Dial-up didn’t just connect us to the internet, but it introduced us to waiting. Fifth grade, AOL, the sound of the modem screeching through the speakers like it was fighting for its life. That chaos meant something exciting was about to happen.
Dial-up
Before that, the computer was just a thing that sat there, mostly used for schoolwork or solitaire. Then one day, it became a portal. Logging into AOL felt monumental as if I was stepping into a secret space, somewhere beyond the world you knew. The Welcome! voice, the neon-blue interface, the thrill of clicking into chatrooms, instant messaging, early websites that felt infinite. Everything took time, loading pixel by pixel, but it didn’t matter. It was new. It was discovery.
Betrayal
The betrayal came when someone picked up the phone. One second, you were connected, deep in conversation, and the next all was gone. Screen frozen, world vanished, internet sacrificed because someone needed to make a call. You’d storm into the kitchen, frustrated, but there was no winning. The phone ruled the household.
Patience
And then there was patience, waiting for pages to load, images to reveal themselves line by line. Clicking a link wasn’t casual. It was a commitment, a hope that after enough buffering and struggle, the site would finally appear.
AOL dial-up wasn’t just technology. It was an experience. Anticipation, frustration, triumph. It was strategy, timing, knowing when it was safe to log in without interruptions. The internet wasn’t always mine. I had to fight for it.
Clunky, slow, maddening. But it was a first step into something bigger than a fifth-grade world. It wasn’t just about signing on, it was about realizing there was more out there.
More people. More ideas. More places to explore.
Even if you had to hear the modem scream every single time.
Build your altar with purpose 🌿 This layout aligns your sacred space with the five classical elements. These elements are earth, air, fire, water, and spirit. Each spot holds its own energy and meaning, so you can bring balance and intention to your practice.
Use simple, natural tools you already have at home. Swap them out seasonally or whenever you feel called. Remember, your intention is the magic powering the whole thing.
🕯️ Center -Spirit:
This is the heart of your altar where your connection to spirit or higher power is focused. Place a candle here for illumination and presence. You can also place a deity symbol or statue. This will honor the divine force guiding your practice. You can also use a crystal cluster, sacred object, or meaningful talisman that helps you feel spiritually rooted. This spot grounds your intention and centers your energy, making it the spiritual anchor of your sacred space.
💧 Left -Water:
Water represents emotion, intuition, and cleansing energy. Use a small bowl filled with water, a cup, a shell, or even a vial of rain or spring water. This element invites flow and adaptability. It reminds you to listen to your inner feelings. Wash away what no longer serves you. You can add fresh flowers to highlight flow. Include sea glass and blue crystals like aquamarine to emphasize depth. Use a small fountain to accentuate water’s movement.
🔥 Right -Fire:
Fire fuels transformation, passion, and courage. Place a candle, wand, incense burner, or even dried herbs like cinnamon or rosemary that burn easily. Fire brings light and energy, helping you ignite your inner spark and bring boldness to your magic. Symbols of the sun, red or orange stones, or matches and lanterns can also amplify this energy. This is where your drive lives, the motivation, and power behind your spell work.
🌬️ Top – Air:
Air represents communication, clarity, and mental energy. Use feathers, incense, dried herbs like lavender or sage, bells, or even a smudge fan here. Air helps you connect with thought, breath, and inspiration. You might also add a quill pen, scroll, or even paper for affirmations or spells. This space invites new ideas, clears the mental fog, and opens the way for honest self-expression.
🌍 Bottom – Earth:
Earth offers stability, grounding, and growth. Place salt, crystals, herbs, soil, stones, or even a tiny potted plant. Earth holds the energy of protection and abundance, helping you root your practice in something real and lasting. You can also use pinecones, green or brown cloth, or seasonal produce. This spot connects you to your foundation and reminds you of your place in nature’s rhythm.
⸻
Seasonal swaps
Keep your altar fresh and in tune with the world around you:
In spring, add flowers, pastel stones, or seed packets.
In summer, try shells, bright candles, or sun symbols.
For autumn, dried leaves, mini pumpkins, or warm-toned cloth.
In winter, use evergreens, pine cones, white or dark candles, and cinnamon sticks.
Use what you have, follow your intuition, and let your altar grow with you. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to feel right.
Arielle. Not just because it wasn’t mine anymore. The name carried a lot. That name was a suit of skin I never chose, sewn with expectations I never fit into. People loved her, or thought they did. She was sweet, she was obedient, she was the smile in photos that made everyone else comfortable. But she was also quiet because she had to be. She hid everything—grief, anger, queerness, gender—deep enough that even she forgot how much was buried.
That name.
Arielle was the name in my dad’s voice when he needed someone to blame. The name on cards from my mom when she didn’t know how to see me. It was the name teachers praised. Pastors prayed over it. Strangers misgendered it. Sisters protected the name even when I didn’t know how to protect myself. It was all sharp edges and a mask I wore so long it felt like skin.
I’m not her. I never was.
Still, I won’t pretend she didn’t exist. Arielle got me here. She survived what I shouldn’t have had to. She wrote poems in secret, carved hope into notebook margins, and stayed alive when everything said not to. She was the ghost I outgrew, the beginning of me.
There were days Arielle felt like a shadow dragging behind me. I was always a step out of reach, but never gone. I wrestled with her silence. Struggled with the parts of myself I was afraid to look at. Then hid the truth behind a name that wasn’t mine. But with every poem I wrote, every truth I told, I felt her loosen her grip. Not because I abandoned her, but because I learned to carry her differently.
Axton writes to walk her home.
Now, when I write, I don’t write to erase her. I write to hold her hand and walk her home.
This is why I write. Not for closure, but connection.
Not to silence Arielle, but to let her rest.
And in her place, I stand. Alive. Whole. Still writing.
Every word is a step forward. Every poem, reclaiming. Every breath, a nod to the person I was always underneath it all.
and for safety, that doesn’t feel like a question.
I draw sigils in journals
and stir hope into my coffee
with cinnamon and spells.
My practice is survival.
It is making the ordinary holy
because I was once told I wasn’t.
It’s the spell work of staying.
The prayer of not vanishing.
No altar, no pews,
but a thousand wild sanctuaries
where grief and softness can sit side by side.
Call it what you want—
but when I speak my truth
and let it live out loud,
that feels close to worship.
That feels like a homecoming.
Spirituality
🌿 If you practice belief in your own way through soil, silence, or survival. I’d love to hear how. Leave a comment or share your reflection. Your voice belongs here.
I’m good at telling the truth, even when it’s raw. At writing poems that bite and bleed and bloom, that don’t apologize for what they carry. I’m good at seeing what others miss. Including in people, in patterns, in the quiet. I read cards like maps, pendulums like conversations, and I don’t flinch when the message is sharp. Following the message hidden with-in as if I knew the way all along.
Stone Crafts & Witch craft Items
I’m good at making things with my hands and with my heart. I can dig through dirt and stone to find what the earth tried to keep hidden. I then tumble it, or polish it, turn it into something you want to keep close. I make sprays, spell jars, wreaths, wands, offerings that work. That carry weight. That don’t just look pretty they include intentions clearly set by me.(I didn’t list every thing I make.)
Being a Friend
I’m good at being the friend who stays. The brother who knows when to check you and when to hold you. The brother who does anything to make you laugh. I’m good at hearing what isn’t being said. At being the kind of advocate that doesn’t water anything down. I fight smart, and I fight loud when I need to. I’m a Robin Hood for the ones who’ve been ignored too long. I know how to take up space without stealing it from others.
Cultivating Positivity out of the Negative
I’m good at turning grief into action. At noticing magic in the mess. At building community from the ground up, not just to exist, but to matter.
Survival & Forgiveness
I’m good at surviving and then choosing to come back with open hands anyway. I’m good at treating people better than they treat me, giving people too much energy, and trusting too fast also. Honesty it’s all a part of what makes me… me, so I’d keep it all the same.
So, tell me what are you good at that no one claps for, that no one sees until it’s gone? What about the thing you shine at even when no one’s watching, just because it’s yours? What did you never have to try to do you just knew like it was always with you ?
Having It All: A Reflection on Equality & Coexistence
What does “having it all” mean? Some define it by personal success, material wealth, or fulfilling relationships. But on a broader scale, having it all should mean equity and freedom, not just for some, but for everyone. The right to marry. The right to accessible healthcare. Protections for disabled individuals. Trans people’s access to care. Diversity, equity, and inclusion as more than corporate buzzwords. The freedom to exist authentically without fear, without unnecessary barriers, without unjust restrictions.
Can we obtain this?
Is this obtainable? Yes, but only if society moves with intention. Laws and policies are the framework, but coexistence is the spirit that makes lasting change possible. True equality isn’t just about legislation; it’s about culture, action, and accountability. It’s about actual separation of church and state, ensuring governance isn’t dictated by religious dogma but by principles of fairness. It’s about understanding that individual freedoms don’t diminish collective progress, they strengthen it.
More. MORE. MORE!!!
What else belongs in this conversation? Reproductive rights. Indigenous sovereignty. Racial justice. Economic accessibility. Every movement that pushes back against marginalization contributes to a larger pursuit. This pursuit aims for an existence where we aren’t merely surviving but thriving. We strive to thrive in ways that honor identity, autonomy, and dignity.
Having it all isn’t about perfection. It’s about a world where no one has to fight just to be seen, valued, or safe. And that is worth working toward.
Yesterday, I took a trip to Cedarville, Ohio. My companions were two close friends, Luna, and one of my friend’s toddlers. It was my first time exploring Indian Mound Reserve. We took about two hours with stops. The drive itself was peaceful. We had the kind of conversations that set the mood for a day of adventures and recharge. The weather hovered around the mid-50s with an on and off drizzle. It was not enough to drench us. However, it was just enough to make everything smell like clean earth and wet bark. The kind of rain that makes the greens greener and turns even ordinary trails into something soft and cinematic.
I shouldn’t plan or control the map.
We planned to do the 2.5-mile Rim Trail, but thanks to some confusion on AllTrails, and my attention span didn’t help matters. So, we ended up doubling back and weaving in circles until we’d clocked over 4 miles. Despite the detour, it didn’t feel like a mistake, just part of the adventure. The trail wound us through a vibrant forest. Red and purple flowers began to bloom. These were early declarations of late spring. Waterfall views made the mud and missteps worth it. The whole area hummed with the sound of running water, and it followed us nearly the entire hike. There’s something about that like being gently reminded to keep flowing forward, no matter how tangled the path becomes.
The trail itself was a bit rugged in parts, especially after the rain. Tree roots snaked across much of the path. The muddiness made for a comical dance. This was especially true since I had worn my etnies. I rarely wear hiking boots. I slipped or slid numerous times. Each slip reminded me that I probably need to actually wear my boots. Still, I wouldn’t change it. There’s something about feeling the ground fight back a little that makes me feel more alive.
We crossed numerous wooden bridges and steps, weaving over and across the large creek that cuts through the park. Some of the trails we passed weren’t even marked in AllTrails yet. This tends to happen in less populus areas. My little unofficial footpaths and secret side trails waiting to be explored another day. The water access points were everywhere. With so few people on the trail, it felt like we had the whole preserve to ourselves. That kind of quiet is rare. It is broken only by the babble of water and the chatter of a toddler discovering nature. This is especially true even in Ohio’s backwoods.
Even though I wasn’t alone, the experience was still refreshingly personal. There’s a rhythm I fall into on hikes like this, a balance between noticing everything and thinking about nothing. It’s where I process things I don’t have words for. I watch Luna splash, sniff, and smile. Then, I remember why I do this. The road and the forest matter to me in ways that a house or a routine never could.
I’ll eventually return to Cedarville to explore the other trails and waterfalls. This first visit was only the rim of what’s possible there. I want to hike them all, but honestly that’s nothing new. There’s something sacred in learning a place like that. One muddy mile at a time.
I collect the Earth, stone by stone, crystal by crystal. Not usually ones bought in bins, but treasures I hound myself. I trade with other rockhounds too, offering my finds for theirs like stories passed between old souls. Some I tumble. Some I slice. Some I slice and tumble or polish. Some I polish by hand until their true colors and patterns shine through like secrets whispered by time.
You’ll find them transformed into necklaces, keychains, and little “Stoney Homies.” Some are left whole, smoothed and gleaming. They rest on altars, shelves, or windowsills. I carry slag glass with me that glows beneath UV light, found in the sands of Lake Superior. Not all glow from here either. I also have its bluer, non-reactive cousin from Lake Erie. Leland Blue, yopperlites, pudding stones, labradorite, Petoskey and unakite. Jaspers, agates, quartz, flint from Nethers Farm on Flint Ridge (some sparkling with quartz inclusions).
Hiking = Hounding
Every hike becomes a hunt for treasure. Every shoreline offers gifts. I have a special UV map for the Great Lakes region. I use a 365nm light to spot the glow in the dark. Chisels, buckets, hammers, even an old 1970s Sears tumbler join me in this ritual. I can tumble up to 14 lbs at once, and still find joy in spending hours hand-polishing just one stone.
Alongside the rocks come ancient echoes. These include crinoid fossils, coral fossils, and brachiopods. Some are cleaned and gently polished, while others are left mostly raw. Nature’s memory is preserved in stone.
So yes, I collect.
But not just rocks
I collect moments, beauty, and the deep magic of the Earth itself.
If you want to explore the physical and digital side of Poeaxtry, the stores are always open. Physical items like handmade pieces, ritual tools, and select creations live only on Etsy. Digital books, zines, and downloads are available through Gumroad, Etsy, & Payhip. As well as some being available on Kindle & Amazon. Same hands clicking keys across all, just different formats for different hands, needs, and screens.
I am a fan of the melancholy, the morbid, and the macabre.
A glutton for the gore and the grotesque. A shameless slut for a slasher or two.. I’m hoping this is also you.
See I find it easier to write about what I know and I like. If I hit a bump or two and I cannot seem to write a thing, I like. I just look into the dark for a spark.
If you make friends when the sunshine dies where the sidewalk ends… Where creepers find a home to crawl, You are in for a treat. Take your seat.
This is my homage to the strange, the odd one out, the girl who forgot her shout, and the boy who had her back but never his own. You are no longer under attack.
