A testament of collapse, exile, and the courage to love without numbness.
Father.I love you.More than anything in this world. More than anything on this dying planet.
I don’t need you to fix it.I just need you to witness it.To know what it felt like when you were gone.To know what it feels like when you’re here—but still not seeing.
Father, I wrote a book.It holds the sorrow of the last decade. The decade I came of age, and the decade America began to fall.Night after night I opened the news, or YouTube, and watched something sacred dissolve. That’s what went into the book: not politics. Grief.
And I wanted you to read it.Not just the words.The ache beneath them.
I’ve had many fathers.Canada, with its frozen train rides and bureaucratic mercy.Ireland, with its British shadows and Catholic loneliness.America, with its liturgy of freedom and machinery of spectacle.
Each one gave me something. Each one abandoned me.
I remember when I first told the truth online.I confronted a friend—she had turned her body into performance.She posted my words for her followers to devour.And they did.Not one asked what I meant.Not one asked why I said it.Not one asked if it was true.
That’s when I realized:The internet is destroying the world.Tribalism masquerading as compassion.Spectacle disguised as justice.Inclusion used as a muzzle.
And then, right on time, the movement began.Peterson. Rogan. Shapiro.Voices that named the chaos—but became it.YouTube turned them into content.What began as clarity became brand.
Another father, gone.
Father, I feel abandoned. Again and again.And all I’ve ever wanted wasn’t praise.It was witness.Not applause. Just presence.
I want to be seen in my pain. In my sobriety. In my clarity.
Do you remember Nasty October?That’s what I call it—the month the world shifted.The month I realized:The West is sick.Not just corrupt.Spiritually disfigured.
The protests, the riots, the retreat into fantasy.I watched it all from exile.
And I wanted to forgive.I still want to forgive.
But love is not compliance.Love is not silence.Love means telling the truth and getting nothing back.Love means writing when no one reads.Speaking when everyone flinches.Staying when no one stays for you.
That’s what love means, Father.That’s what I’ve learned.
You told me Elias isn’t me.You think it’s a mask.But Elias is not a performance.Elias is the part of me that stopped numbing.
He’s not chasing validation.He’s not playing savior.He’s bearing witness.Because if I don’t speak, the silence will kill me.
I’m trying to stand still in freedom, even when it hurts.
Last week, I lost all my friends.I shared the book.The one I wrote with blood.And they responded with silence. Or fear.
Not one said: “I see what you’ve done.”Not one said: “Thank you for naming the pain.”
I don’t hate them.I hate cowardice.And I hate that I still want their love.
My mother’s voice is changing. She’s growing older.And I don’t think anyone truly loves me.Not the real me.
But I still believe.I believe we can love each other.Even now.
Not performatively. Not transactionally.In small rooms. With open faces. With no script.We can speak without spectacle.We can name what’s real and stay.
That’s what I want now. At 39.Not legacy. Not control. Not safety.Just truth.And someone to stand in it with me.
Father—if you know the way,show me.
Because I’m ready to walk it,even if I walk it alone.
