Happy National Poetry Month everybody! To celebrate, I’d like to share a few of my poems that were published in THE AWAKENINGS REVIEW,a cool publication that features the work of poets, writers, and artists living with mental illness or having a firsthand connection to it. Many of you know that I deal with chronic pain, PTSD, and was recently diagnosed with ADHD. Writing, especially poetry, is one of the ways I deal with those issues. It helps me breathe and express myself without creating more damage.

While I’d already written a lot of poems about my situation, THE AWAKENINGS REVIEW prefers work that shows personal growth and the writer moving forward with their lives. This can be subtle, because in real life that is often what recovery looks like. Chronic mental health issues never just disappear. They’re not colds or indigestion. Our brains are way too complicated and oddly smart for easy solutions. Even when we’re able to make improvements, there are triggers that can set us off seemingly out of nowhere.

That doesn’t mean we should ever stop trying to improve our lives and I got an opportunity to do that when I was finally approved for spinal surgery last year. Over a decade of broken, dislocated, and degenerating vertebrae had kept me prisoner, stealing my physical life at what should’ve been my peak. Instead, I ended up in a wheelchair and became a twisted factory of rage, hate, and self-loathing. My body was constantly screaming in pain, so I took a lot of medication in hopes of feeling better. But it mostly brought a slew of side effects that really messed me up.

These poems were written after the surgery. “Cracks” was written shortly after coming home from the hospital, while “Hole” was written about 9 months later. I’d graduated from physical therapy and the cheerful bi-weekly sessions were over. Nothing was being required of me, so I slowly stopped doing what I was supposed to. Remember how I said the brain is a sneaky saboteur, ready to hijack our bodies when we’re not paying attention? Bingo!

I went back to eating crap food, not doing much, and even stopped writing. Even though it’s been kind of upsetting, I’m lucky to have healthcare people who told me I was going down the wrong road. Our brains try to trip us up, “hey you don’t want to do this, it’s gonna hurt. Just sit back down on the couch and eat some more garbage.” Nope, fuck that voice and mindset. I’m not going down without a fight, and I hope that reading these poems helps you take a similar approach. Living a decent life is a lot like marriage: it takes significant amount of effort, but the results are worth it. There’s no big red “That was easy!” button to fix everything instantly, but once you make it a little way up out of that hole you’re stuck in, you’ll feel something you haven’t enjoyed for. a while. You’ll be proud of yourself.

Thanks for taking a few minutes to check this out! If you’d like to submit your own work to THE AWAKENINGS REVIEW, or support their work by ordering a copy, head on over to: www.AwakeningsProject.org   to check them out.