“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” – Albert Camus
Continue readingDaily Quote: Invincible Summer
Recovery & Addiction
Real Pain (a poem)
drugs alleviate pain
from terrible torment
but that’s before craving
sets in, like an ogre
dragging at my brain
making me feel shame
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Hurt (a 6-word story)
What I’ve Been Doing for my Mental Health
January was a decent month for me, and I figured I’d give an update on things in an effort to advocate mental health. I’ve written about mental health a bit on this blog, but it usually falls by the wayside compared to the fiction and poetry stuff I share.
Over the past few years, I’ve developed some mental health routines. One of them is to track my mood every day on a phone app called Daylio. The app is free (I think) and it’s a great way to keep me present. It does feel weird to gather so much “data” on my mood – I can see charts, etc., broken down by day of the week, month, all sorts of things. But it’s still great.
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Chains (a 6-word story)
Wasteland (a 6-word story)
Amid the wasteland, I am broken.
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On Grief and Ramblings about Faith
As Christmas approaches, so does my father’s birthday (December 23rd). The holidays have been more melancholy since he passed in 2018. The first holiday season without him was the worst of the bunch, and 2019 was lighter. This time around, the grief still lingers.
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Unbreakable (a poem)
to say we were lost boys would be cliché
but clichés have ways
of cementing truths into language
like hard red suns that scorched West Philly & warm beers we guzzled ‘till we couldn’t walk straight & time went missing like a thief
who stole my innocence
& we packed into an old sedan on a road to nowhere &
perhaps, if time is not linear, this had to happen &
if free will is a myth, we had no choice in the matter,
merely swigging, smoking, fighting in adolescent wastelands
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Cheap Carnival (a poem)
in psych wards, they take your belt, shoelaces
anything you could use to hurt yourself
when I’m there, I fear the world will kill me
so, I give them my belt, tell ’em to take good care of it
& I talk to others there
& I feel damaged & I identify with compatriots –
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God’s Polaroid Camera (a poem)
For my father
in the dining room, action figures were imprisoned in a green vase, and you returned from prison with my uncle, looking slimmer
from pushups in sunbaked yards
mustache and dazed look gone, down on one knee, arms open wide & smiling with teeth I learned were fakes
I thought you were fake, too
unrecognizable, a stranger from a blurred past we no longer spoke of, only at grandma’s house, when we opened letters decorated by your brother with cut-outs from Marvel comics
& were told you were away on business –
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