So… what the fuck is this?

This is a place for the reluctant idealists, who have been beaten down and beaten down and beaten down and seen firsthand the evils of this world and for some goddamn reason still believe things can change and won’t rest until they help make that happen.

This is a place for the artists in every medium who started so young they can’t remember life without this outlet and for the artists who just picked up a pencil and feel lost and terrified and like they’re somehow behind in some ineffable race that everyone else seems to understand but no one will explain, who decide to publish not for the popularity but for the connection and because they have something to say if people would just shut up and listen for half a second.

This is a place for the people who are too much, who care too much who never quite figured out all their social graces and default to awkward honesty more often than not, who have kintsugi hearts that love with everything they have (despite, despite, despite), and who are never, ever satisfied.

This is a place for saying, I have felt this. Have you? and actually receiving a response in this overly-ironic, disaffected, frankly often horrific age that tries its best to make us feel powerless and alone.

This is a place for the ones who know we are not alone, and we are certainly not powerless.

And, fuck it, this is just a place for people who like getting a new topic to ponder each week from the colonialism inherent in our use of the Fibbonacci sequence and how it can also be used to help panic attacks to my time in Iraqi Kurdistan and why I am so goddamn passionate about bringing attention to the Yazidi cause to how weird it is that we compliment each other on physical traits and names and other things over which we have no control whatsoever and this is a place for people enjoy my totally-not-on-trend poetry (and occasional short stories/memoirs that have appeared on substack, currently entirely courtesy of Thirty West Publishing House).

(More of all genres, but mostly poetry, can be found in my full portfolio, along with reviews for and places (including but not limited to Amazon) to purchase my first poetry collection, And My Blood Sang [on trauma and anger and the ugly parts of healing and how recovery really is fucking possible and that you {YOU} are a fucking wildfire {despite, despite, despite} so the world better watch the fuck out when you realize you never lost your voice at all it just got a little covered in scar tissue but now it’s open and raw and you’re ready to speak.])

So… if that shit sounds good? Subscribe to my weekly (except for when Life Is Happening Too Much for me to manage) newsletter and then please do let me know your thoughts on whatever I’m babbling about because I fucking love engaging (there’s a whole story behind why I publish at all [it didn’t come naturally] and part of it is telling people that they aren’t alone; also come on, no writer puts their work out there and prays for silence, anyway) and just… enjoy.

Also, I don’t fuck with AI, so do not in any way use it to learn from a single thing I’ve written or created.

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first image two images courtesy of a stop-motion video made from one of my older poems by Bonj Malabanan; final image is the book cover for And My Blood Sang courtesy of Dex Luna