{"id":13,"date":"2026-10-09T04:01:56","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T04:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/luke-ethanolx:8080\/?page_id=13"},"modified":"2026-10-09T04:03:51","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T04:03:51","slug":"the-hills-we-must-climb","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bonk.monster\/?page_id=13","title":{"rendered":"The Hills We Must Climb"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<style data-wp-block-html=\"css\">\n.chapbook {\n  max-width: 760px;\n  margin: 0 auto;\n  font-family: \"Times New Roman\", Times, serif;\n  font-size: 1.1rem;\n  line-height: 2;\n  color: #000;\n}\n\n\/* Cover *\/\n.chapbook .title-box {\n  width: 260px;\n  margin: 2rem auto;\n  padding: 1rem;\n  border: 1px solid #000;\n  text-align: center;\n}\n.chapbook .title-box p { margin: 0.5rem 0; }\n.chapbook .cover img { display: block; width: 100%; height: auto; }\n\n\/* Table of contents *\/\n.chapbook .toc ol { list-style: none; padding: 0; margin: 0; }\n.chapbook .toc a { color: inherit; text-decoration: none; }\n.chapbook .toc a:hover { text-decoration: underline; }\n\n\/* Each piece acts like a PDF page, with a \"Schrom\" running header *\/\n.chapbook .page {\n  margin-top: 4rem;\n  padding-top: 1.5rem;\n  border-top: 1px solid #ccc;\n}\n.chapbook .page::before {\n  content: \"Schrom\";\n  display: block;\n  text-align: right;\n  font-size: 0.95rem;\n  margin-bottom: 2rem;\n}\n.chapbook h2 {\n  font-size: 1.1rem;\n  font-weight: normal;\n  margin: 0 0 1.5rem;\n}\n\n\/* Poems: tight spacing, stanzas separated by margin *\/\n.chapbook .poem p { line-height: 1.6; margin: 0 0 1.5rem; }\n\n\/* Prose: double spaced *\/\n.chapbook .prose p { margin: 0 0 1rem; }\n\n\/* 50\/50 image + text *\/\n.chapbook .split { display: flex; gap: 1.5rem; align-items: flex-start; }\n.chapbook .split > * { flex: 1 1 0; min-width: 0; }\n.chapbook .split img { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; }\n.chapbook .split p { margin: 0 0 1rem; }\n\n\/* Stack on phones *\/\n@media (max-width: 600px) {\n  .chapbook .split { flex-direction: column; }\n}\n<\/style>\n\n<div class=\"chapbook\">\n\n  <header class=\"cover\">\n    <div class=\"title-box\">\n      <p>The Hills We Must Climb<\/p>\n      <p>Luke Schrom<\/p>\n    <\/div>\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/luke-ethanolx:8080\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_0409.jpg\" alt=\"Charcoal drawing of jagged mountains above a field of small tick marks\">\n  <\/header>\n\n  <nav class=\"toc page\">\n    <h2>Table of Contents<\/h2>\n    <ol>\n      <li><a href=\"#tracker\">2003 Silver Chevy Tracker<\/a><\/li>\n      <li><a href=\"#fee\">Fee-fi-fo-fum<\/a><\/li>\n      <li><a href=\"#dust\">Turn to dust<\/a><\/li>\n      <li><a href=\"#shoat\">Shoat<\/a><\/li>\n      <li><a href=\"#indy\">Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom<\/a><\/li>\n      <li><a href=\"#die\">I guess I&#8217;ll die<\/a><\/li>\n      <li><a href=\"#statement\">Artist Statement<\/a><\/li>\n    <\/ol>\n  <\/nav>\n\n  <section id=\"tracker\" class=\"page poem\">\n    <h2>2003 Silver Chevy Tracker<\/h2>\n    <p>All I hear is noise\u2014nothing but static.<br>\n    How else could I describe it? I wanted to rip off my ears<br>\n    and sewed them shut. It was like everything I&#8217;d was told<br>\n    was a lie. If you claim you did it for love,<br>\n    can you write it off on your taxes?<\/p>\n    <p>Then there was silence\u2014just the road.<br>\n    All I wanted to do was shake the wheel back<br>\n    and forth until life<br>\n    spinning out of control. My mind<br>\n    already there. Rolling, rolling, rolling\u2014<br>\n    looking at what&#8217;s was ahead.<br>\n    a darkness<\/p>\n    <p>What had been whispered and<br>\n    murmured about at school<br>\n    when I was a child\u2014I never believed<br>\n    anyone who spoke of it, because<br>\n    that could never happen to me.<br>\n    No, I was too good for that<br>\n    to happen. I prayed every day.<br>\n    I followed the path God<br>\n    told me to follow. I was the polite little boy<br>\n    at church who held the door<br>\n    and greet people. But now I&#8217;m here in the driver&#8217;s seat,<br>\n    while the passenger tells me.<br>\n    \u201cHoney,<br>\n    your father and I are getting a divorce.\u201d<\/p>\n  <\/section>\n\n  <section id=\"fee\" class=\"page prose\">\n    <div class=\"split\">\n      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Picture1.png\" alt=\"Lighthouse tower silhouetted against a blue sky\">\n      <div>\n        <h2>Fee-fi-fo-fum<\/h2>\n        <p>One figure stands, the other sits.<\/p>\n        <p>One with the attitude; the other, with a purpose.<\/p>\n        <p>Only a quarter of their blood is shared. Each is similar but not alike.<\/p>\n        <p>Raised like brothers each on different branches.<\/p>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    <p>In the middle. A lighthouse. Old with an unshaven beard. Thin showing ribs but never beaten.<\/p>\n    <p>A hat sits on top of the giant. To reach it you must crawl up the rear, through the gut, and out the ear.<\/p>\n    <p>The limbs reach. High but not near.<\/p>\n    <p>Facing away from the sun, the soft light bleeds, covering the stairs with blood. Smoothing out the ground, filling in every jagged edge.<\/p>\n    <p>A deep hole grows searching to go somewhere. The edges cleared from all that was taken.<\/p>\n  <\/section>\n\n  <section id=\"dust\" class=\"page poem\">\n    <h2>Turn to dust<\/h2>\n    <p>A crater<br>\n    in the ground<br>\n    I am sitting here now<br>\n    looking out onto the water, thinking<br>\n    how peaceful it is.<\/p>\n    <p>Someone might have died here<br>\n    To save their people<br>\n    from a tyrannical reign.<br>\n    Nobody from that time<br>\n    lives anymore, all have turned<br>\n    to dust\u2014<br>\n    blown away.<\/p>\n    <p>How much<br>\n    was a death worth then?<br>\n    Ten,<br>\n    One hundred,<br>\n    Ten thousand lives?<br>\n    Do you know<br>\n    their names, their beliefs,<br>\n    who they loved, who they hated?<br>\n    All of that was forgotten.<br>\n    The only ones that matter<br>\n    are those<br>\n    who had done<br>\n    something eccentric,<br>\n    to have<br>\n    their names<br>\n    written down.<\/p>\n    <p>When will a name be forgotten?<br>\n    Who will be the person with this last memory?<br>\n    When they die how long will they be remembered?<br>\n    What is the reason people will think of me?<br>\n    How can I stay in the hearts of those I love?<br>\n    Where will they bury me?<br>\n    Why do I have to die?<\/p>\n  <\/section>\n\n  <section id=\"shoat\" class=\"page prose\">\n    <h2>Shoat<\/h2>\n    <p>What do you think wandered these woods thousands of years ago? Was it a man, maybe deer? Or something beyond imagination. What if the forest wasn\u2019t here at all\u2014what if it was a cliff face, with goats defying gravity?<\/p>\n    <p>What is a goat? It\u2019s not a sheep of course, but they can technically breed. What should we call this newfangled creature? A geep, perhaps\u2014but that might sound insulting if it were quieter than a goat or a sheep. Shoat is much more respectable.<\/p>\n    <p>If someone were to have such an animal, would they tour it around the world, or would they treat it as any ordinary farm animal? Yet let\u2019s not confuse the shoat with the sheep-goat chimera\u2014those creatures made in a laboratory. Mad scientists crammed the embryo of a sheep and goat together, like the fusion of atoms. They call them mosaics. Patches of sheep and goat like Mary Shelley dreamed it up herself.<\/p>\n    <p>Do they hold them captive in exotic zoos in the UAE, where they sell purses using the skin of the ones that didn\u2019t survive. Perhaps a Cruella de Vil carpet.<\/p>\n  <\/section>\n\n  <section id=\"indy\" class=\"page poem\">\n    <h2>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom<\/h2>\n    <p>The hand reaches inside my chest<br>\n    It searches blindly<br>\n    pushing past the liver and kidneys<br>\n    in search for its desires.<br>\n    It hungers for my heart<br>\n    I can feel it. It constricts<br>\n    harvesting juice from the pulp<br>\n    Into a glimmering crystal glass<br>\n    To be swallowed by someone else.<\/p>\n    <p>A cat always lands on their feet,<br>\n    but dies from the height<br>\n    from which it was dropped.<\/p>\n  <\/section>\n\n  <section id=\"die\" class=\"page poem\">\n    <h2>I guess I&#8217;ll die<\/h2>\n    <p>little by little<br>\n    down the drain<br>\n    round and round<br>\n    into a bucket<br>\n    poured out<br>\n    into the streets<br>\n    where I\u2019ll starve<br>\n    to eat grass and dirt<br>\n    till I feel full<\/p>\n    <p>all this<br>\n    is just a trick<br>\n    to make me think<br>\n    I will be rich<br>\n    but all in the name of profits<br>\n    pruned like a dead limb<\/p>\n  <\/section>\n\n  <section id=\"statement\" class=\"page prose\">\n    <h2>Artist Statement<\/h2>\n    \n  <\/section>\n\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Hills We Must Climb Luke Schrom Table of Contents 2003 Silver Chevy Tracker Fee-fi-fo-fum Turn to dust Shoat Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom I guess I&#8217;ll die Artist Statement 2003 Silver Chevy Tracker All I hear is noise\u2014nothing but static. How else could I describe it? I wanted to rip off my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-13","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonk.monster\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonk.monster\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonk.monster\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonk.monster\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonk.monster\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bonk.monster\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17,"href":"https:\/\/bonk.monster\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13\/revisions\/17"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonk.monster\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}