Creation: Book 3: Strandbinder Complete!

Edited version published in 2024:

So I’m stranded.

Maybe I’ll find my way out of here, or maybe I’ll “make a world,” as Mr. Harrison says.

I don’t know.

I should probably be trying to figure out a way to find food, or water for that matter. But as near as I can tell, there’s nothing here. Nothing at all. Just…an empty wash of green.

Plus it’s not like anyone will ever read this. My last chapter reads like I’m the saddest man in the world, yet, I’ve just been given an incredible opportunity.

I ended my last page with hope, so maybe I’ll focus on it in this one. There are worse things to look at.

Poetry helps. I’ve always found poetry to reach the soul better than any other medium, with the exception of music.

Of course, music is just poetry in a different form, but that’s the English teacher in me talking.

So why not take a meager chance at writing some of my own.

Hope is a feckless (asshole) bully

When you think you’ve lost it all, he appears

He drives you in the morning, keeps your eyes open when you should sleep

He forces you to carry him, always trying to share that burden with others

He’s a monster of unimaginable force, a dictator of your soul

He only fades and disappears when you forget him

Only (Reappearing) returning when another soul feels his brush

Not my best or my worst. I’ll take it.

Maybe I can survive this place.

But even if I do, I have to ask, where did that crazy guy go? What is he?

Questions I hope I'll have answers to one day.

Some water right now would be nice.

Original version published in 2023:

So I’m stranded.

Maybe I’ll find my way out of here, or maybe I’ll “make a world” like Mr. Harrison says.

I don’t know.

The idea of hope has always bothered me. I ended my last page with it, so maybe I’ll focus on it in this one.

Poetry helps. I’ve always found poetry to reach the soul better than any other medium, with the exception of music.

Of course, music is just poetry put into a different form, but that’s the English teacher in me talking.

Here’s the poem:

Hope is a feckless bully

When you think you’ve lost it all, he appears

He drives you in the morning, keeps your eyes open when you should sleep

He forces you to carry him, always trying to share that burden with others

He’s a monster of unimaginable force, a dictator of your soul

He only fades and disappears when you forget him

Only Reappearing when another soul feels his brush

Not my best or my worst. I’ll take it.

Maybe I can survive this place.

But even if I do, I have to ask, where did he go? What is he?

Questions I hope I'll have answers to one day.