The Cost of Certainty

The Price of Self-Deception 

Some days 

I sand the edges of truth 

not to hold it

but to keep it 

from cutting back

I tell myself

clarity is mercy:

a clean line

a surface I can trust

but I know the trick 

I’ve watched sculptors

white dust rising 

as they chip away everything

that won’t conform 

to what they need to believe

and I feel it —

the dust of what I’ve cut away 

settling on my hands

I do not know

if the idol that remains 

is revelation

or if I carved it

carefully, 

relentlessly, 

until nothing was left

that would contradict me 

I stand

on what I’ve made

and name it solid—

but some nights

I hear it shift

under my weight

© Ron Simpson Jr. 

May 15, 2026

 

The Cost of Fatigue

The Price of Being Seen 

the seeing of you

in glimpses—

a new iteration 

not logic 

not analysis 

just the way the heart

tries to understand

what the mind cannot name 

This is the shape 

of seeing things differently

We are known

by how we are perceived —

and that perception shifts

from soul to soul 

built on parameters

we never chose

and cannot control 

 

a new outcome 

the ‘not you’

that is the new you.

Circumstances changed—

not by choice 

not by plan 

just the complexities of life

moving outside our hands 

Still—

I see glimpses of you 

And the glimpses

are enough to tell me

you are still here

even when the mirror

tries to argue otherwise

Safely in your nest 

in the fog of fatigue 

I still see 

your wit 

your humor 

your snark 

Exhaustion 

has not changed 

who you are 

only how often 

the world 

gets to see 

the glimpses of you 

© Ron Simpson Jr. 

May 18, 2026 

The Cost of Endurance

The Price of Tears

Steel yourself 

be prepared 

there are trying days 

on the horizon 

Sound advice 

it would seem 

life is hard 

then it’s harder 

For all the joy 

life brings 

it can also bring 

a hardness— 

wanted or not 

Sometimes 

that austerity 

sneaks up on you 

without warning 

There are times 

I feel too much 

it overwhelms 

and my heart closes 

in self defense 

No tears 

no weeping 

no crying 

no issuance 

from a stony heart 

You were there 

holding me 

when I forgot 

how to cry 

When the tears 

went missing 

I searched 

for the old pathways— 

the ones grief 

used to walk 

without hesitation 

I found only 

dry riverbeds 

and the faint memory 

of water 

I pressed my fingers 

to my eyes 

as if pressure 

could summon 

what feeling 

no longer knew 

how to deliver 

There is a cost 

to endurance 

no one warns you about— 

the toll booth 

you don’t see 

until you are already 

through it 

And still 

you stayed 

quiet as dusk 

beside me 

Not asking 

for tears 

not asking 

for softness 

only offering 

your presence 

like a hand 

on a locked door 

There are nights 

when the silence inside me 

grows louder 

than any grief 

I can name 

When the absence of tears 

feels heavier 

than the tears ever did

I lie still 

listening 

for the old tremble 

the familiar swell 

the first warm sting 

that used to rise 

without permission 

But nothing comes— 

only the echo 

of a feeling 

I can’t quite reach 

It is strange 

how the body remembers 

what the heart 

no longer practices 

Strange how forgetting 

can feel like failing 

even when it is survival 

And in the quiet 

you breathe beside me 

unhurried 

unafraid 

as if my stillness 

is not a warning 

but a language 

you already know 

You do not ask 

for the flood 

or the breaking 

or the softening 

You simply stay 

long enough 

for me to realize 

that even stone 

is held 

by something 

© Ron Simpson Jr.