If you can give blood, please do so. I know the Red Cross can be a little… outdated in some of their policies, but that just means that those that need help have fewer people who can help, not that overall they’re evil (even if the policies against LGBT individuals is stupid.)

As I schedule this in April I’m one donation away from the seven gallon mark, so hopefully I’ll have hit it by the time this goes live.

After tracking down a place to donate though, since I had to drive by Dairy Queen as I went back to work from my lunch break, I went ahead and treated myself.

And yes, since it’s in December, they had peppermint!

-FF

It feels a little strange scheduling these for September, but that’s just how the ball bounced.

-FF

Somebody wanted pets and attention rather than let me finally game at my computer.

-FF

I don’t think he’s going to let you lay a finger on this Butterfinger.

-FF

So yeah, now that it’s December, I’m going to add to my Christmas shirt supply and start wearing them again. Looks like I decided to start cataloguing them this year.

-FF

He’s hopeful that I’ll look away so he can steal something, but in the meantime he’s just going to sit on the trashcan and look cute.

-FF

Usually we try to have it up by the weekend after Thanksgiving, but this year it must have taken a little longer.

-FF

As the days grow colder he likes to bask in the warm airflow from the ducts.

-FF

Time for some morning milk and cuteness.

-FF

I would have gladly held on too

Except it wasn’t my choice to make

Another chose to take

You from my arms

and spin false yarns

of how I didn’t care.

It was never really fair

how you came to be

but you were both mine

it was plain to see.

You were loved as though

you came from me.

I’d have loved you like my own

Raised you in my safe warm home

Nobody being the wiser

From who you actually grew

It would have been a family made new.

Instead you were taken

from all of us by force

I hope you know one day little ones

We mourn your smiles like suns.

And miss hearing your sweet voices

Children That Should Have Been Mine

Through love and better choices.

Poem background:

Two years prior to writing this poem Redflare simply left for MO to “help her brother” again. Left despite everyone here pleading for her not to. Left despite her insistence that I not get the car checked out and serviced to make sure it was safe for such a trip. Loaded up the car in haste with supplies and was gone.

The car broke down getting her there. Unrepairable.

What I know now is that she had already left emotionally. We were roommates and nothing more. She’d already closed the door on our relationship. It’d take me another few months to realize that. Then come to terms with it; ultimately I filed the papers to officially end our marriage. When this poem was written I was about a month away from the divorce having been final for a year.

I do my best not to think of them these days, because it still hurts when I do. It’s hard to ignore it though, when Timehop throws it right at you sometimes. But with each year, the pain subsides a little more, and I just hope the Smols are happy and healthy. I got to know them as babies, and now they’re children. I got to say goodbye.

I don’t wish ill will on Redflare. She made her choices. She regrets her choices. I also hear the lack of respect in her voice toward me even today that shows she needs to heal herself before we can have a cordial conversation. My assumption (though I’m certainly not an expert) is that she hates herself and she allows it to bleed out toward me when we speak. It’s my understanding she’s even, as I schedule this in March 2026, expecting again.

I wish them all luck, health, and success. None of their stories are still entwined with mine. The connections are still there, of course, but they’re ethereal now.

-FF