Published by Blood+Honey (April 2026). 

Remind Yourself Daily

__ Get out of bed when the sun wakes you, even though no one is standing in the doorway, blinking himself awake and asking what’s for breakfast.

__ Brush your teeth and shower, comb your hair, put on fresh socks and underwear, smile at people like nothing is wrong.

__ Drink water—really anything besides alcohol, especially by the open windows first thing each morning, where neighbors can easily see.

__ Take stock of the life still around you: pity-eyed friends who frown and nod, mother who won’t stop calling, plants you’ve let brown and fold in on themselves.

__ Always remember to feed his cat—yours now—and slap the can twice to get the last bits out, but not so hard that it spatters the wall.

__ Grumble as you look for a rag to wipe up your messes.

__ Fix plates of broccoli, rice and chicken rather than Milky Ways, chips and French fries, and in portions fit for the weight of your body rather than the weight of your heart.

__ Think of that stupid birthday party you can now skip, former dreams of having more kids, yet wonder only briefly about all you’ve lost: this is a shipwreck and you’re stranded, but panic attracts sharks.

__ Dial your mother’s number and write a text letting your sister know you’re “okay.”

__ Hang up, delete, then scribble a note to contact them both tomorrow.

__ Exclaim to the empty apartment—cat outside hunting—that your only foods are condiments, you’ve accepted the wine-red spot on the living room carpet, the lingering sour smell might be your sheets.

__ “Try to feel better” like your boss says each morning, when you resist yelling over his smiling voice as he talks about “feeling better” like it’s easy as biting your lip or ruining your favorite shirt or losing your breath.

__ Pry yourself from under your warmest blanket, out of your most comfortable chair set in the soft sun that folds through your window to melt tumbling thoughts away—but don’t get upset if you stay there until the light stretches and the chair has long been in shadow.

__ Meditate: embrace cool nothingness and turn away from negative thoughts, sit uncomfortably still until you can feel your muscles and bones aging.

__ Dismiss the new thoughts this brings on—skin heavy with wrinkles, breath acidic, no one to come visit, alonealonealone—and stand to reinforce the change of mind.

__ Convince yourself yoga is still gratifying because you can stretch until you almost snap: can feel a breaking point so near that you’re able to clasp it close, and no gods or rip tides can tear it from you.

__ Release your leg: lower it slowly as sweat rolls and allow yourself to picture his sweet, round face.

__ View him in your mind as your standing ankle wavers and threatens to topple you: highlight his cheekbones, smile, brow, the pieces of him you now see on other children’s faces.

__ Do not shy away when his face bloats and turns velvety blue, mouth a sigh, hair across eyes like seaweed, like algae in a current.

__ Remind yourself the only reason this ocean of grief has a home in you is because that space was first carved out by love.

__ Repeat the previous step until it becomes a rhythm through which you hear the rest of the world.

__ When you feel able, lift your head, rise from where you collapsed, trembling, on your foam mat.

__ Tell yourself a glass of water will help.

__ Vow to scrub dishes before sunrise, to cram clothes into the machine—none of his, you already checked—but know it’s okay if you don’t: when your alarm goes off, you may find yourself standing before the sink with an empty cup in hand, throat still dry from the night before.

__ Call into work again—“I will, I will, thanks, I mean it”—and pause to touch his room’s locked brass handle as you wander to your bedroom to dream of anything but him.

“Arctic Cruise” series, “Ghost 1” and “Step 1” published by The Pinch. Collages from magazine images.

Published (sans title) by Nanoism (May 2018).

Priorities

“TYPEFACE” series from the Curate Santa Fe solo show TYPEFACE at Art.i.fact’s ART.i.factory. Double-exposed photos overlaid with poetry, printed on aluminum; all photos taken on iPhone using Hipstamatic app, all poetry mine.

Published (sans title) by Nanoism (May 2018).

The Trouble with the Living

I still speak to my dead dad, call his name when I’m alone, yet phone conversations with my grieving mother drip dark, heavy silence.

Published in Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine 10.1 (April 2017) and nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Places I Imagine My Wife

The wooded hiking trails just outside of town, pushing Evan’s stroller beside Prince and Duchess and breathing deep the thawing air of the now-blooming mountains; the grocery store, choosing the least-wilted head of lettuce by picking up every single one; watching pedestrians through her classroom window between periods, her chin resting in her hand as the middle-schoolers noisily take their seats; 6^th floor of the hospital, just once every few weeks for treatments that plenty of people live to laugh about; on her bright purple beach towel, sprawled with a drunk smirk like when we visited California our first Spring Break together, wearing the aviator sunglasses she found in that frothy water; smiling in her favorite dress—the blue one with little flowers printed on it—at our first-date restaurant, which was torn down just last year; our bed, in a wheezing sleep, her cheekbones more apparent and her hair thinner, the color greyed and mousey; the driver’s seat of that rusted Chevy pick-up she drove until Evan was born, wearing those same aviators, no longer a joke, as she leans one arm out the open window and squints against the sun; the back porch of our first apartment, a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other as she laughs her way through a joke while Prince and Duchess—puppies then—both look at her sideways; Evan’s nursery, watching him with sunken eyes as he naps despite Duchess’s constant low whine in Prince’s absence; everywhere, anywhere, until eventually, inevitably, her pale face over satin, that same blue dress and those dark eyelashes pulled together, her face fading behind endless flower arrangements and weepy relatives and refrigerated casseroles, waning from the bedroom and the nursery and the yard but also becoming more solid—somehow realer than before, the textures more vibrant, the colors truer than when we were together—on the golden beach, across the table at our restaurant, jogging the trails on the mountain with Prince at her side, while behind them dogwoods sprout pastel buds and bright wildflowers at their feet splash open in bloom.

Published in RED INK: International Journal of Indigenous Literature, Arts, & Humanities (Spring 2017).

Hunker down close to the Earth,

knees bent and thighs taut,
to speak without being heard:
she can catch your tired secrets,
she will keep and protect them,

bury them deep in her caves to sprout new life
like crystals gleaming on rough rock,
like blind salamanders in a dark puddle
long forgotten by the outside world.

Published (sans title) by Nanoism (March 2015).

My Deepest Regrets

I regret little: cutting my sister’s arm on accident; breaking Granny’s stained-glass; running over my neighbor’s cat; denying it all later.

“Mask4Mask” photo series from the Offroad Productions show A Day With(out) Art: Santa Fe. All taken on iPhone using Hipstamatic app.

“Dissolve” limited edition photo series from the Strangers Collective show Long Echo. All unedited iPhone photos.