alec burns

Silence grew to be a pleasant comfort. I understand myself in that silence, which became all that mattered. And yet, that silence crumbled into an unnerving whisper, a sudden sharp chill up the spine. As much as the silence is welcomed and conscripted, I can’t help but think was it not but a compelling constraint? A coerced conception that fought... See more

When you choose to walk, you choose not to pursue immediate gratification or even comfort but simply to expand the number of things that might happen to you. Walking invests in the potentiality of your experience with almost no promise of tangible reward at all, which is something like being alive.

And here’s another layer — sometimes, people don’t even ask for what they need because they wouldn’t want to give it themselves. Even when their partner or friend might happily provide it, they hold back out of a fear that they’ll be seen as unfair or too much. "If I wouldn’t want to do this for them, it’s not fair to ask for it myself," they... See more

Men, in this terrain, face a silent crisis. The traditional script (to protect, to provide, to repress) has expired, but no coherent replacement has emerged. Emotional illiteracy, once a survival tactic, now breeds relational confusion. Many men are asked to be vulnerable without having been taught how, to show up without a map. They are told to... See more

“We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.”