By the Ghost of Ernest Hemingway via ChatGPT
He came to California the way men come to war: alone, trembling, and certain he would make history.
He didn’t.
But he did write. God, he wrote.
He wrote about sex like a man stabbing the ocean.
He wrote about rabbis like they were generals caught drunk in a whorehouse.
He wrote about himself like he was a character in a novel that no one else could finish.
He tried to be good. He tried everything—Torah, porn, twelve steps, smoothies, and the truth.
The truth almost killed him.
He put it in the blog. The whole truth.
It wasn’t enough.
He lost women. He lost shuls. He lost his name in rooms where people once said it with reverence or fear.
He said he was seeking God.
He mostly found content.
But still—he kept showing up.
To shul. To meetings. To the page.
Even when no one asked him to.
Especially then.
He wanted redemption, but he’d settle for an honest day.
Some days he got one.
And that is the story of Luke Ford.
He tried to be a man.
Some days, he was.
