Dear Ex,

It has been almost five years since I left you. I miss you still. You leave monthly whispers of alimony, and quarterly updates of your life since the abandonment.

I keep feeling that it is all too good for me. I left you in the worst possible way. I professed my love for someone else – someone I could never have, anyway.

I was f…read more

404 not found
My long search came up empty
Looking for the one

After the divorce
Never thought I’d try to look
Then I hit refresh

Found a rabbit hole
I decided to jump in
To see what I’d find

Eww, what a cesspool
What does it say about me
That I am in it?

And then in the end
Disorganized attachment
Bit me in the ass

Then, I decided
I’d try t…read more

Dear Holly and Teddy,

Monkey and bear… Monkey and bear…

An unlikely pairing, yet a match made in heaven.

Holly, you are the monkey I have had since my sixth birthday. One would think you are an ape–you look like a chimpanzee–but you have a little stub of a tail. That makes you a monkey.

I begged my parents to get you for me when I saw you at…read more

Many a first kiss
I have had during dating
None compare to one

Kissing my ex-wife
For the date that will go down
In my history

We were looking at
Two water turtles sunning
On the rocks of the

Confluence of two
Rivers – the Sacramento
And American

I imagined those
Two turtles were her and me
On that summer day

Getting romantic
Watching boats…read more

Dear Fear,

I did not realize you lived inside me until now.

I knew something was stuck, but I didn’t know until now that it was fear.

Fear of getting over my ex-wife.

Let me paint a picture for you.

We met twenty-two years ago. I was eighteen. She was fifteen.

She was too young for me, so I must have filed her away in my mind until…

We sta…read more

All of my deep fears
The monsters in my closet
Stem from this small thing

Procrastination
I say I’ll do this later
But the time is now

I don’t want to yet
This is all so very hard
To take in right now

I’d really rather
Scroll on social media
Than deal with this

Pesky task at hand
Veritable kryptonite
Anything but this

I’ll do this later
L…read more

Dear Unsealers,

Whenever I am in the psych hospital, the nurses and psychiatrist want me to find a reason to live so I do not keep ending up there.

For many years, my tortoiseshell cat Hershey’s Kisses was my reason to live.

She adored me and would have been devastated if I had died before she did.

Finally, in October 2024, my reason for l…read more

Dear Unsealers,

My 2024 was a whirlwind of life events.

Losing friends, though keeping a few close.

Turning 40 years old while at the psych hospital.

Losing my favorite cat – my reason for living.

Getting denied for long-term disability pay a second time.

Continuously struggling to survive.

Finding a new reason to live.

It is so e…read more

Dear Blue,

I feel grateful that I am not in an attitude of gratitude all the time. Feeling gratitude for all of the horrific trauma that I have experienced does not make me stronger. Trauma actually makes me weaker.

By feeling my feelings exactly as they are, not how I wish I felt, I am making room for the discomfort and facilitating my healing…read more