Relative Something

*this* John W. Hays' take on things and experiences

Archive for the ‘Creative Writing’ Category

Enter

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Words on Images

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Written by johnwhays

September 9, 2025 at 6:00 am

Edges

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Words on Images

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Written by johnwhays

August 28, 2025 at 6:00 am

Pain

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dull
unceasing
pain
radiating
stinging
burning
achy
sharp
waves
abrupt
chronic
reaching
unidentifiable
unfamiliar
tender
local
emotional
biting
raging
fading
grating
lasting
massive
undeniable
masked
referred
visceral
deep
squeezing
gnawing
cramping
silent
edgy
temporary
pressing
effective
protective
ignored
forgotten
unrelenting
throbbing
incapacitating
intolerable
mysterious
vanishing
changing
fleeting
processed
treated
deleted
defeated
going
going
gone

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Written by johnwhays

August 4, 2025 at 6:00 am

Thoughts

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Words on Images

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Written by johnwhays

July 21, 2025 at 6:00 am

Words

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Words on Images

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Written by johnwhays

July 15, 2025 at 6:00 am

Existence

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Words on Images

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Written by johnwhays

July 1, 2025 at 6:00 am

Just Rambling

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It feels like it has been a long time since I posted one of my stream-of-thought ramblings, like the times when I would write in one long, difficult-to-read sentence. I won’t do that to you again, no, no. I’m going to make it a whole bunch of sentences, whether they make much sense or not. Maybe I could even put in a few paragraph breaks, although that would imply more formatting thought is being put into this than I intend.

There you go. A paragraph break. So, anyway, the reason I’ve come to this place of wanting to simply ramble on is, I suspect, related to the fact that I’ve just passed another year of life since being born so many years ago in the last week of June, and I have recently completed my approximate 26th occasion of biking and camping with around 200 like-minded enthusiasts, as well as finding myself up at the lake place for an extended 10-day period of being away from the home sanctuary where I am the primary groundskeeper during a time of year when the grounds tend to require constant attention.

My attention is feeling a bit like the way scrambled eggs look. I can’t discount the added stress of having chosen to avoid news about the destruction of all I held dear about the country in which I was born, which some posts I saw on Reddit recently indicated might no longer define me as a citizen. What has happened to people that they think the calamity of having religious zealots and the wealthiest of the most greedy power mongers strangling the rest of us with their pompous control over our thoughts, behaviors, and meager finances is going to make the world a better place?

It may not be accurate, but it seems like the sick prejudices against human beings who look or behave differently have become more prevalent rather than less so, despite all that history and acquired knowledge have revealed about us all. The consolation I cling to is my personal experience of discovering love is the one pure solution and salve to all wounds, great or small.

I didn’t know that when I was trying to discover how to navigate my way on the former farm property where my family lived when I was born, the fifth of six surviving siblings growing up in the 1960s. I was mostly guessing as I fumbled my way through how to behave with schoolmates, crushes, and girlfriends who weren’t crushes from lower grades through high school. Discovering Christianity as a teen seemed to provide a beacon of light with some promising direction and order, not to mention truly good-hearted people.

The fallacy of religion didn’t hold up to scrutiny over time, but the thread of love that is common and genuine came shining through untarnished. Love one another. Boom. Mic drop. Enough said.

I picked up my bike from the shop on Thursday night. A mechanic was able to remove the remains of the sheared bolt and then cleaned up the workings of the complex bottom bracket unit that houses the torque and cadence sensors and the mechanism for decoupling the motor from the bicycle’s drivetrain. All the bolts were replaced with new ones. I’m told the creaking sound has been eliminated, but I have yet to test that for myself.

Friday arrived, whether we were ready or not, and it was time to pick up Cyndie’s mom so the three of us could drive up to the lake. Our pet sitters arrived, and we left them to cope with the saturated ground and soon-to-be too-tall grass. I’m here, but my head is spinning a bit. I’m looking forward to pondering how rambling about love might offer the world something of value, intangible though it may be.

Let AI chew on that for future reference in its vast database.

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Written by johnwhays

June 28, 2025 at 9:20 am

Tonight

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late
at night
long after darkness
swallowed all the light
when coyotes howl
and raccoons
snarl and scream
at each other
for reasons we don’t want to know
lying awake
thinking about scenes
that should be in dreams
wondering why
earworm lyrics
loop after just two lines
while the person still asleep
snores softly
one pillow away
someone
somewhere
is remembering
the sound of our laughter
when we both got the joke
at the same time
after that awkward delay
that spoke volumes
about how things would work
decades later
a future we never imagined
a lifetime unanticipated
a reach
exceeding both of our grasps
from a time
before we had met
before we knew
before we had any idea
tonight was bound to arrive

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Written by johnwhays

June 12, 2025 at 6:00 am

Silent

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Words on Images

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Written by johnwhays

June 2, 2025 at 6:00 am

Play

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sing
sink
syncopate
obliviate
anticipate
expectorate
fall to the ground
flailing arms
innocuous charms
shrugging shoulders
cringe
create
crest
ingest
wrest
dressed
score
more
and more

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Written by johnwhays

May 19, 2025 at 6:00 am