8 Comments

This is very, very good—some of the best writing I have seen on Substack. God, you have a strong voice. I teach at university; I earned a master's in fiction, and I think I know a few things if credentials matter. I subscribed for free; I will move it to pay if everything is as good as Chicken Legs. Please read and write more; you have a gift, but most will not recognize your gift, and you will never get the recognition you deserve. I used to write more fiction and read more fiction, but now I am a marketing professor, so I have sold my soul. But I admire you. Every word is sincere. I have tried to write about my childhood; it was very bad, but I am okay. However, some categories (in my case, ugliness) are such a cliche that when people read the words, they mentally exit through the "everyone goes through this" door—one day, I will take it on; this post comes the closest, but most people don't understand, and failure is more about me than the reader. If you don't mind, please read; if I don't hear from you and you think I am full of shit, no worries; all the best, Paul https://www.freedomtoffend.com/p/a-genetic-redemption-stirred-memories?r=iy2ds&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

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Paul, this is such a kindness. I cannot tell you how lovely this was to read. I appreciate this so much, and it’s my absolute pleasure to have penned something that moved you so much. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your own post, I’m hoping to give it a read soon and hopefully share my own thoughts as well. Keep writing about the hard stuff, too. This one took me months, sometimes these things just don’t crack open right away.

Thank you again. Your kindness has made my entire day.

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Excellent writing. Love and identify with this section especially: Asking anything of another living person feels like a cleaver already half buried in my chest.

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Thank you for the kindness, I deeply appreciate it. You’ve got a good eye, I think that’s my favorite line in the whole piece as well. xx

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its curious and unnatural how so many of us have violently fluctuated with something like eating. it should be as easy as breathing but dopamine and bodily appearance are bitches. I feel this one very heavily. off topic, I have never known someone else that knows Obsidian by Baths. I LOVE earth death.

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dude, Obsidian is like top 10 albums of all time for me. I love love love Baths, I saw him live earlier this year and he was very good. His other project, Geotic is my go to writing music and did in fact end up in my top 5 artists on my wrapped lol

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In all the world there's nothing worse than a lanky chicken-leg guy with tellytubby guts. But then again, it's not so bad and in fact kinda cute, if you can get away with it using a roguish shake of those nonexistent hips. Maybe it's actually really really hot...

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Fantastic piece. I have two male friends with eating disorders and people don't hear enough about it. Thank you for sharing something so personal and best of luck in your recovery.

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