We collected apples from branches

Under the tree he planted when

I was born. The ones on the ground had

Begun to rot, orange and brown like

The well water rings that stained our sink.

We microwaved lunch: leftover pizza

From grandma’s shift at The Villa.

Aunt Dot called me “Spud,” but

Grandpa had no name for me, only

Visits to the country store for

Swedish Fish and beef jerky from 

A Venango County farm.

I walked to elementary school, its library

My second home until we moved

Away, first to live with

Men my mother loved, then all over

Until Kentucky. Childhood faded and 

We shared some time together before

Engineering Physics at Murray State. Nearly twenty summers passed,

And missed calls went unreturned until

Grandpa gave up on calling.

Before California, we made amends and

I promised to call and send photos, which

He always saw but never learned 

How to text me back. Crashing waves,

Sunsets, redwoods, and USS Palo Alto.

He held my head to his chest when 

I last saw him in a Pittsburgh hospital.

Sometimes, he visits with me 

Under the live oak trees, but in the form

Of a dragonfly.

How do I bend back?

These years have hardened me

Rigid, brittle

Rust on the edges

You see Steele

But I am breakable:

Words, lack of words

Care, lack of care

Forgetting, being forgotten

They change my form

And I stay bent that way

But today, all failures in the Forge

You do not recognize me:

Bonds nearly broken

Disfiguration

Transformation

Into the open air

Alchemy, realized

Poised alloy

Full color spectrum

Malleable, yet strong

This is my temperance

You can find me

There

At your wits’ end

The circumstances, too heavy

The options, too risky

The weight of it all, crushing

All boulders I will bear for you

And also, There

Where your head and heart wage war

I will carry the truce flag

And always, There

At the ends of the earth

Waiting to shift tectonics

And part the seas

For You

Hello, friends. It’s been a while since I’ve made posts on Substack. A lot has happened since July, so I wanted to send you a quick note to confirm: I’m still here! I’m still writing.

I’ve been mostly writing poems in short bursts, as time and energy have allowed. Those are compiled below for you to read at the bottom of this post, in case you missed these on my Instagram. There are more on another anonymous Instagram account I have, but I intend to keep that private and anonymous. If you know, you know.

In August, I made a job transition. I wanted two things from this transition: growth in my industry as a high-impact individual contributor in Cloud Infrastructure, and better work/life balance so that I would have the energy and time to write. On this side of the transition, I’m proud to say that I’ve accomplished both objectives.

My new role is at Loft Orbital, where my official title is Technical Program Manager, Infrastructure. My role is designed to help organize and streamline the flow of work and creation of smooth processes for myself and my fellow Site Reliability Engineers (SREs). After those new processes and workflows are in place, I will contribute more directly as an SRE myself. This week marks the first week where I think I’ll get to contribute as an SRE, since I spent my first month in the role working with my team to develop those new processes and workflows. The people I work with are kind and highly driven, and each person possesses some expertise in areas that I would love to grow in, technically. I trust them to guide me in mentorship, and I trust them to respect my boundaries as I work hard to preserve this new work/life balance, which has been absent from my life for… years.

I would be lying if I said leaving my prior role wasn’t the source of any pain. I grieved the loss of working with many great humans at Capella Space, and I grieved hard. The decision to move on, however, has shown itself to be therapeutic in more ways than I’d anticipated. I’ve made many friends in the Bay Area and in Colorado, and have even made a few connections that I know will persist for years. I’m grateful.

What’s next for my technical career: Google Cloud Certification: Associate Cloud Engineer, and some deep dives in cloud networking and cloud security. I will also learn Go more solidly, and Cuelang, in support of the SRE side of my duties.

And with all of that, I have been able to reestablish some much needed boundaries between the time and energy I allocate for productive, meaningful, impactful work at Loft Orbital, and the time and energy I have needed to reserve for creative writing. I see myself as a multipassionate, multidimensional human, and the need to create by writing has swelled up so large with me that if I don’t let it out, I would regret it for the rest of my life.

What’s next for my writing: a poem for my friend Dave, more entries for The Me Book series on Substack (ending in October), and writing my first novel during NaNoWriMo (November). I’m currently doing prep work for NaNoWriMo towards a historical horror fiction novel that I’ve had stowed safely away for exactly this moment. I will continue to sporadically release poems on Instagram but will try to do better about sharing those on my Substack, too.

Poems from my Instagram (most recent first)

This poem was for Rose, our beloved cat of 15+ years who passed away last week. We miss her so much, and it still hurts today. It will hurt for a long time.

“Neutral”

“Thanks?”

If you’ve made it this far…

Thank you. I’ll see you again soon.

I just wanted a day

One day, to myself

Wes Anderson and a walk home

But you showed up

Another storm, thrown at me

This one was pretty rough

Tornado sirens and hail

I sought shelter inside a bar

Sipping on a bourbon while you

Raged

You are temporary

You used to bring the sun

But now, you’re just turbulent

How sad it must feel to be

Here for now

Gone in short order

I choose the sun

And you will be forgotten in the

New calm

An age upon an age
Tiny pieces of myself
Vapor and dust
Remnants of who I was
Once scattered and disordered
I begin to accumulate
Into my new self
Amassing the parts of the new whole
Becoming central
I collapse under the weight
Destruction and creation
A ripple in time
All forces inward
I begin to burn
Once again
I begin to burn

Subscribe now

Share

Give a gift subscription

The day, on

The familiar, on

The toil

Winged friends consume

The bugs, the last of the light

I fade into the gray

Of the night

Silence, and yet

The night is alive

Wind weaves through the tops

Of barren forrest towers

A decent bet

Of light rain showers

And me?

What I’ve got to give

I so easily forget

Hot coals burn white

A flame I started

A privilege used

Lighter and dryer lint

My fire alight

I have this one stint

Alone

My muse departed

Tonight, we will reunite

Selfish, singular

A facade of attraction

You drew us in

The promise of substance

Of sustenance

But the arrow is bent

Going this way

If it is

Convenient

Going that way

If it is

Convenient

A manipulative force

You present like a solid

But those who know

Know it well

You have zero flux

Through that shell

A pathetic show

An empty sell