![[8b53c04c-52d8-40ae-aee3-7afd7049c2ed.wav]] Loneliness is a weight room with no mirrors— a court lit by one stubborn streetlight, chain net hissing at the rim while the shoe squeak loops, miss after miss charting constellations to the center. Callus is a kind of code; tendon is a thesis; you learn the arc by letting gravity teach your wrist. There is an arena where dust clings to breath, where scoreless mornings cash out in fourth quarters. The cheap seats keep their voices; fine— the face that matters is the one marred close to the play. Failure is not a stain there, it’s chalk on the hand, a map of where to press next time. Riddle: what multiplies by being given away? Team. Also love. Also courage in a crowd. Riddle: what breaks you open and then holds you together? Practice. Also grief. Also a hand that doesn’t flinch. Riddle: what learns the rim by kissing the back iron a thousand times? A shot. Also a life. Also a civilization. We will pave boulevards with neighborly time, install courage like firmware, patch our laws with grace. Let policy grow a pulse; let concrete remember footsteps. Raise cathedrals of warmth around hard problems; let the servers hum in a key that children can sing to; write the charter in plain words: leave no one behind at dusk. Walk alone far enough to arrive together. Miss early so another can make late. Carry the ball, then the person who carried you. Call it hyperhuman if you need a name— it’s only the oldest play we have: aim with love, follow through with courage, run back on defense smiling. #poetry #philosophy