“I don't understand.”

And I pause.

Not because I don’t believe them,

"You're not even trying"

As if I don't already know what it costs to even try.

So, here's your invitation.

Come walk with me.

Through my mind.

I've accepted being misunderstood.

But I enjoy creative writing.

Maybe this is a bridge.

Maybe not.

But I get to have my fun, so why not.

You know what they say, "You either find a way, or make one."

Not as a passive reader, but as a fellow traveler.

Join me.

Barefoot on the cracked concrete of my thoughts,

where weeds grow between sidewalk lines,

and the wind carries more than air.

It carries fragments.

Echoes.

What-ifs.

Meaning.

Where I hold my dreams.

And yours.

"A man who thinks all the time, has nothing but his thoughts."

The end of the quote is always left out.

"A man who thinks all the time, has nothing but his thoughts....and people who don't understand him"

And so I walk with my thoughts.

Through them.

Into them.

Live them.

The world doesn't just pass by me; it pours into me.

From the tone in your voice.

The twitch of your jaw before your told a lie.

The shift in posture when love fades or returns.

"I don't understand"

What do I tell them?

I'm sorry you killed your inner child?

Maybe you were never meant to understand?

You were too weak and listened to everyone else instead of yourself?

No, we tried that.

It's weird how they ask questions, but yet they don't want the truth.

They want the illusion of comfort through control.

"I don't understand"

Quick, what do I say?

The way every thought arrives layered in myth, memory, and meaning, meanwhile you wonder why I haven't texted back?

Do I take four hours to describe cinema, scene, and canvas that just went through my head?

Do I speak of dust that becomes planets,

of words that become warriors,

of how I can hear the silence between syllables louder than the noise itself?

Should I take two months to paint it?

To build something they can feel instead of just hear?

To bleed it out in color, movement, tension, stillness...so they see what I see without needing to be told?

Or...do I say nothing?

Do I accept that they might never understand?

That what I carry wasn’t meant to be unpacked in front of everyone?

That some things are lived,

not explained.

Felt,

not understood.

"I don't understand"

As If I haven't been trying to wake you, but you're not willing to surrender.

"I don't understand"

Listen, a walk in my mind isn’t a tour.

It’s a pilgrimage.

And not everyone has the lungs for the altitude.

"I don't understand"

If you insist, but it'll be your last.

Again, here's your invitation.

Come walk with me.

Through my mind.

It's your decision to be more confused than when you started.

"I don't understand"

We both walk by a sign.

We see the word "Stelios", maybe scribbled somewhere, or spoken by accident.

You see a word.

Maybe you even know a thing or two about the meaning.

"Pillar" representing steadfast or reliable to the Greek.

We're still walking. 5 seconds has passed.

Me?

I see Stelios.

I'm on a battlefield.

I see a Spartan.

I see a line of men, bronze shields pressed against bronze shoulders.

I see the dust curling at their feet like smoke from a slow fire.

I hear the call from Leonidas, sharp as iron: “Stelios!”

And before the sound fades, his answer cuts through: “Shields ready!”

Bronze-helmed.

Sunlit dust rising around him.

Leather straps crossing a chest forged in brotherhood.

He stands at Leonidas' side, spear in hand, unwavering.

Again: "Shields ready!" he yells—not as a question, but as a declaration of presence.

He’s not thinking about dinner plans or unread texts.

He’s here.

Fully here.

Because when you’re built for battle, presence is love.

"I don't understand"

Now walk a little further with me.

You're yapping. I see a speck of dust floating through a sunbeam.

Barely there. Suspended.

You notice that I'm not giving you my fullest attention.

You feel unimportant for a glimmer of a second because the spotlight isn't on you.

"Sorry, I was looking at the dust. Caught in a ray of fading sunlight."

You say "Uhhh. Still. Ordinary. Forgettable. Back to me now!"

Me?

I'm on Voyager 1

4 billion miles away,

drifting at the edge of the solar system.

We're ordered to turn around one last time.

A final photograph.

Just to look back.

Looking back at Earth.

I see a Pale Blue Dot.

A speck of dust.

Floating through the infinite.

Yep.

That's you.

Earth.

So small it barely registers.

A Pixel.

A faint blue pinprick caught in a stray shaft of light.

And yet… it’s everything.

We haven't even left the solar system.

There are 200 billions stars in our galaxy.

1 for every dollar in Jeff Bezos Bank account.

Oh, and there are 100 billion galaxies in all of the observable universe.

Snap! You start talking again.

Now I'm trying to focus between how you had to wait 3 minutes too long for your Starbucks order this morning....

And Carl Sagan in my ear.

Every war.

Every poem.

Every family dinner,

every funeral.

Every love that ever bloomed,

and every one that never had the chance."

Talk about split focus.

"I don't understand

"It's just dust"

That’s what I see in a speck of dust.

I don’t live at surface level.

I don’t exist in bullet points or rapid replies.

And I'm not sorry I forgot to text back.

"I don't understand"

Let's keep walking.

We go by a movie theater and see a poster for Hannibal Lecter.

Me?

Now I'm walking.

I see the mountains.

The Alps.

I see elephants pressing through snow, the impossible mission he refused to abandon.

And I hear his voice...

"Aut inveniam viam aut faciam."

I will either find a way… or make one.

General Hannibal.

He was raised to despise the Roman Republic and pledged, as an oath, to destroy it.

Hannibal and I are taking a path of audacious brilliance.

Marching the army across the Alps, yes, the Alps, with war elephants in tow.

It was a stunt so wild and bold that the Romans thought it impossible.

He was about to shatter their expectations, and the very terrain that they thought was a barrier became his canvas for a masterpiece.

He arranged his forces in a double-envelopment maneuver, luring the Romans into the center of his army.

The Romans, trapped and surrounded on all sides, were slaughtered, over 70,000 Roman soldiers perished that day.

As if it's right behind my ear, even now:

Not shouted.

Whispered, cold and certain.

The voice of a man who doesn’t need your permission to pursue the impossible.

This is where I live.

Where someone stands in front of me, impatient, and says:

"I don't understand"

I wish I could lay the canvas out in front of them.

Not to defend myself, but to show them the world I move through just to arrive here.

The dust I see as stars.

The names I feel as ancestors.

The silence that sings louder than sound.

All in the time it took you to take a shit.

But instead, I stay quiet.

Because 10 seconds of creative thought isn't worth hours of explanation.

Or two months of painting for them to say "nice"

Or maybe… a lifetime.

And I know,

most won’t stay that long.

"I don't understand"

As if I don't know most want a bridge to my mind that takes less than a sentence.

So what do I do?

Sometimes, I say nothing.

Sometimes, I smile and laugh and say "that's alight, I don't mind"

Sometimes, I offer them a single brushstroke, and wait to see if they ask for more.

Sometimes, I redirect the conversation.

Because maybe they won’t understand.

Not now.

Not fully.

Or not ever.

"I don't understand"

So if you truly want to understand?

Then stop asking for shortcuts to somewhere I’ve spent my whole life walking.

Sit with me in silence.

Watch what I notice.

Read what I write between the lines.

Feel the temperature change when I say nothing.

And maybe, just maybe, you’ll stop needing to “understand” and start to experience.

As if I haven't been trying to show you.

Are you trying?

Or concerned I haven't been giving you my full attention?

Because I understand you.

Probably better than you know yourself.

I don't understand why you still choose to die.

Because everybody dies, but not everybody lives.

And one day,

when a single word breaks your heart,

when a dust mote makes you cry,

when silence feels holy,

You’ll realize you’ve been walking with me all along.

"I don't understand"

Then you never will.

Anyway, back to me. My friend Alexander is coming visit...

Shit.

I think I just accidently became a poet.