Mar 3Loss: Meditations on My Mother’s DeathLoss can be a dangerous thing. I don’t know where to start other than the beginning. Before conscious life, there was darkness. A darkness, with swirls of luminescence and fuzzy sparks of color, that did not retreat for eleven years. …Loss4 min read
Aug 10, 2021Trauma and Contemplations: YouThe beauty within me is only as deep as the mind allows and, upon further inspection, my soul is a cataclysm of blood, manic rage, and lightning splashing across the sky. I can reach my hand out towards you, but my fingers retreat in opposition; I do not want to…Trauma4 min read
Published in Invisible Illness·May 17, 2020Write DrunkThere are moments when all you want to do is pour a glass of wine and lean back into your chair — decrepit, frayed at the seams over years of use, creaking in all of the right spots. Your roommate insists on purchasing a new model, because its groans in…Alcoholism6 min read
Apr 11, 2020Ashes: A Story of HeartacheI found myself tumbling in your ashes, the hazy scent of fresh balsam cascading through the air and the haunting sounds of crackling wood in the distance. You were once my fire, and I ascended from your blaze with renewed purpose, illuminating meaning, a passion so dark and deep that…Nonfiction4 min read
Nov 28, 2019Melancholic MusingsI am melancholy for a time past renewed, a time of which emotions ran freely across spans of open woods until a clearing broke open the horizon. You brought me gifts of a former life, of a life once known but forgotten over the course of time. And in the…Prose3 min read
Nov 3, 2019HomeI have a candle with the word “home” inscribed into the glass. It smells of gardenias and musk, of what I’ve always wondered what a home should smell like after years of use. I have never had a home to call my own; my childhood home was adorned with pale…Family4 min read
Jan 25, 2019Death Becomes YouThere’s something about death that intrigues you, whether it’s due to its cold pallor in the dead of night or ability to resurface suppressed emotions in those which death affects. Like the ascension from water to breathe once more, you are enlightened to the thoughts and intuitions of those around…Death7 min read
Published in Invisible Illness·Mar 11, 2018Depression is Everything and Nothing All at OnceDepression isn’t being curled up in paisley blankets with a cool breeze gently caressing your shoulders, floral tea cups stacked on the bedside table, and endless television shows streaming with a cool blue glow within a shadowed room. Depression isn’t lounging around in pajamas while you nonchalantly make waffles at…Mental Health4 min read
Published in Invisible Illness·Mar 7, 2018Who Am I?: An Essay Regarding Self-IdentityI never knew what it was like to be whole — someone with a complete sense of self-identity, whose interests were concrete in their own stability, and whose body felt as if it was something to be owned, mastered, and controlled. My prepubescent years and subsequent teenage years were spent…Mental Health4 min read
Published in Invisible Illness·Jul 26, 2017How Chester Bennington Taught Me to Survive.On Thursday, July 20, 2017, Chester Bennington — frontman of the rock band Linkin Park — was found dead in what is currently being investigated as a completed suicide attempt. He was 41 years old. Like a significant portion of the world around me that day, I was taken aback…Music6 min read
