In slumber’s sound upon the table,
My guardians watch, ever stable.
A magical screen, their silent gaze,
While nourishment fills the bowl in a haze.
With a velcro tongue, I reach for the drink,
In this cozy realm, my thoughts drift and sink.
My language spills forth, a chorus of tunes,
Echoing gently beneath the bright moons.
Through my kingdom, I wander with grace,
Leaving behind whispers of where I embrace.
Clues trace my journey, scattered with care,
In the heart of my haven, my spirit laid bare.
Travelers gather, tales to share,
While I stake my claim with flair in the air.
In this enchanted space, I’m never alone,
For in my domain, every corner is home.

Once upon a time, a woman was facing challenges between her fear, her schooling, and her career choices. She encountered massive obstacles that she managed to overcome, except for one enemy she didn’t want to face: Mr. Math. At first, she thought, “Man, this is a breeze! What’s next you want to throw my way?” However, being overconfident, Mr. Math kept throwing harder numbers at her, trying to get her to crack. In time, she thought she had Mr. Math figured out, until the day of the test arrived.

The fears began to make her sweat and shake. She kept thinking to herself, “Am I going to pass? Is everyone going to be happy for me?” As she glanced at the clock, panic set in, but she managed to finish the test in time. She felt relieved to have completed it, but that’s when the fear really sank in. Twiddling her thumbs, she waited for the results to come back, but there was no word yet. As the days went by, she began to devise a backup plan in case things didn’t work out as she hoped. She brainstormed some job ideas to pass the time and got a few bites, but nothing much was going her way at her age.

Two weeks later, her phone rang awkwardly during a job interview, and it was her teacher letting her know how she had done. Her teacher humorously mentioned, “I’m sorry, but you did pass everything with flying colors, except for one.” She braced herself, asking, “Let me guess, it was the math, right?” He looked at her with a knowing glance and asked, “How did you know? Did you assume you weren’t going to pass? Did you not even try, or did you just breeze by it?” The woman glanced back in a daze, trying to defend herself. “No, I tried my best! You remember that when Mr. Math gives me the basics, I can breeze through that like it’s nothing. But he decided to throw harder material at me, and my brain just froze.”

He mentioned what she could do next, but her fear clouded her mind, and she was exhausted from trying yet continually failing. Before hanging up, the teacher asked, “Are you going to return to class and face Mr. Math again?” After contemplating for a moment, she replied that she wasn’t sure if she would be able to return with everything going on in her life.

After discussing her next steps with her mother, she decided to focus on her career instead. She chose to pursue another form of education through job training classes, believing that learning more career skills could help her overcome her fear and eventually find a job she loved. She found a place called Mountain State Centers of Independent Living. The course was a three-month program focused on different career choices, job skills in the workplace, and the knowledge needed to navigate the hiring process.

Thanks to the program, she graduated in three months and had a clear understanding of what she could handle in the work world. Her family was so proud and thrilled that she dedicated herself to something else and was grateful that, even though she hadn’t finished her prior studies, she didn’t let that affect her. She thanked the center for becoming part of the Mountain State family. Since then, she has developed her skills in retail and money management. Although she has memories she wishes she could revisit, she has finally accepted that she has her family’s support and feels comfortable with the new path she has chosen.

Dear Vapor,
It’s now been 22 years and you are still with me everyday holding down my anixety. My question is why are you still holding power over me all these years. My family and peers have been telling me give it up you don’t need it anymore you will feel so much better if you finally depart with it. I have even though the same thing cause of my financial budget cause you don’t understand how much you keep breaking my bank everyday I look for you in different varities but I can’t stay away. What’s your secret? I know you’re not good for me but I just don’t know how to say I’m ready to put you down for good. I’ve been looking into different options to finally have the courage to let you go but I feel that I don’t have the strength to finally put you down. I don’t know what to do or it I ever will be ready.

As I walk along the horizon the beaker boils with drips. Tensions fly to the surface when the well has finally dried up. As the routine stays the same can’t the clock move forward faster? Struggling without the help and holding on by a thread of patience, even though the patience is running thin. As the breeze slides through the pattern never changes.

I used to think pain was a language we all spoke the same.
But then I met people who wore my wounds like armor, while I tried to turn mine into wings.
We had the same bruises in different places. The same stories told in different voices. We both knew the sound of a door slamming that wasn’t just a door but a warning. We both knew the silence that followed too well, the kind that didn’t mean peace, but punishment. And still, they walked out harder, sharper, more closed. I walked out with my palms open, hoping to catch light or rain or anything that felt like softness.
It’s wild how two people can survive the same fire and carry the heat in completely different ways. Some become flame themselves, burning anything that gets too close. Others spend the rest of their lives flinching at the smallest spark. I think about this a lot. How survival isn’t a shared destination but a thousand separate roads paved with choices, coping, timing, and whatever scraps of love we were lucky enough to find.
I used to believe trauma molded us like clay. That it pressed its fingers into us and that’s why we cracked the way we did. But maybe that’s only part of the truth. Maybe trauma is more like a pile of raw materials dumped at your feet. Grief like steel. Loneliness like stone. Rage like rope. You don’t choose the pile, but you do decide what to build. Some build prisons. Some build walls. Some build bridges to a self they’ve never met before.
For a long time, I tried to build silence. I thought if I didn’t speak about it, it would stop growing. But pain doesn’t work that way. Pain is a seed. If you don’t name it, it grows anyway, just deeper and darker, winding through your bloodline, waiting to bloom in someone else. I learned that the hard way.
Motherhood cracked something open in me that I didn’t even know was sealed shut. I remember holding my son for the first time and suddenly realizing that I wasn’t just responsible for his body, but for his story. His emotional blueprint. His inner voice. His sense of safety in the world. And it hit me like a wave I didn’t see coming. Everything I hadn’t healed might one day echo through him. Not because I wanted it to, but because unspoken pain finds its way. Always.
And that terrified me.
It also gave me purpose.
Now, when I choose to sit with my hurt instead of numbing it, I’m not just doing it for me. I’m doing it so my child doesn’t have to carry what was never his. I’m doing it so that love can feel like a resting place and not a battlefield. I’m doing it because someone in every bloodline has to decide that the story changes here.
And still, I wonder. Was this always the path? Was there a version of me, already written, already waiting? Or did I fight my way into her? Did I dig her out with every boundary I set, every truth I spoke, every time I looked my past in the face and said, I’m not going to let you win?
Sometimes I feel like my life has always been on the edge of something. On the edge of becoming. On the edge of breaking. Like I’ve been holding the pen with shaking hands, trying to write my name over a story that began before I ever had a voice. I think that’s what reclaiming your life really means. Not erasing what happened, but choosing how it’s remembered. How it’s used. How it ends.
Pain doesn’t make us the same. Neither does survival. I have seen people crumble under the weight of things I carried in silence. I have watched people laugh with joy after surviving storms that would’ve leveled me. There’s no ranking of pain, no chart for resilience. Only choices. Only outcomes. Only who we become after the fire.
I no longer look for meaning in the things that hurt me. Some things just hurt. But I do believe in the meaning I can create because I lived through them. I believe in turning pain into language. Into softness. Into understanding. Into legacy.
So no, the things we survive don’t make us the same.
But maybe that’s the point.
Maybe survival is the beginning of art. The place where we each pick up our broken pieces and say, this is what I’m making out of mine.
And maybe someone else will see it and think, I didn’t know you could build something beautiful out of that.
And maybe that’s how we save each other.

Dear Unsealers,

It’s the 20th of June.

In the Northern Hemisphere, today is the longest day of the year. And in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the shortest day.

Though the exact moment where the earth’s rays are closest to the sun isn’t scheduled until 10:42PM tonight, it feels right to still welcome in the new season.

Ninety-four days are ahead under sunshine, blue skies and warm weather. Here’s to sea breezes, golden hour sunsets and moments spent in good company. The days will go by just as fast as they’ve arrived.

This is my welcome to the new season ahead…

When day turns to night
The sun’s rays are closest to earth

A new season is upon us
The solstice, ushering in the summer

The longest day this year is here
First one, of ninety four to come

It’s a blank slate so far
With space, wide open for infinite possibility

A time of year where the world slows down
After a hibernating winter and blossoming spring

Soaking up the warmth, the days will go by fast
Looking ahead to Iberia in the fall

are your bodies
you are your skin
you are your thoughts and ideas
all the structure that comes with it

i am in my body
i am in my skin
i have thoughts and ideas
all the chaos that comes with me

Dear little girl, so sad and blue.
Back then, you didn’t know what to do.
Your secret sat sunken in your core.
It festered like a swollen sore.
No wonder you failed to sail the skies, to soar.

They said you’re mad, but it’s not true,
For you had a grim grief no one knew.
Tears flowed inside your tired soul,
‘Til death became your only goal.
Your heart grew old as living took its toll.

Hope may seem too out of reach,
While victim of your elders’ breach,
But don’t give up, precious one.
Don’t make this your final run.
Someday you’ll find the sun.

Once freed from the children’s cage,
You’ll turn this crumbled page,
Ready for the world to unfurl,
No longer just a sullen girl,
You’ll discover life’s hidden pearls.

Today you sail the sordid seas.
Brave and bold you bring monsters to their knees.
Stronger now and in love with life.
You don’t back away from strife.
Who knows just where you’ll be
In the years we’re yet to see.

Summertime as a kid
was a beautiful time to be alive
Catching the sun rays amongst the face
while collecting the wrinkled water skin
from swimming all day
Running the hot pavement for a game
of tag or hide and seek
Bare feet walking amongst the cold
green grass eating the sweetest
popsicle treat
Melted juices rolling down
the little arms
Stomachs full of grilled meals and
intoxicated drinks
Laughter overflowing the atmosphere
Neighbors coming together
for a game or two of cards
Children invading the streets
with their bicycles and skateboards
Summertime as a kid
was a beautiful time to be alive

Lately, I feel like I am suspended between two versions of myself. The person I was before I became a mother, and the person I am still learning how to be. I do not feel fully rooted in either. I exist somewhere in the middle, unsure of how to return to the old version of me, and not yet steady in this new one. Maybe this is what motherhood really is. Living in the space between who you were and who you are becoming, holding both identities at once, even when they do not seem to fit together.

Some mornings, I catch my reflection in the mirror and pause. The woman staring back looks familiar, but not quite. My body feels like a stranger to me now. Softer in places it used to be firm, slower to recover, carrying marks of something sacred and brutal. I find myself picking it apart in quiet moments. I criticize the changes, the weight, the exhaustion carved into my skin. But then I remember that this body created life. It carried him. It sheltered him. It continues to nourish him. That truth silences the harsh thoughts, at least for a little while.

There are days when I ache for the version of life I used to have. A time when I could leave the house with nothing but my keys and a vague sense of freedom. I miss the quiet, the unstructured moments, the ability to simply exist without constantly checking the clock or planning around feedings. But when I hold my baby and feel his tiny fingers wrap around mine, everything else falls away. The loss of freedom is real, but it has been replaced with a purpose that is deeper than anything I have ever known. That exchange is both beautiful and heavy. I grieve what I gave up, even as I give thanks for what I gained.

My relationship with my partner has changed too. We used to move through life side by side, with ease and intimacy that felt natural. Now, our connection feels more functional, like we are always handing off tasks in a race with no finish line. I miss the way we used to laugh without effort. I miss reaching for each other without having to think about timing or schedules or who is more tired. But in this new rhythm, there is something unspoken building between us. A quiet kind of loyalty. A bond that is not always soft, but strong. It is being shaped by shared exhaustion, by long nights and small victories. We are learning how to love each other again, not in spite of the changes, but through them.

Sometimes, I feel a loneliness that is hard to name. I am surrounded by love and yet there are moments when I feel completely invisible. I carry so much inside, and it often feels like no one sees the full weight of it. I want help, and then when help comes, I struggle to let go. I know my baby’s every cry, every need, every comfort. Letting someone else step in feels like giving up a part of that connection. I want rest, but I want to be the one he reaches for. I want support, but I want control. It is a constant push and pull between what I need and what I cannot bear to let go of.

I love being his mother with a depth I never knew was possible. That love is fierce and tender, but it does not cancel out the hard parts. This has been one of the most difficult seasons of my life. I wake up tired and fall asleep more tired. I am fighting to stay emotionally present, even when I feel like I am unraveling on the inside. Joy lives here, but so does sadness. I carry both, every day.

So I am learning to hold on to the moments that soften me. The way his body melts into mine when he sleeps, the half-smiles that feel like the sun coming through a window, the peace that settles over him when I sing softly into the quiet. I know this time is fleeting. I know it will pass, and part of me is grateful for that. These early days are precious, but they are also relentless. Knowing they will not last forever is both a comfort and a sorrow.

Maybe this space in the middle, between who I was and who I will become, is exactly where I am meant to be. I am not the woman I once was. I am not yet the woman I am growing into. But I am both, unfolding slowly in two directions at once.

And maybe that is what motherhood truly is. A constant unraveling and becoming, a lesson in loving yourself through every contradiction. Even when you feel lost.Even when you feel like a stranger to yourself, you hold your baby and realize the woman you were is still there, just transformed.

Dear Community,
Today I ask you a question that came to me this morning. I know this has probably hit you when you were growing up but I thought it was time to bring it back.

My question was Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Okay, where I see myself in 5 years, you may ask, well, I see myself undecided. I’ve always had hopes and dreams to just make it day by day. I wanted to finish school, try for my degree in art, and pursue my writing. However, life had other plans. I had my first kid at 21, went through the struggles of taking care of a child on my own, ended up living on my own, and just trying to figure things out as I progressed. During my time, I honestly wish I could have done more, not gone down the road I did, and dropped out of high school or run myself ragged focusing on relationships, housing, or finding a job that I was comfortable with. So I guess what it comes down to is that in 5 years from now, I hope to see myself financially stable, make my passion for writing expand, hopefully find the right job for me, and I hope my partner and I will still be able to go strong together.

We may not do scratch-offs,
or play the “Pick 5”.
But every addict is a gambler,
Gambling with their lives.

There’s no chips involved,
No minimum bet.
We play with our souls,
We wage our regret.

Will this be the bag,
that gets you high?
Or is this the time,
you finally die?

Time with your loved ones,
is in the pot.
Maybe you’ll win,
with this next shot!

A free trip to jail,
for the rest of your life!
Just take a chance,
and roll the dice!

Your family will leave,
unless you end this charade.
Ten to one?
I like those odds!

So we take another hit,
we do another line.
“I bet they won’t leave,
just like last time.”

Will I get an empty bag?
Will the rocks be salt?
Even if you lose,
It’s never your fault.

The game was rigged!
The dealer’s a liar!
It’s all on them,
if you don’t get higher.

Whether its cards in your hand,
or a needle in your vein,
we all find something,
that takes away the pain.

There are no winners,
when you play with drugs and booze.
But gamblers don’t gamble to win,
Gamblers gamble to lose.

“The Gamble”
-Matty Jablonsky

Dear Health,

Why have you forsaken me? Did you really have to bring more complicated issues my way? How would you feel if you woke up one morning and started to hurt in any way? It would be terrible, right? Exactly. Can’t you grant me just one day without needing a machine or medication to feel better?

You are just a part of the experience that can come and go, but you’re not the one who has to navigate life daily. You don’t know what I see and experience each day. I wish we could switch roles for once—let me make the health choices while you deal with the outside world. Don’t pretend for a moment that you wouldn’t break if things got too hard.

So, can you, for once, just give us a break? Or is that asking too much?

Signed,
Your Owner.