Cut, Stitch, Publish

Here I sit, burning the clock. Killing time.

In a few hours, I go in for surgery on my face. They’re going to cut open my lip, dig out scar tissue, and sew it all back together again. Not exactly something you look forward to. And if it’s anything like last time, when my lip was ripped open all the way down to my chin, it’s going to take a long fucking time to heal.

But maybe… just maybe… this fixes it.

Maybe I’ll be able to close my lips again. Maybe I can eat soup without half of it dripping down my face. Maybe I can drink coffee like a normal human being instead of reaching for a napkin after every sip.

We’ll see.

At the same time, I’m waiting on something else. The final review of my book.

Both versions, ebook and paperback, are sitting in the pipeline, waiting to be approved. Waiting to be allowed to exist in the world.

Last week, it didn’t pass. So I went back into the trenches with my cover designer and my interior designer. Fixing. Tweaking. Fighting through the small shit that stands between done and published. Yesterday morning, I got the files back. I uploaded everything. And now I wait.

So here I am. On the edge of two things: A face that might finally work again and a book that’s about to exist in the world. One is physical. One is legacy. Both matter more than I can cleanly explain.

Here’s the part that still pisses me off: My face worked before that woman hit me. Then she hit me… and now it doesn’t. And yeah, someone should fix that. Completely. Not halfway. Not “within the bounds of insurance.” Not “good enough.”

But I’m done fighting that fight. I need this behind me. I need this accident in the rearview mirror, filed away as the moment that cracked something open inside me.

Because that’s what it did. It shook my writing loose.

Violently. Relentlessly.

And So, She Rose, my memoir, came pouring out of me the day after they screwed my left radius back together. Ninety-three pages. Short. Tight. But it hits.

The survivor’s guide? Same thing. Fifty or sixty pages, dumped straight from brain to paper in a couple of days.

No overthinking. No hesitation. Just truth.

And now the short stories are coming. Fast. Queer fiction rooted in real shit. Real experiences. Real scars.

The Keeper universe? Yeah, it’s on pause. And that’s fine. Because it’s not what’s demanding to be written right now.

These stories are. They take over my mind. They don’t ask permission. They don’t wait politely. They show up, grab me by the throat, and say: Write this. Now.

And I’ve learned something important: That’s how I know it’s right.

So yeah. The doctor today is going to do what he can with my face. With my lip. Within the limits of what insurance allows.

Maybe it helps. Maybe it doesn’t fix everything. But it doesn’t matter the way it used to. Because this trajectory I’m on is bigger than that.

When that old reaper finally comes to collect, I won’t leave quietly. I’ll leave behind a library. That’s my promise to God. That’s my promise to the universe. That’s my promise to you.