The Bedrock Watcher

There's a notebook in your drawer with 2024 to 2034 on the cover, every goal sliced by quarter, a column beside each one logging the slip in three pen colors. Turn to this year: the red is thin, the yellow runs the width of the page, the green huddles in one far corner. You've shown it to no one and you don't plan to. Sunday afternoons you reconcile it, and off by thirty percent you rebuild the whole table; off by fifty you close it and go wash the dishes first. You don't rage at yourself or at the world. You tuck whatever went sideways into a dark box, take it out later once the feeling's settled, and decide which step to redo. To everyone else you read as a stone. A first-quarter moon is a bow drawn halfway, holding for the night the string sits fullest. Polaris hangs at true north and never walks a single step. Just remember a bow doesn't pull any stronger the longer you hold it half-drawn.