The Groundskeeper's Cathedral
Photo owned by Phil Evenden on Pexels He wore his hatred like inheritance — polished it, fed it, called it insight. The world was unjust, he said, and unfair, and he was right, mostly, the way a broken clock is right twice a day and still can't tell you what the hell time it is. I mistook the wound for wisdom. I do that. I did it again, like an idiot with a good heart and worse timing. Hazel eyes are just a color until you've watched them go flat mid-sentence, mid-promise, mid-everything. Then they're a warning you memorized too late, you dumb, hopeful thing. I kept score of his capacity like it was a currency I could will into existence. Wanting was never the shortage. He wanted — Christ, he wanted — but wanting isn't a muscle, and his had atrophied somewhere before I got there, in some room I wasn't in, built by someone I never met. I kept handing him weight and calling it trust. He kept dropping it and calling it survival. I should've stopped handing things ...
