"I was a failure. I was a failure, I get very sad and depressed about it and I can’t be that no more. I really feel like I betrayed myself, big time. I know when I was growing up I had all the potential in the world. Now I'm back to being Mark who has a beer in his hand, thinking about the great American script and the great American movie. This time I cannot fail, I won’t fail, it’s not in me. You don't get second chances and mess them up; you'd be a fool to. Not just finishing films or in the long run getting some money . . . This time it’s most important not to fail, not just to drink and to dream but rather to create and complete."

-Mark Borchardt (American Movie 1999)

It's been many years since I have posted to this blog. And perhaps that was a good thing. I needed to get out of my space. I needed to live a life I thought would define me away from my writing. And in a lot of ways these past five years have done just that. They have defined moments in my life that I wouldn't change at all and at the same time there are things I wish I could. 

What do I have to show for the last five years? Art? Heartache? Fear? Success?

It's hard to really put a single stamp on it all. It had many faces such as love, viciousness, beauty and monstrosity. I played each part well whether it be to my benefit or detriment.

And now, as I begin a new chapter all I can do at the moment is write and share what didn't get lost in the fire. Post about the things that remained. To mourn the ash and embrace the chemical change.

To accept anything at this moment is the most difficult thing I can do right now.

I just hope my fingers will be faster than my mind. I need them to be. Least the fear makes me hesitate. And while hesitating hasn't killed me yet. I fear that any delay or lack of motion from the bottom of my feet to the space above my head will prove fatal.

I have become dangerous. Not because I am unhinged. But, because I have to start from the beginning again. And I'm a man who is mourning the past and yearns for the past. I am dangerous because I want to fix the things that are no longer here. Which makes the problems that are happening now all that much more terrifying. I am a wolf gnawing my own leg off. A desperate escape. At any cost.