche storms the room screaming will to power,
eyes rolling like a rabid horse.
Aurelius is polishing his stoic turds
while the empire burns behind him.
Wilde wants better wallpaper.
Twain heckles from the cheap seats.
Thompson kicks the door in with a shotgun,
mescaline dripping from his pores.
Bukowski is shirtless, pissing in the corner.
Burroughs has turned into an insect,
clattering needles like antennae.
Joyce is babbling in tongues that even hell won’t translate.
Byron is dry-humping the apocalypse itself.
Kerouac is pacing the ceiling,
muttering go, go, go like a scratched record.
And Hitchens—dear Christ—
Hitchens is on fire,
lighting one cigarette off the next,
snarling through smoke,
grief is a goddamn scam, don’t tithe to it.
The walls buckle.
The sky splits.
Ink, blood, static, numbers—
the whole matrix vomiting itself onto the floor.
And me?
I’m strapped to the chair,
still asking the same useless question:
how in the fuck do I get free?
The answer is written on the walls in piss and whiskey:
You don’t.
You ride the rage like a dying horse,
you suck up the sadness like sacrament,
and you learn to make the end of the world
sound like a song worth singing.
I used to laugh at everything. Irony was my shield. Sarcasm, my second skin. But then life walked in, uninvited, and knocked the mic out of my hand.
There was a time I could joke my way through anything.
Grief. Guilt. Failure.
Give me a tragedy, I’d find the punchline.
Not because I thought it was funny—
but because laughing meant I still had control.
Humor was my armor.
If I could reduce it to a one-liner,
I didn’t have to feel it.
I just had to deliver it.
But eventually, the jokes stopped landing.
Not because they weren’t clever.
But because the pain got louder than the laugh track in my head.
You can’t joke your way out of a child’s funeral.
You can’t riff your way around a hollow chair at the dinner table.
And you can’t meme your way back to who you were before everything shattered.
There’s a point—
when irony stops being a coping mechanism
and starts becoming a coffin.
It’s not edgy.
It’s not cool.
It’s just another way to keep people from getting too close.
And I’ve had to reckon with that.
Because while I was busy being the emotionally unavailable Bukowski of the grieving dads club,
I was also bleeding underneath the punchlines.
So now?
Now I still laugh.
But not to deflect.
I laugh because some shit is absurd and crying all the time doesn’t pay the bills.
But I’ve also learned to sit in the silence after the joke.
To let it echo.
To let the truth behind it hang heavy.
And if you’ve felt that—
if your jokes are starting to sound like pleas for help wrapped in wit—
just know this:
You’re not weak.
You’re waking up.
You don’t have to be the strong one.
You don’t have to be the funny one.
You just have to be real—even when it’s raw and ugly and doesn’t trend.
That’s it for now.
Laugh when you can.
Cry when you need.
Bleed in front of people who’ve earned the right to see it.
And if the joke stops being funny?
That’s your cue to finally speak the truth.