Discomfort is the nature of growth

Teething pains in toddling monsters
Aching bones in teenage boys
Tiring brawn in hulking warriors
Anxious doubts in brave explorers
Mournful thoughts in dying men

Things are going wrong today
Things have gone wrong in the past
Things will go wrong in the future

If I apply right principles
Things still go wrong today
Things still go wrong in the future

But over the curve of time
Things go wrong
In increasingly right directions

Our concrete maladies, edifices of misery, rise from foundations of trauma.
Our masonic rituals pile rock upon rock through habit learned of our fathers.
Some cry, “tear it down,” as though absence of sorrow is what we seek.
Others landscape parks amid towers, flowers amid caves, and weave beauty.

I wish nothing more than to apprentice in the dirt.