Poeaxtry's Prism

Spell. Stone. & Sparks that Ignite Change

Tag: addiction

  • A Trans Man’s Memoir: Haze, Haste, and Happy Days

    A Trans Man’s Memoir: Haze, Haste, and Happy Days

    The First Sentence of My Life:

    I used to know the first word I spoke, as well as the first sentence I uttered to the Earth I didn’t yet know. Once upon a time I had a baby book…

    My Baby Book:

    I often wonder where I misplaced it. It was full of pictures, first experiences, and other tidbits. If I ever found it, I’d make my autobiography’s first line the same as the first line I spoke. But since its current location is unknown, I’ll have to choose another line to enter with in: haze, haste, and happy days.

    My Mind:

    For a transgender man, diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school, and what appears to be a liberal sized scoop of autism. I do see some impossibility in picking one sentence to begin my autobiography with.

    Life for me started in fragments I found while piecing together my identity.
    Shedding a lot of skin that no longer fit along the way.

    Axton

    The Beginning:

    To make a long story short when I was barely two years old, my mom and sperm donor divorced. Mom took me and we left Virginia Beach to move back to Warwood, West Virginia. Where we lived with my great-grandmother.

    For awhile I spoke fluent Polish. I was about ten when Butchie, my great grandmother, had multiple strokes overnight. I was the one who woke to her in need of help, she went to the nursing home after that incident put her in a wheelchair. Butchie had lived in the mobile home with us and my step-dad for a few years by then.

    The poster child for pick a struggle.

    – Axton

    The Summary

    To sum up my formative years domestic abuse, toxicity, and drug use make up as many memories as the good things I can think of. Along with things like abandonment issues, sexual assault, and child abuse at the hands of my stepmom.

    After my mom left Todd, I basically grew up in a single-parent, low-income apartment, under the poverty line. I had my first hit of nicotine by the time I had spent a decade here, followed by my first Vicodin within the next year.

    Just a Little Peek at my Pieces:

    Poetry, Rocks & Minerals, Tarot & Pendulum Readings, Spirituality, Nature, Spell work, BPD, ADHD, Depression, Grief, THC, Nicotine, Transgender Female to Male, Multiple Coming Out Stories, Camping, Animal Lover, Advocate, Tree-Hugger, Sky Watcher, Waterfall Chaser, Cat Dad, Older Brother, Healthcare Worker, Outside, Summertime, Horror, Flowing Stream, and Wanderlust.

    A Few Tidbits of Me I Found Along My Way.

    -Axton

    I am a poster child for pick a struggle as a queer, transgender, neurodivergent, poor, metal health and personality disorder diagnosed individual, and advocate. Welcome to my slow burning opioid use, at Appalachia’s edge.

    A Line to Start My Memior.

    My story is not a uniform line from point A to B. I wasn’t given a map with a layout of how to exist in liner fashion. My life is not neat and uniform.

    • A series of evolving identity
    • surviving layered mental health symptoms
    • emotional contrasts of living in only black and white through BPD
    • grief
    • abandonment issues
    • An inner light shining through

    The Burden

    The line burdened with starting my life’s memoir has to be layered, loud, dramatic, and holding at least a bit of light. It needs to feel like me, so readers see it the scope of the roller coaster I call life.

    Autobiography Opening Lines:

    I have a four different themed options I wrote for opening lines. Each one represents different pieces of me stuck together artistically. You’ll find creativity, nature, spirituality, neurodiversity, and identity layered hypothetical autobiography first lines.

    First impressions are important, or so they say. I think?

    The truth seeker:

    When rockhounding one must pick up many stones and crystals before finding a keeper. The same can be stated when searching for fragments of identity.

    The Neurodivergent Reality:

    I shuffle my deck. Tap each card with finger three times as I shuffle my fate. Cards that never stop moving, patterns I latch onto, images swim and pulse at the edges of my vision, my attention bouncing between shuffled cards and burning frankincense. Then I feel the card that speaks to me, let’s turn it over and see.

    The Truth of Survival:

    I climb up a sloppy muddy slope, boots pressing into the earth, with a squelch. Tree roots jutting from the hillside towards my face sometimes brush my arms. Every scrape a reminder that I am moving forward. Step by step, until the ridge opens and the sky spills across the horizon.

    The High School Ghost:

    I write, erase, and trace the feelings of my words until the rhythm fits. Pen, smooth, sleek, gilding across notebook paper. I drift the hallways, a body moving without claiming space, a chemical i feel hum under my skin, a numbness I used to pay to feel. Shadows of my words cling to everything inside of me and I leave behind a life that was not for me, piece by piece.

    Hey before you go!

    What Opening Statement?

    I want to know the epic first line of your story. Not the one you tell at job interviews but the one you layer to put together with little pieces of you in the seams.

    Comment below with your opening lines. Let us make this thread a collection of shared creativity.

    Do you want to help me?

    I cannot pick my opening line. I equally like them all for different reasons.

    If you had one stick out to you more than the rest for love, hate, or even cringe let me know in the comments.

    I love to hear from you creative individuals, make connections, and create.

    Hey before you leave!

    If you ever want to collaborate on a duo or small group project especially those advocacy or community based.

    If you would like to have a work of art or literature written by any individual who’s a member of a minority.

    If you want to volunteer or pitch minority community based projects.

    If you want to trade or barter digital collections or physical items.

    If you have any Questions. Comments. Concerns.

    Get a Free Digital Collection for Your Honest Review

    Internal Links

    A Poem about Identity

    Becoming my Authentic self

    2026 Legislative Landscape for Transgender Individuals in the US

    A Transgender Man’s Vulnerability is on Screen in this Poem to The Little Girl He Was

    External Links

    Poeaxtry’s Links. Portfolio.

    Creative Community Discord – All Welcome Who Welcome All

    Coffee Helps me Create aka Redbull –

    Buy Me a Coffee?

  • The U.S, Citizen Struggle. Poverty, Addiction, and Pain: The American Dream

    The U.S, Citizen Struggle. Poverty, Addiction, and Pain: The American Dream

    What experiences in life helped you grow the most?

    Poverty Taught Me: Values: Gratefulness, & Blessings:

    Growing up in the midst a poverty engulfed West Virginia small-town, will prove itself to be much worse than i originally expected . Life in a small town U.S. city meant chasing stability like it was something alive and breathing, almost tangible if I ran fast enough.

    Every day brought an air of uncertainty about dinner even breakfast an lunch if I was home from school that day, electricity, and basic needs. Experiencing poverty firsthand and reshaping forever how I understand the American Dream today it is not just material wealth, but the ability to rise despite scarcity.

    Watching my single mom squeeze hope out of empty spaces taught me that struggle changes you, not by breaking you, but by teaching your heart how wide it can open even when there is nothing to give. Poverty taught me not to fear lack but to respect effort. It taught me to recognize abundance when it arrives without needing to hold on too tightly. With this lesson embedded in my bones, I learned gratitude as a daily practice, a way of seeing the world that turns what is available into something generous, meaningful, and enough.

    Resilience Shaped by Addiction

    Addiction pulled at me in during youth with promises of an opioid fueled escape. It whispered that pain could be numbed, quieted, pushed out of sight. I fought that voice with everything I had, losing myself to it before finding the strength to push back. Facing addiction as a teen and young adult was not an event but a long journey through my own shadows, and a constant reckoning with why I wanted to hurt myself and how I could instead learn to heal. Overcoming addiction became a central part of my becoming an adult struggle, teaching me resilience that extends beyond personal battles into every aspect of life. It also reframed my understanding of the American Dream as not only a goal but a process of persistence, self-care, and survival. I came out the other side not unscarred but more aware of where pain lives and how to carry it without letting it rule me.

    Lessons From A Single Mom’s Struggle

    My mom fought every day to keep our lives and our family together. She carried responsibility like rain on her umbrella, she carried love like sunlight in her hands. Watching her struggle and fight widened my understanding of love as fearless and uncalculated effort. I saw sacrifice as a form of devotion and learned that hard work is not just effort but love in motion. Her example of persistence taught me to keep showing up, even when I didn’t feel strong, even when the world said I should retreat. Her determination showed me that achieving the American Dream we have been sold requires more than desire. That it requires resilience, grit, and the ability to keep things moving forward through adversity. From her struggle I learned how to value effort over perfection and how to give grace to the imperfect parts of myself, lessons that generate real personal growth and long-term success.

    Growing Up Around Prejudice And Finding Self Worth:

    I grew up in West Virginia, around a lot of people who believed they were better than others because of race, background, appearance, financial status, or identity. It was a perfect example of who not to be, a mirror reflecting all the ways judgment and superiority wound the human spirit. Experiencing this type of prejudice as a child taught me to question assumptions, and to challenge beliefs that elevate some while diminishing others. As a queer and transgender person, my identity became a source of strength not weakness despite the bias I faced but because of it. I learned to defend my right to exist fully and to demand dignity for all. That struggle shaped a deep well of empathy in me and informed my understanding of resilience in the context of society. I learned to recognize another person’s pain, not as a weakness, but as a story waiting to be heard, and realized that real growth comes from confronting injustice, embracing inclusion, and turning hardship into power.

    Shaping Me:

    The experiences that shaped me are not all easy stories. They are heavy with struggle and rich with lessons. These are the cracks where light got in and defeated darkness. Poverty gave me appreciation, addiction gave me resilience, my mom’s struggle gave me courage, and prejudice taught me compassion. These experiences did not make me who I am overnight, but they taught me how to keep growing, keep opening, and keep becoming. I do not define myself by pain alone but by how I chose to walk through it with gratitude and honesty. My growth as a child into an adult shows that the American Dream is not just a promise, but it is a journey of perseverance, self-discovery, and the will to turn hardship into strength.

    Internal Links

    A poem as the world burns

    A poem about the rust belt

    2026 anti-trans legislation

    Eternal Links

    Poeaxtry’s Links Poeaxtry’s Portfolio

    Discord Community Server