Monster Season Back Too Soon

The monster has returned.

It wears the face of obligation, the skin of expectation, the breath of never-enough. It knocks on the door with a chain of Teams meetings and briefings and deadlines, not claws, and that makes it more dangerous. It tells me I’m being reasonable by letting it in. It pretends to be order, when it is really a slow devouring.

My spirit is thirsty. Not for water, but for the stream that sings. The one that hums wild songs through pine needles and splashes silver secrets on mossy stones. The stream I’ve dammed too long with To-Dos and Have-Tos.

My soul is hungry. Not for rice or bread, but for moon-ripened fruit and the raw marrow of living. For words that bloom in the dark and ideas that slip between dream and daylight. For brush strokes that howl, and stories that bite.

But the work—oh, the work—has become a beast. Once a companion, now a slavemaster. I made it in my own image and then forgot which of us was which. It used to serve the magic. Now it tries to consume it.

Today I feel like a bone picked clean. Today I feel like singing to remember the shape of my own mouth.

So I light a candle. Instead of ritual I light a rebellion. I whisper a spell in longing: Let the art be wild again. Let it run barefoot through my hours. Let the cats remind me how to stretch in sunbeams and chase shadows without shame.

Let me make not for money, but for meaning. Let the magic come home.