I can’t tell you how many times my childhood showed up after a glass of wine. How a bottle of Henny was the only thing keeping me alive, and the fulfillment of momentary satisfaction left me crying.

Needless to say, to argue over which letter in the LGBTQ+ family someone is advocating for is both selfish and short sighted, and invalidates the actual individual’s experience.

Sights like these are the ones that leave my eyes wide, unable to look beyond the things in our world that make me ungrateful to be a part of it. I do not care to understand the hate or ignorance that portrays an ugly truth these days, so I choose sadness remedied by sleep.

The pendulum swings in American politics, and if you’re not careful to listen to policy over party, you might eventually end up on the wrong side.

I can echo my peers and write a piece for an audience who shares my opinions. I can continue to live in a bubble inhabited by like-minded people. So now I’ll ask a question to myself: what good does that do for the society I live in?

When the lights are off
you see her soul
and how abuse took its toll.

everything you believed back then
would only circle back 
and make you my friend

The light of the star that our world orbits couldn’t shine the sky the way she brightens up a room.
My goddess, my muse.

I do take solace in the fact that God is always ready to forgive me as long as I come clean to him, but I wish I was as welcoming to myself as God is with me.

In the pursuit of healing and growth, I’ve always found myself questioning the societal and cultural norms that are impressed upon us from the moment we’re born.

My job was gone and the happiness I always imagined would follow that reality was a lie. The social life I so desperately depended on grew more distant than six feet.

My heart goes out to all the plant matter that has lived a happy life in the warm soil and died freezing and wilted in my veggie drawer.

The sharpest double-edged sword that this year has bestowed upon many of us is the ability to look outside of ourselves. To finally pay attention to what’s been happening and continues to happen.

The crashing in my ears sounds like storytelling, and I wonder if the sun reads.

American seeds sowed with trauma, reaping the harvest of greed through the pain of mamas.

We expect girl bosses to have it all; the career isn't nearly as impressive if they had to sacrifice their love life.

We had kissed a few here and there, saw the ways they performed the same routine, the ways they thought they stood out for more than a few words and a shot. In this bar I learned the ways of showing attraction and love through drinks poured and tabs ignored while I told myself you were one of the same.

You break, and I shed I leap, where you tread 
And if you ever get this message I hope you never forget what I said .

With the dawn of the internet came a flooding of men who hid their identities behind computer screens, breeding a false sense of confidence and fueling an existent hatred of women.

That type of manipulative lust 
is a short term rush
that gets us nothing but temporary and transactional love.