Personal reflections inspired by prompts or life events. This is a digital journal you wander into, unfiltered and uncensored. Honest, trauma-dumping, and deeply personal moments captured in writing.
When the world gets too loud, like, shouting-through-a-megaphone-while-juggling-taxes-and-identity-crises loud, I log off. Literally.
I go to video game land.
Fortnite
It’s not real, and that’s exactly the point. It’s where Fortnite lives. Zero Build, thank you very much, because I’m not here to be Bob the Builder under gunfire. I’m here to run, hide in bushes, throw things, and occasionally third-party with wild success. Nobody questions it. Nobody wants anything from me but vibes.
Nostalgic
When I’m not dodging snipers and emoting after a win, I’m deep in the nostalgia zone. Crash Bandicoot spins like my anxiety but with better music. Spyro the Dragon? Pure escapism. He flies. He breathes fire. He doesn’t get bills in the mail.
Then there’s Streets of Rage, where I get to beat people up and no one calls HR. Sonic shows up too, sprinting through levels and collecting rings like my ADHD on a mission. Even South Park somehow makes the cut, crude, loud, messy, and strangely cathartic. Like therapy, if therapy was animated and extremely inappropriate.
Escapism? Disassociation?
In these places, the rules make sense: survive, level up, don’t get hit. Nobody’s trying to small talk you into a breakdown. Nobody misgenders you. And definitely nobody is asking for your five-year plan.
I leave my name at the login screen and go by something slightly ridiculous and highly specific. I’m not escaping. I’m just buffering. Rebooting the system.
And when I come back? I’m still me, just a little less crispy. A little more ready to face whatever fresh nonsense the world has in store.
So yeah. That’s where I go when the world is too loud.
This journal entry marks the beginning of something I’m genuinely proud of.
My poem The Men Who Are Trans has been published in the newest issue of Forever With Pride. It appears alongside a feature article. The article dives into my creative work, my love of poetry, zines, and even a little nod to rock hounding. This piece is more than just a publication. It marks the first month of a yearlong partnership with the magazine. I couldn’t imagine a better way to begin.
This poem, in particular, is tender and rooted. It’s a quiet thank-you to the men like me. These are trans men who remember what it’s like to be hurt by someone who was supposed to love them. They use that memory as a guide for how to love others with care and intention.
The simps who brood over you while staring at the moon. They forget to text you back while writing verses about their favorite muse, You.
The feature article introduces readers to my broader body of work. It includes my handmade items, prompt journals, and e-books over on Etsy. It also shares my deep love for nature and ritual. Additionally, it highlights the thread of advocacy that runs through everything I create. It’s rare to find a publication that understands you completely. They see you not just as a writer, but as a whole, layered person. Forever With Pride does just that.
I’ll be contributing to Forever With Pride every month for the next year. I’m excited and honestly a little emotional. I’m thinking about where this journey might go. Thank you for being here. Whether you’ve been reading my work for a while or you just found me through something here, it means a great deal to me. Your support matters greatly.
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.
“I write to her now. When crying isn’t enough, the page catches the rest.”
-Axton N.O. Mitchell
My Mom Was Still Young!
She was only fifty. We thought she’d get a liver. We thought we had more time. We thought she wasn’t that sick, until she was. We thought it was a routine hospital visit. It was just like every Wednesday to get the fluid drained from her liver. But it wasn’t. When she came home, she wasn’t with her body anymore. She was unable to communicate. She was brought home to be loved until the end. Of course, this was so her fur baby could mourn as well. A measly 8 days before I turned 30 and 2 months before her twin girls were legal adults.
When my mom passed away, time changed for me. It stopped being infinite. It stopped waiting. Her death made it real, this life has an end, and it can come without warning. That knowing hit me harder than any grief did at first. Now, I no longer let myself believe there’s always tomorrow. I do things now. I say what I need to say. I write when I need to feel. I love the people I have while I have them.
I’ve Changed
I’m different since she died. More grounded. More sober, not just in body, but in how I walk through the world. I keep to a “Cali sober” life. More importantly, I’ve become someone who doesn’t hide in fog anymore. Someone who feels every edge and texture of life. Because I know what it costs not to.
I do way more.
I write for her now. I write to her. When I can’t cry enough, the page catches the rest. When I want to talk to her, I do it through poems and letters I’ll never send. Her death didn’t stop my conversations with her. It just changed where I send the words.
I GUESS…!
I’m the “adultier” adult now. The one my sisters look to. That makes me proud, and it makes me ache. I want to be strong for them, but some days I just want to be held too. I worry I’ll never be able to give them enough. I worry I’ll run out of time with them too.
There are places I go now that I never would have before, bucket list places, things she dreamed of. I take her ashes with me. In every beautiful place I visit, I leave a part of her behind. I also take a part of her with me. It’s how I keep her moving forward with me. It’s how I make peace with what we didn’t get. I go where we spoke of going in whispers and giggle fits late at night. I remained cuddled into her bed even as a grown-up, her child.
A Man Rewritten.
Her death rewrote me. Not into someone shattered, but someone who finally understood the fragility of everything. And instead of breaking, I’ve been building something out of that understanding. A life I want to live fully. A love I want to show loudly. A grief I want to honor honestly.
Because I didn’t get enough time with her.
So now, I make sure nothing I love is left unwritten.
I miss her more than I thought possible, and still then some. I am not broken, but I do break for her often. The tears crash down around me with enough force. Sometimes, I fear what I have built will not survive the oceans I cry, for only her. I would give everything including the rest of my life for just one more day with her. I don’t think anyone is ever ready to lose their mother. My mom was my everything for more years of my life than she wasn’t. This isn’t a pain that gets easier. It is one you simply learn to carry. Otherwise, you risk never growing. My mom wouldn’t be proud of that, so…. I walk on.
Some truths do not come wrapped in lessons or soft landings. The ugliest truth I have had to grow from is not about heart break. It is at least not how you would expect it to be. It was not a breakup or a solo betrayal. I learned repeatedly that the people you let closest can hurt you the most. Oftentimes, the knives hide behind hugs.
Relationships
I was with this one woman for ten years, a lot of high school and young adulthood. We took a break for a few weeks, and she was married to my “best friend.” Neither of them said a word till’ it was done. Not a warning, or a check-in. Just a wedding announcement with my past all dressed up and pretty in my best man’s arm. Like we hadn’t meant a thing, like I had not trusted her with the worst parts of the last decade… and she the same with me.
Maybe that’s what made it worse at the time. It wasn’t just about the girl that hurt me. I mean the man was my best friend. The two I thought were going to be my family forever. Turns out they both can forget I even exist in less than two months.
Then comes in the parade of women who loved the idea of me but never the weight of me. They wanted poetry not presence. They saw me as a soft place to land not a person with his own storms. I would show up, pour in, give them real and all I got in return were lame excuses. Vibes without effort. Promises with no follow through.
At one point (well actually many points) I made myself believe I was too much. I now know was asking for bare minimum. Match my energy. Mean what you say. Show up like I do.
What Breaks me
What breaks me the most isn’t even them. It is the repeated chances I have given most people before and after them. The ugliest truth is that I used to trust too quickly. Believed too deeply. Gave way too much, much too soon. I just did not want to live like the world was full of liars. But the fact simply is some people are. Some people see your heart as something to step around. Some will touch your wounds with dirty fingers. Some will allow you to carry them until you fold under the weight of them.
And when I finally broke, I rebuilt smaller, and tighter. With iron clad boundaries I hold like barb wire. That’s what growth looked like: not forgiveness and not grace. Just knowing better and loving harder from further away.
Growth
I grew from this experience. Not everyone who reaches for you deserves a seat at your table. And trust should never be given before it is actually earned.
“I still carry the sound of your promises that never made it past your teeth.”
-Axton N.O. Mitchell
Hi Jake.
I know I swore I let go of all this shit. All of you. But I still carry the sound of promises that never made it past your teeth.
Dad the disappearing act that always came with excuses, the birthdays you ghosted like it was a tradition. The ball games, the plays, the sick days, you’d call for them all big or small. I carry the echo of your words: I’ll be there this time. You never were.
I miss you Momma!
I carry the way Mom said my name right before everything stopped. Eight days before I turned 30, my sisters both not even 21. She stopped existing in a world that never deserved her. I still talk to her like she can hear me. They did teach us energy gets replaced it never leaves. Maybe that’s the part I haven’t let go of. I doubt I have let go of much but her physically. Maybe that’s the part I never should let go. I won’t. I can’t let more of her slip away. She falls through the cracks between my fingers as I pretend. I was definitely not crying again. Not that anyone asked.
I’m the Problem, so They must be the Reason.
I carry the weight of being told I make people miserable, like I’m a curse wrapped in skin. The way an ex said I’d ruin everything I touched the opposite of that king Midas, I think. I don’t remember, but as a kid, my mom would read me a book. It was about a king who turned everything to gold.
As well as other Ex’s and other things they said they never meant to say… but still said. Anyway, for a while, I believed them. Because when you hear it often enough, it doesn’t sound like abuse anymore. It sounds like proof.
The Demons they Left behind
And honestly, if I’m being real, it still does when the demon bpd shows his ass. It’s way further apart than it was known to be in history but I’m still clearly sore in many places. I don’t like to talk directly about that shit. It’s hard when the person you talked to the only one is located on your shelf in an urn. What a joke. The weight of all this is sometimes enough to drown me, I fear.
Those People who left When Axton stopped Hiding
The people who said they loved me until I came-out, found me, or loved me. I chose a name that fit, and they couldn’t try to call me it. I started to look like someone they hadn’t imagined. So they didn’t come around and get used to me as I changed. They decided it was better to walk away.
I carry the silence that followed coming out, the way their love had fine print and conditions. That I didn’t see until I bled through it, of fucking course. They loved the version of me I had to bury. But I didn’t die with her, she was always a shield for a boy too weak to exist. You just knew him by a different name and set of pronouns.
I became something more. I was lonelier at first. Fresh out of my shell. I found my tribe, and the more, I grow the louder I am about equality for everyone. That scares them, so, it is theirs to hold.
I’ve got enough of my own weight to carry. And I do. Every damn day. I carry all the things I said I had burned. The truth is I just folded them up, pressed them behind my ribs like a sad collection. I still read those letters sometimes. They still sting. And I can’t do a thing to stop them from opening.
“Every damn day, I carry all the things I said I had burned. I still read those letters sometimes.”
-Axton N.O. Mitchell
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The moment I started writing for survival is not one that would be difficult to pinpoint, especially if you know my story well. I’m not sure if I can even claim that story as my own. It was always more Arielle’s to tell; the kid experienced the hell of living through it. It is simply a memory we share. I no longer carry the trauma it produced.
Let me paint you a picture: I was in 7th grade, around the age of twelve, a straight A student who loved sports, reading, chorus, and writing both short stories and poetry. I had just started hearing the murmurs in the halls, that boy this and this boy that. I had to hold my metaphorical vomit back. When did this happen? We want to ogle all the boys, since when? Not I, and then I realized my best friend and her thighs. This is not normal, and I am already weird so we can just pretend, go along with the boy trend. Fast Foward 7th grade Christmas break. This is the last place for you to turn around before the moment that changed me, and my reasoning for creating art through words.
Okay one of us is at least still here… I had to go to the house of my enemy for most of the break. I remember feeling defeated. My mom could not stop the judge from sending me to what I mistakenly thought was the worst possible layer of hell. A bitch for a father who leaves me on porches for days and days, each weekend, each year (check out my poem still) or just lies to my face either way he’s more than know for abandoning me. Jake the fucking snake. Or the stepmom straight out of R.L. Stein. But they were not even close to the worst, and I would soon learn. I packed my bags and headed to Jakes apartment for what was supposed to be a few weeks visit.
For once I really wish my evil stepmother was there this night and he had just lied about their goodbyes. We went to Uncle Heath’s the evil stepmother’s brother and somehow snake’s best friend. He had a wife, a bug infested house, and a bunch of dirt covered kids. The worst thing in the house was not there because of him. Enter the devil himself at just 17 with teeth sticking horizontally out of the vile thing known as his mouth. He’d touch me under the table with his toes through my pants in the kitchen, while his mom bragged about his large member claiming it put her husbands to shame. I tried and tried to tell, pinch me with his toes until i was quiet from fear. Would hold me down as soon as the adults left out of there. He would touch me all over under my clothes, always stopping before “taking it too far” as if he hadn’t already with a child my age, as an almost man.
I wish I could say that was the end. I begged and begged every time to not have to go to Heath’s but hadn’t told on him. He’d growl at me and threaten to end what life I did have. Jake was usually pretty smart on the pervy way some guy’s minds work…I wonder why. anyway, he’d always tell the devil no when he would ask to stay the night with me. Until that Christmas Eve. The Devil asked and my fucking “dad” said yes knowing it was only us two and now three so my brothers wouldn’t be there to hear anything. My dad got us to his apartment building told devil man to stay in the living room and to leave me be. Jake the snake was always good at one thing sleeping. The devi snuck in and raped me in my brother’s race car bed. I didn’t think it would ever end, he slapped me around, threatened my mother, and left out the door. Although I watched him get up, I never stopped feeling his weight crushing me.
I waited up all night for Jake to awake, and when I told him what happened He slapped me in the face, called me a whore, sent me out the door to the stoop to wait for my mom. This was Christmas day in 7th grade. I sat on the porch while it snowed and couldn’t shed a tear with my Christmas presents in piles unopened laying on the ground. For years I wish I had never said a thing. I told my mom at the age of 19. As sad as it is to say the reaction she had, the emotions, the pain finally told me everything. To my dad I never meant anything. My mom went after him of course. He lied and said I never told him, and pretended he was going to press charges all those years later, and still never did. Still closer to the man who raped his daughter than he ever was to her.
This story gets a happy ending finally. The devil went back to hell where he should have always stayed. And my brother thinks he’s a good man, and wonders why I don’t talk to any of them.
Thank you Mr. Matthew Mitchell. I sure hope you do better to protect your daughters than supporting the likes of a rapist even in death. To circle back around I started writing to escape the vicious rape at the hands of an almost adult, who was introduced to me as my cousin. This need to escape through writing grew as did I. While the size of the things I was writing to hide from began to shrink. I may be passed a lot of feelings this used to stir but I’ll still piss on this man’s grave.
Much Love Forever to everyone but my father, Axton N. O. Mitchell @Poeaxtry_
