My story is about a woman who had two kids between the ages of 21 and 25. She had two girls who are now 15 and 10. After she had her second child, she made one of the hardest decisions she now regrets. She decided to have her tubes tied and an ablation done because she knew, deep down, that she couldn’t take care of another child due to personal reasons. Despite her belief that she would never have kids again, seven years later, after getting remarried, she found out she was going to have another baby.

She was shocked when she took two home pregnancy tests. She thought, “How is this possible?” Her doctor had told her that the procedure was supposed to be effective, but after two exams were done, the first test revealed that the procedure, after all this time, hadn’t worked, and the second test revealed that there was indeed a baby. Unfortunately, she ended up miscarrying, and all that was left was the gestational sac. She was only two months along, and even though she didn’t yet know the sex of the baby, she wanted to honor him by imagining him as a boy since her partner also had girls.

She was devastated and decided to create a memorial for him. She made a plaque, had a memory box with angel wings, and a special Christmas ornament with his name and the message “In Loving Memory.” She also chose a tattoo for her arm featuring wings, a golden halo, and blue feet to represent him. Her parents even made her a special present to honor their first grandson. They crafted a family of bears, with the mom bear and each of her cubs. She took it home, wrote each of her babies’ names on it, and gave them a special paint color.

Every year, she takes a moment to honor her son and reflects on what he would have looked like if he had loved his sisters and how big he would have been. Many questions run through her mind: What would he have grown up to be? Who knows?

Dear Samantha Allen, I decided to write to you now that you are 35 years old. I wanted to share with you your journey and what you will be looking forward to if you decide to go on this same path I have endured. See, after you were having your careless life with your boyfriend, I wanted to warn you that the life you were thinking you were going to have with him isn’t what you would want to believe. After his school journey decided to finally leave you were left alone with just your friends that you still talked to now and then. I remember when we were getting ready to come back into the fall and our last journey was about to begin but you were struggling with the classes for the first six weeks and as you were sitting in the Spanish class the teacher told you that at the end of your senior year there was this big project coming up called the senior quest. I wanted to let you know that even though I felt scared and nervous, I did the wrong thing I have regretted since. After our boyfriend left on his journey, I kept thinking that I had lost my train of will to keep going through school. I ended up losing interest in everything they had when I found that I was already failing the 1st six weeks. I decided to go to our school guidance counselor and wanted to talk to him about dropping out and leaving school. I wish to warn you that it would be a waste of time to even attempt. They kept taking all of our records and kept trying to show me that I was so close to finishing, I didn’t need to leave, but they wouldn’t let me without mom and dad to sign off. Well, forget it cause you think Dad would have let you get away with that. Fat chance, both of them kept giving me a speech that you ain’t going to be a high school dropout that won’t make it at all. We want you to succeed and go to college for an art degree or photography since we know you love to draw and take pictures all the time. You will even argue with them that, well, you have to be 18 to drop out, well, they tried to keep me there after we were close to turning 19, but they wouldn’t let me out there until someone rescued me to pick me up. After I had a long talk with my mom, we agreed that I would go get my GED, so I finally got to leave that place. Let me be the one to tell you it was the worst mistake I made in my entire life. Since then, I went to take the GED after 2 times, and I ended up getting so close, but you know how we are when it comes to math. It ended up getting the best of us, and we almost passed. Since then, I decided to give up the studies and just go find work, even though it was under the radar, but I ended up managing to find work okay. After going back from job to job in different years. I managed to mess around where I shouldn’t and decided before I had my 21st birthday to become a mother, well, let me tell you it was a mistake. Now I’m not saying that having them was a mistake, I just think, honestly, I wasn’t ready to bring a new life into my life. I ended up struggling very hard after her dad abandoned me while I was 2 months pregnant, and even had the nerve to deny that she was his. Even though after our battles went south, I had plenty of opportunities to find her a father figure, but I didn’t need it. I had the support of our family to help me through, even though I should have listened to my mom and just waited until I was a little more mature to handle raising a baby. After that, when I finally realized I couldn’t have the love of my life, I decided to take on a new chapter. Everything was fine at first, but the true colors ended up coming out at the worst time, more so after I found out a second child was coming into the mix. I tried everything in my power to keep the family whole, but then a certain match went off in my head with everything I was put through by him, I ended up divorcing him and left later on. I know I didn’t go into too much detail with you, but I don’t wish to scare you cause I want you to know, as you’re reading this, maybe you will take better precautions and find the right ways to deal with it all like I did. I ended up after a while ended up after 2021, getting remarried. I ended up having a total of 3 kids, but sadly enough, one of my children ended up passing away due to a miscarriage, so after that, I ended up with only my first one. I know you would probably ask what happened to our second child, while the long story short, she was taken away from me by an organization called Child Protective Services. There was a long going mishap between our daughter’s dad and her sister and it ended up in turmoil with the court system after fighting to keep with her me they got me for our mental health issues and accused me of neglecting her when all I was also trying to do was make our life better especially for her. Well, that didn’t convince them enough that everything I was trying to do for her wasn’t enough, so now she has been gone for 3 years. Since then, we got remarried, we now have two stepdaughters, 10 and about to be 8. Since then, life has not been as easy as you think. I have been struggling now more here lately with taking care of my home, trying to work out my marriage, making sure my health stays the way it needs to be, and trying to figure out my next career move to help out with the finances besides our monthly check. So, pretty much when you read this, don’t be scared, I just want to make sure that you know what you’re facing and hopefully make our future different then what I’m living in now. I wish you the best in your upcoming adventures. GOOD LUCK

Dear Unsealers,

“Bucephalus” is a protest poem about the violence we inherit, the pain we normalize, and the strength it takes to break those cycles. I wrote it to examine the ways masculinity can be distorted by trauma, and how empathy often gets buried beneath performance. This poem speaks to the cost of silence and the quiet resilience of those who choose tenderness in a world that teaches them to harden. It’s a reminder that even the deepest wounds can bloom into something honest—and that too is power.

Bucephalus
The formation of the soul is a seed in the earth,
forged in pressure, blooming through trauma.
Divine mother, singer of arias—
violence takes the limbs from a miner
in an act of endless cruelty.
The acrid scent of sulphur is the last gravestone
where innocence mourns at midday.
By the deathbed of an absent father,
or the bedside of a son who accepts affection
in the slap of abuse’s caress.
We live in a world of dogs dressed up as lions.
One’s suffering is another’s pleasure. Homophobic chauvinism—
masked insecurity; an aversion to kindness,
to the laughter of children.
Those who piss have prayers as well.

A soul adrift in uncharted terrain, she questions all she’s known. Past trials seemed unbearable, yet now she doubts every step. Her words, a desperate cry, poured onto pages in verse and prose. But from her lines, I sense no escape, only loss and shattered dreams. Everything she stood for, believed, and fought for all for nothing.

Life is like walking on a bridge; it can crumble and break when the energy is off. Twists and turns will appear along the way. When you find yourself in a tough spot, breathing becomes harder when there’s nowhere to run. The mind and balance can only handle so much, and if you’re alone, there’s no escape. How can one person sort everything out and stay alive?

A woman without her chariot has lost all hope and ponders. She sighs, thinking, “How much more can the atmosphere around me crumble?” In the lost cage that was her home, she counted the days and waited patiently for some light to appear.

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 flippant and psychotic about it, too. I got up and left one day, never to return.

I regret leaving you the way I did. Our marriage was dying a slow death. But I didn’t have to hack at your heart in one fell swoop.

I made you pack my belongings because I couldn’t bear to come back and do the deed myself.

Recently, I had a nightmare that the tables were turned. I was packing your stuff. Only then, did I realize what an impossible task I set you up with.

I stayed for 13 years because I thought the good outweighed the bad. The fun times seemingly overshadowed the screaming matches, the cruel use of semantic language.

You told me I was hard to love, that I was emotionally complex. That was your way of calling me a bitch.

I called you out on it. You confirmed the not-so-cryptic message.

But hey. We both had our unresolved traumas that we brought into our fights. Not even two years of couples therapy near the end of our marriage could foster effective communication skills.

We were both far too wounded to see past ourselves, yet we didn’t know where one of us ended and the other began. The intertwining and untangling happened at the most inopportune times.

You told me during our last quarterly update that you had forgiven me for my transgressions. I asked why, and you said that four-and-a-half years would be a long time to hold onto such emotional turmoil.

I realized then that I had not yet forgiven myself. Now, I listen to the 36-year-old part of me who left. I understand now.

That part of me was doing the best they could. They thought they were being merciful by finally ripping off the bandage and walking out on our eight-year marriage.

It was that moment that I could finally start to forgive myself.

Then, I listened to the 27-year-old part of me – the one simultaneously full of hope and doubt about our upcoming marriage. They whispered to me:

I love her so much. But I’m in too deep.

Had I loved myself then as much as I do now, I would have been merciful and cut the cord right then and there.

I put your happiness above my own.

And now I realize that you weren’t happy either. Not with me. And certainly not with yourself.

We sought love within each other, when we needed to look within ourselves first.

Had we done that, we might have been best friends for 18 years instead of fractured lovers for 13 years and separated souls for another five.

I forgive you, dear ex.

I also forgive myself.

You may not ever be my best friend again, but I will hold our fun times dearly.

Now, as tears well up in my eyes, I contemplate a future of being in a relationship with myself. After all, no other relationship will matter to me nearly so much.

I will probably never get married again, but I wish myself – and YOU – all the happiness in the world, finally.

And maybe soon, we will both achieve inner peace and tell each other all about it in our next quarterly update.

Vibrant with excitement,
Smiles that brighten
The evening, like the sun.
Once it creeps into the horizon.
Having an amazing night
& waking up to a beautiful morning.
Sky gazing, watching the
Clouds forming and dissipating.
I’m looking at A masterpiece,
from God’s Creations,
like it was the stroke
From the wrist. I’m feeling
Blessed to witness this image.
My eyes Constructing art,
With images from the
The mind. Working with imagination,
Creating & Living through these illusions.
Miraculously mirrored images from within.

I wish there was a truck stop in Heaven,
With a restaurant attached.
A salad bar and a buffet,
And a payphone in the back.

The coffee’s always hot,
And the food aint too bad.
I wish there was a truck stop in Heaven,
So I could talk to my Dad.

He says “I’m flyin over Montana,
just dropped a load of rain.
I’m headed down to Dallas,
And then up to Maine.

No more haulin’ produce,
Gasoline or TVs.
Cause up here in Heaven,
I’m haulin’ prayers and dreams!”

I wish there was a truck stop in Heaven,
With a restaurant attached.
A salad bar and a buffet,
And a payphone in the back.

The coffee’s always hot,
And the food aint too bad.
I wish there was a truck stop in Heaven,
So I could talk to my Dad.

“This rigs as big as a mountain,
You can see me from where you are.
It’s no Freightliner, no Peterbilt,
It’s an actual Western Star!

My Jake-brake is the thunder,
The exhaust makes tornadoes!
Man, it means so much more
to be the king of the road,
where the streets are paved with gold!”

I wish there was a truck stop in Heaven,
With a restaurant attached.
A salad bar and a buffet,
And a payphone in the back.

The coffee’s always hot,
And the food ain’t too bad.
I wish there was a truck stop in Heaven,
So I could talk to my Dad.

I’d tell him that I miss him,
every single day.
“Wish you could just stop by,
and meet my wife,
when you pass by this way.”

He tells me not to worry,
That one day he’ll meet her.
But if we look up at night,
we can see the lights,
of his 18 wheeler!

I wish there was a truck stop in Heaven,
With a restaurant attached.
A salad bar and a buffet,
And a payphone in the back.

The coffee’s always hot,
And the food ain’t too bad.
I wish there was a truck stop in Heaven,
So I could talk to my Dad.