Not for nothing — a stream of reluctant consciousness. Tip, dump, wipe, groan. I make plans with myself, it’s how I maintain boundaries with others. A sad song for tears, then something with heavy bass for anger. Learning that happiness will come. Outfits picked out in my head for that vengeful scene in movies…

The haunts of dating You’re haunting me, consciously and unconsciously. You float through my inbox with a “how’s life” every so often; like a seasoned horror-film survivor, I know better than to engage. But you also run laps around my head, take up space I never decided to give you. …

That lethargic, tedious ache — scarring up a little more every day. Another looming birthday, another failed relationship; or rather, another bucket of ice water over the head, realizing I had settled into old destructive patterns yet again, with a new asshole. Another round of “damn, those were some red…

A Poem — I have new plants. New goosebumps. I have new perspective. Newfound time. I can’t say I have peace, yet. I have new priorities. New confidence. I have new clarity. Newfound resolve. I can’t say I have understanding, yet. I have an old fire in my belly. Old sense of self. I have…

“Ah yes, done with ruins, let’s get to the… rubble?” Those who are close to me know that I have been struggling for about eight months now, and when I say struggling, I mean devastatingly stuck in myself. I have been a long-time hypocritical advocate of the notion that “everyone…

And implement strict screening protocol. I personally started socially isolating on Friday, March 13th, but not to the standards that I would eventually find necessary. My friends and I were supposed to go on a skiing trip to Aspen that weekend but, seeing how Aspen had become a hotspot for…

A Poem — I love to start stories and never finish them. I love how they wait for me, they wait to be told. They wait for inspiration. They wait for love, heartbreak, epiphany, terror, bliss. I love how patient my stories are. I love how they grant me space, they grant me…

A little prose about anxiety. It’s like a delicate, oblong baseball-sized rock, frozen in my chest. If someone would just come along and put a bit of pressure on it, it would be fine. It would crack and release that fluid like when someone pops your back. …

A love of escape. — I don’t remember exactly how old I was, maybe 7 or 8. My mother had just bought a beautiful kitchen table and matching chairs. It was heavy and had a leaf insert that could make the circular shape into an oval if we had guests. …