#unknown future

This morning

they brought me numbers,

and for once

the numbers smiled.

The infection is retreating,

driven backward by clear bags of antibiotics

dripping through plastic lines,

and my white blood cells,

those exhausted soldiers,

have begun climbing from the rubble.

The doctors nod.

The nurses smile.

Tonight,

I get to leave.

I should feel lighter.

I should feel victorious.

I should be thinking about my own bed,

my own shower,

the familiar silence of home.

Instead,

I am thinking about images.

Gray and white shadows

captured by a machine

that sees what eyes cannot.

The MRI does not care

about optimism.

It does not care

that I endured surgery,

radiation,

chemotherapy,

hospitalizations,

needles,

fear,

or the endless waiting rooms.

It simply reports.

And its report is this:

the tumor has grown.

Five months after they cut it from my skull,

it has nearly returned

to the size it was before.

As if all that suffering

was merely a pause.

As if the thing inside me

spent the winter gathering strength.

Then came the plot twist,

the word that changed the shape

of the entire conversation.

Diffuse.

Not one battlefield.

Many.

Not one enemy position.

A spreading presence.

Roots beneath the surface.

A fog moving through places

where scalpels cannot easily follow.

I watched faces around the room

grow more serious.

Not hopeless.

Just honest.

There are still weapons available.

More radiation.

More chemotherapy.

Harder strikes.

Stronger blows.

But every weapon

has friendly fire.

The same treatments

that may slow the cancer

may crush the white blood cells

that only recently began standing again.

The same medicine

that attacks the tumor

may leave me vulnerable

to the next infection

waiting patiently

in some unseen corner of the world.

Cancer on one side.

Infection on the other.

And me

somewhere in the middle,

a narrow bridge

between two cliffs.

Tonight,

I will leave this hospital.

I will walk through automatic doors

and breathe air

that does not smell of disinfectant.

I will carry good news

in one hand

and bad news

in the other.

Neither outweighs the other.

Both belong to me.

My blood is recovering.

My tumor is advancing.

My body is fighting.

My body is struggling.

Every sentence now seems to contain

its own contradiction.

Yet here I remain.

Still listening.

Still choosing.

Still showing up

for scans,

for treatments,

for conversations

I never wanted to have.

The future feels smaller

than it once did.

Less certain.

More expensive.

Measured not in years

but in decisions.

Measured not in victories

but in chances.

And tonight,

as I leave,

I carry something fragile

that does not appear

on any MRI,

blood test,

or pathology report.

Hope.

Not the loud kind.

Not the cinematic kind.

Just a quiet thing

sitting beside me

in the passenger seat,

looking out the window,

refusing to get out

no matter how dark

The ropes creak when I lean into them.

They already know my weight.

Across from me—

that.

No name, no face,

just something that has decided

this ring belongs to it.

I step forward anyway.

The bell doesn’t matter.

Nothing official matters.

This fight was scheduled before I agreed to it,

before I knew there even was a ring.

I can feel the outcome

like a verdict folded in my pocket,

paper worn soft at the creases

from being opened too many times in my head.

Loss.

Already written.

The only question—

how long I can pretend

it isn’t.

I throw the first punch

out of habit more than hope.

It lands on nothing

that knows how to hurt.

That answers,

not with anger,

not with speed,

but with certainty.

A slow, crushing presence—

like gravity tightening its grip,

like the room deciding to get smaller

and not asking my permission.

I give ground.

Then take it back.

Then lose it again.

There’s no rhythm to learn,

no weakness to find.

You can’t outthink something

that doesn’t think.

You can’t outfight something

that doesn’t need to win—

only to continue.

I touch my head without meaning to.

Two places where they opened me up,

tried to carve space back into me.

Repairs between rounds

in a fight with no rounds.

I was stitched back together

to stand here again,

to keep answering a bell

that never stops ringing.

People outside the ropes

talk about time

like it’s a strategy.

Months.

Years, if you’re lucky.

Numbers stacked like combinations

I’m supposed to memorize.

But time isn’t something I can throw.

It’s something being taken,

inch by inch,

breath by breath,

like the canvas being pulled

out from under my feet

so slowly

I’m expected not to notice.

I swing harder now.

Not because it matters,

but because stopping

would feel like agreeing.

Each punch is defiance,

even when it passes straight through

what cannot be struck.

I try to move.

My legs answer—

but slower.

Always a fraction slower.

That’s how it wins.

Not with a single blow,

not with spectacle,

but with erosion.

A wearing down

so complete

that collapse begins to feel

like rest.

I wonder—

will it be sudden?

A clean, final strike

I never see coming—

lights out mid-motion,

the body forgetting how to stand

before the mind has time to object?

Or will it be drawn out—

a long, uneven staggering,

each step a negotiation,

each breath a small argument

I lose more often than I win?

Distance or early end.

Those are the only mysteries left.

Not if.

Never if.

I keep my guard up

out of instinct,

though there’s nothing to block.

I keep my stance

though balance is becoming

a rumor.

I keep fighting

because the alternative

is to lie down

before I’m made to.

And I’m not ready

to help it.

There’s a moment—

small, almost nothing—

where I realize

this isn’t about victory,

or dignity,

or even meaning.

It’s simpler.

I am here.

It is here.

And until one of us

isn’t—

there is only this:

the sound of breath,

the slow narrowing of space,

the knowledge

that every second I remain upright

is borrowed

and cannot be repaid.

I look across the ring again.

That hasn’t changed.

It won’t.

Unmoving.

Unharmed.

Unstoppable.

Waiting,

not impatiently—

it doesn’t need to hurry.

It already knows

how this ends.

So do I.

Still—

I lift my hands.

Not because I believe

I can win.

But because I refuse

to fall

a moment sooner

The old year limps, a wounded hound,

its ribs pressed thin with hunger’s sound—

each month a scar, each week a stone,

yet here and there, a bloom had grown.

You stitched the dark with thread so fine—

a friend’s quick laugh, like sudden wine,

a hand that stayed when doors swung shut,

the kind of grace that mends a cut.

And now the clock—its teeth unclench.

The new year steps through frost and stench,

half ghost, half child, its face still wet

with all the things we haven’t met.

What luck, what ruin, what untold light

will crack the sky by dawn’s first sight?

The dice are tossed, the cards dealt blind—

Do not Boast about Tomorrow

1 Do not boast of tomorrow, For you do not know what a day brings forth.

2 Let another man praise you, And not your own mouth – A stranger, and not your own lips.

3 A stone is heavy and sand is weighty, But a fool’s wrath is heavier than both.

4 Wrath is cruel and displeasure overwhelming, But who is able to stand before jealousy?

5 Open reproof is better than hidden love.

6 The wounds of a friend are true, But the kisses of an enemy are profuse.

7 One satisfied loathes the honeycomb, But to a hungry one any bitter food is sweet.

8 Like a bird that wanders from its nest, So is a man who wanders from his place.

9 Ointment and perfume gladden the heart, So one’s counsel is sweet to his friend.

10 Do not forsake your own friend or your father’s friend, And do not go into your brother’s house In the day of your calamity – Better is a neighbour nearby than a brother far away.

11 My son, be wise, and gladden my heart, That I might have a word for him who reproaches me.

12 A clever man foresees calamity, hides himself; The simple shall go on, they are punished.

13 Take the garment of him who is guarantor for a stranger, And for a strange woman pledge it.

14 He who greets his friend loudly early in the morning, Shall have it reckoned to him as a curse.

15 Drops that never cease on a very rainy day And a contentious woman are alike;

16 Whoever represses her represses the wind, And his right hand encounters oil.

17 Iron is sharpened by iron, And a man sharpens the face of his friend.

18 He who tends the fig tree eats its fruit; And he who guards his master is esteemed.

19 As in water face reflects face, So a man’s heart reflects a man.

20 The grave and destruction are not satisfied; So the eyes of man are not satisfied.

21 A refining pot is for silver and a furnace for gold, So a man is tried by his praise.

22 Even if you pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle Along with crushed grain, His folly shall not leave him.

23 Know well the state of your flocks; Set your heart to your herds;

24 For riches are not forever, Nor a diadem to all generations.

25 Grass vanishes, and new grass appears, And the vegetation of the mountains are gathered in.

26 The lambs are for your garments, And the goats for the price of a field;

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WIP snippet is from: Unknown Future