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Individuals deconstructing religious upbringings, readers with alternative spiritual beliefs, poetry lovers looking for like-minded authors.
The Essence:
Read Time: ⏰2mins| Mood: 🔥Visceral&Incisive| Weight: ⚖️ Heavy & Direct|
The Vault:
“Spit it Out” an original poem by Axton N. O. Mitchell
Performative Piety
Weaponized Judgment
Faith that is Convenient
Religious & Hypocritical:
It’s fascinating and deeply exhausting watching people who spend half their time judging everyone else suddenly turn around and play the desperate supplicant the second things go sideways.
You know the type. They’re the ones quick to point fingers, moralize, and weaponize their religion to police how other people live. They speak of their god with a casual, performative disdain when life is comfortable, acting like they’ve got it all figured out. Do you know what happens the moment a real storm hits? The self-righteous act evaporates instantly. Suddenly, that slick tongue is begging for shelter, proving they’re just as terrified, hypocritical, and fragile as anyone else.
That selective, weaponized brand of faith is what this poem is all about:
“Spit it Out”
By: Axton N. O. Mitchell
You speak of God as if you don’t think he exists…
say one thing while you think another.
Just the same as every one else.
Every one of them.
Were you not just begging while his name was filling your mouth?
Just the same as every one of them.
Curtain pulled back, so no one can see…
tongue slick with the holy, secretions.
Spit out the conviction.
How easy it was to call for shelter when the storm hits the clearing.
You only carry the ghost when it suits you.
Reflecting:
At its core, “Spit it Out” is a direct call-out of religious hypocrisy… the way certain people use religion as a badge of superiority until it’s time to cash it in for personal rescue.
A few lines really break down that dynamic:
The Hollow Performative Piety: “You speak of God as if you don’t think he exists / say one thing while you think another.” There’s a profound fakeness in how some believers treat their own dogma. They wear it like a costume, performing devotion when it’s socially convenient, but treating the actual tenets of their faith with casual hypocrisy in everyday life.
The Weaponized Judgment: “ Were you not just begging while his name was filling your mouth?” These are the exact people quick to cast stones at others for “living in sin” or stepping out of line. Yet, their own mouths are full of the exact same desperate, transactional pleas when they’re backed into a corner. The holier-than-thou act crumbles the second they need saving.
Convenience Faith: “How easy it was to call for shelter when the storm hits the clearing. / You only carry the ghost when it suits you.” This is the heart of the critique. They don’t live by these principles; they just use them as an umbrella when it rains, and discard them when the sun comes back out so they can go right back to judging everyone else. It’s a ghost they summon only when they’re scared of the dark.
Ultimately, it’s about stripping away the fake moral high ground. If you’re going to judge the rest of the world from your supposed pedestal, at least have the backbone to stand on it when the weather gets rough.
Behind the Ink:
Axton N. O. Mitchell is a writer, independent publisher, and avid trail trekker based out of Ohio. When not writing poetry or working overnight, you can usually find him out rock-hounding, exploring state parks with, or hanging out with his entirely too large crew of rescue pets.
Transgender people who live daily life faced with hypervigilance, rural queer folk, trauma survivors, queer individuals tuned into TikTok trends, Indie readers who prefer real over polished, activists, & people who use hiking as survival.
Transgender Survival & the American Landscape:
Some truths follow us the way we follow trails:
Step-by-step
Ridge to gorge and back
Breath to breath
I may hike because it steadies me, but I know that the world doesn’t always steady people like me. This poem sits in a space where identity meets danger, where movement becomes survival, and being transgender in America becomes a beautiful declaration and a life-ending risk.
There is a trend moving through TikTok right now that states “ I was born trans, I will die trans, but I do not want to die because I am trans”
I wrote this piece with that echo and the remnants of the feeling of my chest binder, although I took the last one off eight years ago.
This is my lived reality.
This poem to me is exactly what all of this feels like when carried through America especially rural America. It was born inside the part of me that never gets to rest or take a break. It is the hypervigilance of always looking over my shoulder. It may not be pretty, but it is honest and honesty is the only thing that’s ever kept me alive.
Here you’ll find the danger of being transgender and the United States of America, even after the caution tape has been ripped down. You will find that typically the threat always stays the same. Fear may follow us and danger may stay the same, but my resilience here will never back down.
Honestly, here you’ll find the part of me that knows visibility can be fatal, so I never actually rest. Located here is the transgender man that scans every room for the exit every time he enters, the man who hikes miles, gasping for breath just to be able to breathe again, as well as the man that knows danger hides behind every corner.
Are you ready to unpack that?
Die Trans
I was born trans I will die trans I do not want to die because I am trans.
Day by day As time passes Identifying myself feels like laying my life on the line
Step by step As I trek on these thoughts haunt me as if I’m projecting them onto the big screen
Can they tell? Do they know? I’m in danger At this pace it won’t end well, We can tell caution tape ripped down Is still just as yellow
The Bitterness in the End:
At the end, we see a transgender man moving on a trail that doesn’t always safely move around him or others like him. Yet every step reminds him that he is still here, he is still trekking, and still refusing to let fear silence him.
This poem shows you that lines that started a TikTok trend carry deeper weight when you actually move through life with them. This is the truth. I will always walk with: I was born trans and I will die trans, but I also refuse to live in fear because I am trans. I will always live on my own terms no matter how dangerous the world around me may seem. While the danger doesn’t disappear, neither does he.
I’m sorry if you were looking for a clean ending, and you didn’t find that here. However I won’t apologize for always having the same stubborn heartbeat that pushes me through this life. While this piece doesn’t solve anything it does prove that sometimes the truth is the only resolution there is to be had.
No matter what I will keep hiking, I will keep living and I will keep being and that’s the whole fucking point.
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Readers living with borderline personality disorder (BPD), Friends, partners, and family members wanting to better understand splitting, & People interested in mental health through poetry
The Essence:
Read time: 🕰️ 2 to 3 minutes |Weight: 🥊 Heavy | Mood: 🗝️Vulnerable & introspective |
The Vault:
An exploration of splitting in borderline personality disorder
Black-and-white thinking through the metaphor of color
The impact of fear & emotional permanence
Self-awareness without self-condemnation
A personal perspective rather than a universal experience
BPD Meets Poetry:
Mental health diagnoses are often explained with clinical language, but clinical language rarely comes close to capturing what they feel like from the inside. One symptom commonly associated with borderline personality disorder is called splitting.
Splitting is the tendency, often under stress or perceived rejection, to swing between extremes in how a person, situation, or even yourself is perceived. It isn’t a conscious choice. It can happen so quickly that someone who felt completely safe moments ago suddenly feels dangerous, distant, or impossible to trust.
This poem doesn’t attempt to define BPD. It simply describes one moment of living inside it.
Colors:
An Original Poem by: Axton N. O. Mitchell.
Supposedly, people like me living on the borderline see situations in hues of black and white, alone.
Quick replies that, for a moment, slow their pace feel like betrayal to me, typically.
Consider my job for a moment. One small mistake can leave me more than prepared to be walked to the door.
A new friendship begins, leaving me amazed by them until triggered reactions paint them as cruel in my point of view.
Life for me is often yellow and blue, both capable of making happiness painful.
Until
I
Split.
Yellow now resembles toxic gas, poisonous, dense.
Blue transforms into a numb, impenetrable nothingness.
Splitting:
One of the hardest things about splitting is that it doesn’t usually announce its arrival. It feels like clarity when it’s happening, even if hindsight time reveals something different.
Understanding the mechanism doesn’t always stop it. Naming it doesn’t always ease it. Sometimes all you can do is recognize that your world has suddenly changed hues and wait until you’re able to see the full picture again.
TLDR:
This poem explores splitting, a symptom many people with borderline personality disorder experience, through the changing symbolism of color.
It reflects how quickly perception can shift after a trigger, transforming connection into fear and certainty into emotional isolation, while offering readers a glimpse into one lived experience rather than defining the disorder itself.
Introspective nature lovers, overstimulated city dwellers, long-distance hikers seeking a deeper meaning, poetry lovers who find rhythm in the wind, modern adventurers trying to find reasons to disconnect, & people concerned with their screen time.
The Vault:
Original Indie Poem with Poet’s Perspective & Reflection on the piece
The Soundtrack of Silence: Why “noise” in the wilderness is the only antidote to the constant, demanding static of daily news & digital notifications that works for me.
The “Glowing Rectangle” Effect: A look at how our tether to screens fuels anxiety & why replacing that artificial light with moonlight is a necessity.
Midwest Trek Breakdown: Highlights from my June 2026 trip across Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, & Ohio. This includes navigating a tornado warning mid-hike at Turkey Run.
Hiking as Survival, Not Sport: Exploring why I treat the trail as a mandatory discipline for mental health & why this is my favored vacation and weekly routine.
Luna’s Trail Influence: How consistent time in nature dictates the energy levels & behavioral health of my dog, Luna, in our life and at home.
Turkey Hill State Park before the tornado warning.
Silence The Sound, Sometimes:
Sometimes the best thing you can do… is to step away; for me this looks a lot like stepping into the wilderness.
Whether you prefer to day hike, backpack, thru-hike, bushwhack, or even just frolic through a nature walk, we all understand one thing: the noise out here is different. Silence isn’t always quiet, sometimes it just means noise that demands nothing but your wonder. This poem is about just that.
So let’s step away from the noise, notifications, and expectations. Let us figure out how to just exist for at least a few moments.
No schedule, no glowing rectangle, just the sound of the trees and the way the wind greets you after you put a few miles on trail.
This may look like running away, but remember things are not always what they seem. For a Moment – an original piece by Axton N. O. Mitchell written after his Midwest hiking trip in the summer of 2026 which exists as a reminder to who I am in nature when everything gets quiet.
For a Moment:
Somewhere out there, someone is standing above the tree-line hearing the sounds of nature replacing the chaos of the daily news.
Warnings of false connection replaced if only for moments.
Voices through speakers silenced
Buzzing
Chirping
Trees scrape
their neighbors’ bark gusts before you feel the wind in your hair you must hike through it.
Instead of headlights shining bright line of vision lit up like the summer sky.
Moonlight greets them unconcerned with anything but, being.
Distance here creates thoughts no longer bracing against expected impact.
For a moment nothing is heavy.
The first half of the original poem for a moment showing spacing use as pause and reflection.
Poet’s Note:
Reflections – The Mid-June Soundtrack:
I found the reason for writing my newest poem “For a Moment” in the quiet exhale that followed my last few treks. This trip was a whirlwind stretch in mid-June 2026. This was by far not just your average getaway; it was a pact made months ago with a friend. I’d agreed to give her a lift after unforeseen circumstances caused her to need a driver for two Illinois trips. My side of the bargain was simple: I’d drive, as long as we could hike on both trips and go camping during at least one of them.
The reality of those days was a jarring and beautiful image at the end of it all.
Tuesday in Indiana’s Turkey Run State Park, the air grew thick and strange; our phones erupted in unison. Blaring a frantic, digital warning to seek immediate shelter from an incoming tornado. We were at the midpoint with a few miles to go, caught between the beauty of the trail and the sheer volatility of nature.
Later that same night and into the early morning hours of Wednesday, after checking into our hotel, we pivoted to an Illinois spot known for 24/7 access. Shelbyville State Fish & Wildlife Area allows unrestricted, unmaintained hiking with no closing time. This level of authentic wilderness is a rare experience for me.
On Wednesday we moved from the Falls of the Ohio to the Big 4 Bridge. Then Thursday hit and we awoke back in Cadiz, Ohio. That morning my friend, her two children, and I drove to pick up my child in my hometown area of Belmont County, Ohio. We all then looped back through Piatt Park in Ohio.
I hit Salt Fork on my way home since I pass it directly, so I stopped for a solo wind-down. Hoping my brain would finally settle from the constant go of the last few days.
Then on Friday the early evening for me was spent at Hemlock Falls in Butler, Ohio, with Luna, my dog, leading the way. She isn’t just a companion; her energy levels and behavioral shifts on trail and in the following days are a mirror of my own.
Balancing these high-intensity, multi-state treks with the quiet, necessary solo miles and ensuring Luna gets her time is how I keep the noise at a bearable level. To me, the hike is not just about the distance covered; it’s about the silence I had to carve out of that noise.
Personal Perspective: Why I Choose the Trail:
I’m no stranger to the side-eyes, the teases, and the outright criticism regarding how I spend my time off.
The second half of the original poem for a moment showing spacing use as pause and reflection.
People love to tell me that hiking isn’t a vacation, or that the way I spend my free time is anything but relaxing. When you look at the itinerary, my marathon run of Maryland, Highpoint, PA, Ohiopyle, and Cooper’s Rock in the spring, or the heavy-mileage stretches through the Blue Ridge Parkway, Asheville, Pisgah, and the New River Gorge, I can understand why it feels like labor to the uninitiated.
They’re missing the point. To me, “relaxing” isn’t sitting still; it’s the active shedding of everything that drags on my internal battery. When I’m “chilling” visually, the thoughts in my mind are nine times out of ten anything but chill, and while I do enjoy the beach, laying there all week would do nothing for me.
Actually, my stress levels would probably be through the roof after all the time I’d spend in my own head while you would probably have the time of your life.
For a Moment is a direct response to that overstimulation. It’s for the person standing in the tree-line, listening to the friction of bark against bark in the wind or the times when the sound of a chime from your incoming notification feels like a physical assault.
We are all being pelted by the modern “glowing rectangle” culture, always tethered to screens that offer nothing but the illusion of connection.
I’ve perfected the art of the escape because I’ve realized it’s a necessity for me in this new-aged always chaotic hellscape.
Whether it’s swapping high beams for the unfiltered light of the moon or learning how to let the weight of existence actually drop off my shoulders, I’ve made this a weekly discipline. If I’m not on the trail for a little bit of time one or two days a week, the anxiety of the daily grind starts to take over all of my space, and I’ve fought hard to clear.
I do love a yummy view; I don’t just hike to see the sights though. Hiking for me means a place to remember who I am when the alarm bells finally go quiet.
Whatever You Do:
Reader, wherever you are, if you’re waiting for the perfect window, the right gear, or a weekend free of obligations to finally step away, let this be your permission to stop waiting. The “weight of being” isn’t something you can just set down on the couch; it requires a deliberate shift in your environment.
Whether you are navigating a multi-state trek, an urban green-space to escape the rush, or just finding a local patch of woods to explore, the goal remains the same: reclaiming the quiet that your nervous system is starving for.
We often talk about hiking as a hobby, exercise, adventure, or a sport, but for some of us it is all that and more. I for one know I’m a part of a rapidly growing group of individuals who use these trails to trek through the triumph and trials of life. We also are able to recharge our social batteries after social, personal, and professional obligations. I feel this is necessary to me as a way to maintain self-care.
Caring for yourself is important. How will you do all you plan to if you’re not here to do it?
– Axton N. O. Mitchell
That space where the trees scrape together, where the wind drowns out the hum of the normal chaos of modern life, is where some of us find the version of ourselves that have yet to be worn down by anxieties and expectations.
The next time you feel the pressure building, look at your calendar. Try a new kind of vacation, day trip, or even passing moment.
Find your trail, pack your essentials, and go. You don’t need to conquer a mountain to experience the wonders of nature; you just need to put enough miles between you and the chaos to hear yourself think again.
Have you carved out your space yet?
Leave a comment below about the one trail or natural spot where you finally feel the silence take hold or, if you’re a person who thinks hiking isn’t your kind of vacation, tell me where you find your peace? I look forward to reading what you do instead and why it works, as well as the hiking trails you enjoy just the same.
Oh, before you go:
For those who read the hiking journals from my many outdoor escapes, the entries from this trip and from a few of the day treks before will be available here soon!
I am just a little behind the time I usually take to get them out, but can you blame me? The weather has been too nice for me to not take advantage of the offering.
TLDR:
This poetry deep-dive explores the necessity of disconnecting, while focusing on finding silence in nature. Reflect on the trip I recently took through Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio.
Hiking is many things for me: mental health discipline, vacation, recharge, and adventure. Screens cause constant overstimulation; nature provides the only real reset that works for me.
I hike weekly to manage the good and the bad; if this isn’t your thing, that’s fine. You should practice self-care and make sure your recharging routine is good for you, not those judging you.
Plan Peace – Reads that Relate:
The Trek – Hiking is Vacation. Be Well – How Hiking Improves Mental Health.
Readers who seek the opposite of sanitized outdoor culture, hikers who trek the land for recognition over recreation, and Poetry lovers who understand repetition as breath rather than structure.
The Vault:
Repetition as refusal, not decoration
“Fuck a trek” a grounding anchor line through the poem
Nature as identity recognition rather than scenery
Storm, river, forest, & animalimagery used as lived systems, rather than symbolism
Crows functioning as memory carriers across time
Mythic framing without leaving physical reality
Civilization positioned as backgroundnoise, not central focus
Indiana, Let’s GET IT!
Reclaimed the Trailhead of Creativity:
Here I choses to use a phrase poetically after I flipped it on it’s head. Thankfully the piece continued to refuse to settle back into anything polite.
Fuck a trek.
The line that became the title and the spine. I can’t lie. I love the drama in it, creating chaos in literature has been a favorite of mine for quite sometime.
You will find local foliage and woodland items many times in nature like you find the line Fuck a trek. Just like nature you’ll never experience the line the same.
This is an accumulated reflection of all my time spent on the trail.
Weather it’s ravines after ridges, cliffs above the gorge, caves or anything in between… it’s all relevant to the climb you’re in. Eventually this will stop feeling like something you force yourself to get finished and starts feeling like refreshing your soul.
Fuck a Trek-
An Original Poem by Axton Mitchell:
Fuck a trek. I require found bones, stream-smoothed stones, and a sky heavier with weather than any grief I’ve carried.
Fuck a trek. Root-bound. River-raised. Fully feral. Trail Troll.
Fuck a trek. I was raised between thunderstorms. Led by lightning flashes. Taught most I know beneath thunder’s loudest boom.
Fuck a trek.
Let me wander until I find trees yet to learn my name.
Fuck a trek.
Leave me where the mushrooms grow. Where the path forgets itself. Overgrown. Wild. Dirt-encrusted. Wind-tousled. Sun-speckled. Freckled.
Fuck a trek. Crows lead. Lost boy follows. Finding pieces he dropped years ago. Crows remember the shiny things he gifted.
Moss-covered mason jars. Creek-water soaked spell books. A cathedral needing no walls.
Fuck a trek. Let the city keep its lights. I have fireflies. Sunlight through a canopy. Campfire embers. Dusk.
Old forests. Unfinished tales.
Fog blankets draped over hollows. River hymns muffled by distance.
The muddy banks still call my name. Civilization waits. Patient.
As I always ensure.
Poet’s Note:
I didn’t write this from any one space. It came to me out of the years I’ve been moving through forests, rivers, ridgelines, and overgrown paths.
This week I did a few hikes in Illinois and Indiana; drafting this piece while my windshield wipers were just getting used to being back in Ohio.
Mason jars, spell books, and the other objects that show up in this poem aren’t decorations or abstract images. They’re tied to real moments I’ve had in wilderness spaces, things that were actually there with me, things I’ve used or carried or come back to in memory because they belong to that terrain as much as anything else does.
Crows, storms, stone, fire, light, the edges where town breaks into wild space, all of that exists together the way it actually does when I’m there
Present.
The way the poem moves isn’t linear because that’s not how the wilderness feels in my reflection. Like the title repeats I have passed through similar ground again. It does shift. Allowing me to notice different things each time even when the shape of the place looks familiar.
“Fuck a trek” is the pressure point in it. It interrupts the idea that this is supposed to be packaged into something neat or resolved or explained away. It keeps pulling it back into contact with what’s actually there instead of what it could be made to represent.
The beauty in art and literature is that everyone is allowed to have a perspective on them of their own. All these perspectives still remains true to their interpretation.
This is my perspective. I want to remind you that yours valid too.
If you’d like to share your perspective, I’m always excited what others see growing inside my creations.
Take a Hike:
This piece stays inside the same world it was built from. Forest edges, river ground, ridgelines, places where attention doesn’t sit still and nothing stays reduced to a single meaning.
What it leaves behind isn’t a lesson or a takeaway. It’s the same material it started with, just arranged into language instead of lived movement.
The rest is still out there.
TLDR:
Repetition-based poem built around “Fuck a trek” as an anchor line. Centers on forest, river, and storm imagery drawn from lived time outdoors.
Rejects structured outdoor culture in favor of direct, unmediated experience.Uses memory, nature, and mythic elements as a single continuous system.
Built as spoken rhythm, not linear narrative or resolution.
Hikers trekking through grief while embracing movement, readers who resonate with parent loss & nature-based poetry, individuals who carry memory physically through walking or landscape experience, & those drawn to emotional writing where meaning is experienced through motion rather than explanation.
The origin point of the ghost I walk with. Even in a childhood photograph, there is that same flicker of presence that I see whenever I hit the trail. We carry the people we lose; I am just making sure her memory finds a place to stay
The Vault:
Early morning hiking as a lived emotional state where grief & perception overlap in transitional light.
Mother loss expressed through ongoing motion, memory, & embodied experience rather than resolution.
Landscape acting as emotional structure where terrain holds & reflects internal states.
Ghost presence as relational memory carried through movement & environmental contact.
Writing shaped through repetition of hiking & lived experience, later formed into structured reflection.
Grief understood as continuity that shifts form but does not disappear.
Early Trek With Grief:
This original poem by Axton Mitchell explores grief authentically as something that does not settle into stillness. This poem shows how grief continues through movement. Early morning hiking becomes the setting where emotional experience and the physical environment overlap.
Here perception is not fully awake or asleep, and meaning forms through sensation rather than analysis.
At the center of “Sunshine and Moonbeams” you will find the brutal loss of my mother, held as both emotional reality and metaphor, but you may discover other things depending on the way you perceive them.
The way we were, in the middle of a trip that never really ends. I look at this and see a history that is messy, complicated, and entirely mine. Holding space for the ghost of the railroad and the memory of the light.
I want to explain that I don’t treat grief as a closed event; this trek continues as presence carried through memory, landscape, and bodily experience. Trails become environments where internal life and external terrain reflect each other without needing resolution.
This is not about healing as an endpoint rarely does a grief like this grace you with an end from it. It is about the continuity of grief year after the parent loss. I aim at showing what it means for me to remain in motion while carrying something that does not disappear.
To understand this, you must step onto the trail with me; let the words below be the landscape where this grief and this presence finally finds a way to exist.
Sunshine & Moonbeams:
Early mornings half-awake sunshine half-way asleep moonbeams a body learning the shape of distance.
Trails that erase noise replace it with something harder to name…
Not becoming someone new… just staying in motion
She is the bedrock under the climb the pulse in the stone
a rhythm iron and deep-buried lime where I walk on my own
This mountain is one you learn to live with never fully scaled Sitting on your spine
lineage locked in the root and the vine I do not reach Nor do I pray I track the mountain until the end of my days
Early mornings half-awake sunlight half-way asleep moonbeam
a body living with the shape of loss I now hold dear
Treks contain conversation only with your ghost maintaining our bond through the terrain.
No longer making it or looking to something new… steady me your ghost and our memory.
Flickering light on the edge of the glass where the shadows grow long yet time doesn’t seem to pass.
A taste of the wind off ripples in tall grass like a half-remembered song it’s a warmth in the way we follow along hitting me squarely in bone marrow.
a ghost a glow places the mind has forgotten we know
drifts like the smoke embers grow thin soft static under memories.
I will cherish forever
the times dear mother
MOTION AS CONTINUITY:
Motion here is not progress; how could it be?
This piece lives in the persistence seen by those trekking the trail through grief and loss. Hiking is what acts as my way to maintain contact with experiences that cannot be resolved into a final emotional state.
The act of moving through the terrain is what keeps my grief from becoming something able to swallow me whole; my grief however does not reduce its intensity.
Early mornings matter to me since they seem to remove the sharp edges of my perception. I get to exist in a world is less defined, even if it is briefly.
This is one thing that allows my emotion and memory to overlap more freely with physical sensation. It is in that overlap that I do not see my grief as a problem to solve.
I cherish it as something ongoing.
Movement becomes the only stable structure. Not because it heals; it continues much like my grief.
The trail doesn’t resolve anything. You just keep moving, and eventually, the rhythm of the walk becomes the only language that makes sense
LANDSCAPE AS MEMORY STRUCTURE:
The landscape here is by far more than just a symbolic decoration. Here it is more aligned with an active structure that holds emotional continuity. The mountain is experienced as something that persists alongside the body, not something separate from it.
Stone, wind, elevation, and distance operate as recurring anchors for memory. From my perspective in this poem, they do not represent grief; they hold it through repeated contact and lived experience. Though your experience can be different and remain.
The terrain becomes a consistent reference point for internal states that otherwise shift without stability.
I do not want you to think something false is rooted in truth; sadly landscape doesn’t fix grief. We need to ask our self can anything truly fix it, or do we just live through it?
All the landscape does is give it a tangible place to live. Nothing in the landscape resolves emotion, it reflects its persistence. I give my grief the same home where we used to build the memories I’d live with after her loss.
What is carried internally is mirrored externally, but I do not aim to simplify it.
Visibility is low, but the path is still there. Sometimes you have to climb into the clouds just to feel the weight of what you’re carrying.
EMOTIONAL REALITY & METAPHOR OVERLAP:
This work exists in both emotional reality and metaphor at the same time. It does not separate grief from landscape, memory from motion, or internal experience from physical environment. These elements remain continuously overlapping.
That overlap is not confusion. It is closer to the structure of how they work together in my mind though. Showing how my grief is actually experienced when it cannot resolve cleanly over time. Though the meaning definitely shifts depending on your state, but presence does not disappear.
The mother figure exists in multiple registers at once: emotional presence, memory, and metaphor embedded in landscape perception. All readers are valid simultaneously without needing to collapse into a single interpretation.
My work in this poem remains unresolved because the experience it describes remains unresolved.
2023, Hocking Hills. Sometimes the weight is easier to carry when you aren’t walking the trail alone. Proof that even in the middle of a long, unresolved trek, there is still room for light.
Writing, Lived Experience, & Creation Context:
My writing here comes from lived experience in the repetition of hiking, long exposure to nature, and movement. Many of these experiences shaped this piece, but the text itself was created in stillness and reflection, including time spent writing in my garage overnight.
Stillness is what settles some words to build my work. Sitting here late, thinking back on our hikes, it’s just what I lived and what I’m still trying to understand for the resource and reading of others.
This is not documentation in real time. It is memory shaped through repetition and reflection after experience.
It’s not about the size of the catch. It’s about the trill of holding the pole and the simple, quiet victory of being out here.
Grief & Parent Loss in Nature:
Grief connected to parent loss is not treated as a single moment or event with closure. It exists as an ongoing condition that changes depending on environment, memory, energy, and physical presence in the world.
In nature, especially during movement, grief becomes less structured and more fluid. It does not disappear, but it changes how it is carried. This appears as different things:
A weight at times through energy, and other times it was closer to something that existed in waves moving like the sea.
Hiking does not resolve this, but it does help me move through it. It creates conditions where grief can continue without interruption. The landscape does not remove loss or heal it. It provides continuity for its presence.
This is why nature and grief become linked for me typically. Not because nature explains loss, but it allows loss to remain in motion without forcing conclusion.
It’s not about the size of the catch. It’s about the stillness of holding the pole and the simple, quiet victory of being out here
Take a Hike:
This work does not exist to move toward resolution; grief from parent-loss is not something that gets resolved. It returns repeatedly to motion, memory, and landscape as interconnected conditions of experience.
An early morning spur of the moment hike becomes the space where emotional reality and metaphor overlap without separation.
Mother loss remains present not as absence, but as ongoing influence within perception. The landscape remains present not as setting, but as structure that holds continuity.
Nothing in this work is completed or closed. It remains in motion, as the experience it describes remains in motion.
Found by Lake Superior. A piece of purple UV slag, shaped like a heart by the water and time. A piece found on a trip to scatter my moms ashes.
TLDR:
Hiking gives me experiences. The quiet afterward leads me to understanding.
Each trail stays with me for a unique reason. The most memorable hikes for me usually are emotionally reflective as well.
Reflection is part of the process; these introspective and emotional trail memories making new memories.
Writing helps guarantee your voice will be here still otherwise left to fade with my physical body. It turns scattered memories into something lasting.
The trail does not always end at the trailhead. Sometimes the most important part happens later when there is finally time to think.
Small, bright, and persistent. Even in the dense green, they manage to find their own space to bloom.
grief hikers, long-distance walkers who process emotion through terrain, nature poetry enthusiasts, artistic deep-dive lovers, & those who can sometimes feel their emotions physically.
The Vault:
Writing through a life’s movements, wherever flow meets me.
A poem built in real time through movement, talk-to-text dictation, & repeated revision.
Why the word “Always” became the poem’s anchor point & emotional center of gravity.
Exploring grief through physical motion, endurance, & terrain rather than direct description.
A deep dive into spacing, breath, repetition, & visual structure as poetic devices.
Open reflections on loss, interpretation, hiking, & the relationship between weight & momentum.
This came out of movement, exhaustion, and transition. Probably just not the same kind you would be expecting me to say, after you dive into this poem in motion.
As I do load after load, boxed up, bagged up stuff, and some things just carried directly to their new home. That’s where the poem actually started forming, not trekking the wild, not sitting by idle, in motion.
The first line showed up as I was lifting a particular heavy box of course that’s what always happens.
Everything else grew out of that while I was still moving things to my Honda, still going back and forth between spaces; I made sure to leave room to dictate my draft.
I added in three screenshots to show the spacing across the entire poem. Created in google keep added to show the spacing word press doesn’t allow for exactly. 1/3
Always
Somewhere between river mist and ridge lines time stops behaving per the status quo.
The horizon dissolves into the fog… any schedule went willingly with it.
Always;
The pulse in the climb the only clock.
Tick- Tock.
quieter; even… tick-tock.
I walk on; Always….
Still noticing the still here. Always…
Still anchored in the motion; Always.. Still…
gravity of the path pulling at the slack near my lungs
Always. A complex geometry of endurance;
The Earth ignores my presence But steadily holds me upright.
Always
Two heavy things in motion; both needing to stay upright.
my weight meets its mass; colliding.
a l w a y s …
Poet’s Note:
A look into the authors creative flow state starting at the initial spark. Work through the building and editing of this poem with me; find out where the repetitive always came from and when I added it here.
Then discover my final additions to this piece; perspective is in the readers hands once a piece leaves the creators notebook. I will always respect perspectives from readers as long as they are aligned with the piece.
I added in three screenshots to show the spacing across the entire poem. Created in google keep added to show the spacing word press doesn’t allow for exactly. 2/3
The initial spark:
This started pretty soon after I got home from my shift, in the middle of a day that also started with something big. We got the keys to the new house while I was already headed to work, so it felt like change stacked on top of change before I even had time to process even one thing at all.
When I got home, I went straight into moving everything from my creative garage into the larger garage at our new house about three doors down the road. This is the space where I sometimes come to write, tinker, create, do spiritual things, smoke, think, or even just exist. Shifting it physically already put me in a different headspace.
This is where the first line hit.
“Somewhere between river mist and ridge lines, time stops behaving. The horizon dissolves into the fog.”
It didn’t come as a concept, per se. It came as piece I was already working inside while moving.
I added in three screenshots to show the spacing across the entire poem. Created in google keep added to show the spacing word press doesn’t allow for exactly. 3/3
Building & Editing Always:
At first it was just that line sitting there.
No structure, no spacing, nothing formal. No real plan on where to take it exactly, I knew it was going somewhere though. So it became something I kept repeating while I kept moving.
Obviously more lines were stacked onto it as I worked. I multitasked by talk-to-text dictation of the additions, while lifting and packing things. Adjusting them in a more fine tuned manner whenever I took a small break.
I came back again and again to adjust this over roughly forty minutes. I never claimed to provide a clean writing moment; I do not know what that would even look like. Mine was fragmented the same way the emotions hidden inside the piece tend to come to me.
The spacing came later, when I read it back out loud and realized the pauses needed to be visible, not just felt. The gaps became part of the actual breath of the poem.
Do you know how some men pose in photos with the large fish they caught. Is it the same cringe level if the fish is so small you can barely find it in the picture?
Always:
At one point the poem didn’t include the word always, at all. It was just the original line, motion, and an unknown pressure. At this point it didn’t feel anchored.
Always became the anchor point. Not just as part of the sentence flow, but as something placed into it, something interrupting it, time and time again.
That’s why it’s spaced the way it is. It’s not meant to move forward, it’s meant to pull everything back to a single state of continuity while also acting as a visual breath, or space for pause.
The final Touches:
The line “two heavy things in motion” came almost last. That’s when the whole thing shifted from just observation into something being shared.
The final line about weight meeting mass in a collision was the last addition. That’s where everything stops feeling like an argument or opposing force.
Iconic, even if the other individual isn’t.
Poet’s Perspective:
This isn’t just about a physical day of trekking in the wild or the occasional battle between the trail and your being.
From my perspective it’s what it feels like when the internal weight and movement through hiking happen at the same time and stop feeling separate.
The feelings I experience and hike through like grief aren not directly called out in this piece. Though it is just as present as if I had.
You can find it in the physical strain, when time shows up different like you don’t know it’s typical, when everything feels like opposition yet nothing is actually opposing you, and in the repetition and reminders always brings.
How long will I grieve the loss of my mother?
Always.
It may even feel like a fight in the moment; I’m actually describing two things moving in the same direction under different kinds of weight.
The body and the world aren’t against each other. They’re just both moving; they collide from time to time. Though the Earth has to care for each of us momentarily, it is whose gravity keeps us upright.
Art & Open Interpretation:
I don’t need or expect anyone to read this the way I described in my own perspective of it. That is unrealistic and honestly unfair to the art itself.
If it connects to hiking and exhaustion, movement with another, transitions of life, or something else entirely, good. Art isn’t meant to have one set meaning everyone is forced to grasp. It is all up to the interpretation of the person currently experiencing it. My perspective, yours, and all others aligned with the art are equally valid and accurate.
I care more way more about what readers come to see in it than forcing anyone into only my perspective on the poem.
With that being said, I am always very interested in hearing what stuck out to readers or what my poems told in the silence between the lines. Please feel free to tell me yours in the comments, I look forward to any and all insights added.
Back when the two of us were much younger pups.
After Motion Ends:
This piece came from movement, not just reflection; built while life was still happening, not just waiting for it to settle.
In some ways, that feels more fitting than I had intended. Do you think life settles often?
Of the experiences that shape us, do many arrive with the courtesy of a quiet room? What about the unlimited time for us to process them?
Grief doesn’t; neither does change. Moving forward doesn’t seem to either.
The words themselves never changed, but I realized they were carrying more than the physical motion that inspired them ever could. They were carrying momentum without moving forward, memory, exhaustion, and the strange way grief can remain present even when life keeps moving around it.
Sometimes grief is found in what is unspoken, repetition, weight, breath in empty space, and in the quiet realizations that certain things are still with us no matter how far the hike was.
Always.
Once a poem leaves the page of its creator, it begins a second life inside the experiences of whoever encounters it. Thank you for spending a few moments inside this one. I greatly appreciate it.
Do you think you will look at your next hike differently? What it becomes for you is yours to share or yours to keep holding onto.
TLDR:
A poem written while moving evolved into a reflection on grief, endurance, and motion. Exploring how emotional weight and physical movement can become inseparable.
The repeated word “Always” acts as both anchor and breath throughout the poem. Its placement reinforces themes of continuity, memory, and persistence.
The commentary breaks down the poem’s creation, structure, symbolism, and personal meaning. Readers are invited to bring their own interpretations to the work.
Threads of Similar Composition:
iOS users me in Daily Gratitude Journal Writing – Hold each other accountable via Storia: Future Self Coach
Individuals who practice the art of setting healthy boundaries, setting boundaries regarding your reflection, readers seeking a sign to prioritize their peace, those souls navigating the friction between their internal truth and external societal views placed on them, and those advocates looking to understand the psychological weight of the “social mirror.”
The Vault:
The Social Mirror: Understanding that our self-image is often built from the reflections of the way others perceive us.
The Right to Exit: Recognizing that “agreeing to disagree” on someone’s identity is often a precursor to a necessary silence.
Identity Sovereignty: The power of defining oneself regardless of external “delusion” narratives.
The Weight of a Gaze:
In sociology, the “Looking Glass Self” suggests that we perceive ourselves through the eyes of others. But what happens when that mirror is cracked? When the person looking at us insists on seeing a version of us that doesn’t exist? it creates a psychological dissonance that is exhausting and potentially dangerous to maintain.
We are often told that we cannot “force” others to respect our gender identity or pronouns. This is very true, and I’ve never denied that.
Though, the other side of this argument is equally powerful: no one is forced to remain in a relationship (intimate, familiar, or platonic). This is especially true of relationships where the simple things being asked are dismissed or treated as a debate, or worse delusional.
Whether it’s a matter of gender identity or something else, walking away isn’t an overreaction; this was just another act of self-preservation.
If the image you hold of me is a distortion, I am under no obligation to stand in front of your mirror.
The Poem
An original poetic micro-prose by:
Axton N. O. Mitchell
“The Looking Glass Self”
The way we see someone
can shape the way they see themselves.
When the image we hold
doesn’t reflect who they truly are
or want to be,
it’s understandable
if they choose to walk away.
It is but this simple.
Poet’s Note:
This piece was born from the exhaustion of being told that my existence is a delusional belief, that others refuse to be forced to play-along-with. There is a common argument used against the trans and gender nonconforming individuals.
I dare you to try existing in a world that treats your core self as a debate topic. We still see this everywhere, though.
When we witness a neurodivergent person explaining their needs to be told that they are just “making excuses.” A woman in a high-level position who is treated like a secretary or as if she slept her way there based on a male coworker’s bias. Think of adults with differences in abilities that are stripped of their agency by people who refuse to see their competence.
If you view my identity, or anyone’s lived experience as a debate or a delusion, then there is no foundation for a relationship.
I’m not interested in debating with anyone about whether or not I exist, if my needs are real, or anything else involving my truth.
If you don’t respect who I am as a person, I don’t have to speak to you.
Period.
This isn’t an ultimatum; it’s a consequence of your own nearsightedness and self-righteousness.
The reality is more straightforward; Respect is the baseline for connection. If you view someone’s experiences as a delusion, your connection is already severed.
I don’t care to change your mind, and I certainly won’t spend my time trying to convince you of my right to be.
We don’t owe anyone our presence while they actively participate in our erasure.
The “Looking Glass Self” only has power if we choose to keep looking into the mirrors people hold up for us. If that mirror is warped, you have the right to shatter it.
True respect isn’t a favor someone does for you; it’s the bottom tier thing someone needs to do if they wish to remain in your world.
If they can’t do the bare minimum, you shouldn’t settle anyway.
TL;DR:
Perception is Power: Others’ views can influence us, but they don’t have to define us.
Universal Erasure: Identity denial happens to many from the neurodivergent to the disabled. The response is the same: cutting the tie.
Boundaries are Absolute: You do not owe a soul access to your presence while they actively participate in your erasure.
The Right to Silence: If respect isn’t present, communication is optional. Choose silence over self-betrayal.
Protective Empaths, those reclaiming boundaries or learning how to set them, best for deep-thinkers, slow scrollers, lovers of experimental poetry and visceral callouts.
THE PERSPECTIVE SHIFT:
There is a heavy, quiet exhaustion that comes with seeing every side of a story.
We are often told that empathy is a superpower, but we rarely talk about how it can feel like a haunting… draining even.
Imagine for a moment you possess the inability to not play devil’s advocate even when someone is actively setting out to dismantle you.
This is about that specific moment of clarity when you stop trying to wash the page clean and decide, finally, to let the ink set and stain.
POET’S NOTE – THE ORIGIN STORY:
This piece was forged from a chain of moments.
It started with a friend’s Facebook post
“As soon as I see someone's true colors I am no longer going to erase the canvas so they can do it again…. I'm gonna let it stain,…. So I'll remember…”
The post caught my interest while I was out hiking. The imagery followed me through the trails, and by the time I was driving home, it had fermented into something visceral.
LI recorded the first draft via voice-to-text while behind the wheel.
Unfiltered. Containing no punctuation.
Unfiltered.
Later, I moved into the visual editing phase, playing with the falling letters, word combination movements, and spacing to mimic the physical weight of the thoughts.
You’ll notice letters dropping vertically and words drifting; this is a visual dissection of how it feels to process these heavy realizations.
The ending shared “F” at the end between the words “for” and “forgiveness” represents that mental pivot point where an empath’s brain naturally tries to bridge the gap.
Ultimately, and much more importantly art is up to subjective interpretation.
Whatever these words trigger for you is valid, and I would love to hear what you saw in the stains or even in the forgiveness.
Do you disagree with the notion that forgiveness can be just as useful for self sabotage as many other vices.
The Poem
Forgiveness and the Stain;
I was cursed with an empathetic soul…
A
bles
s
i
n
g
in
disguise.
Plagued with the ability to,
see
more than one side
t
o any
story.
Even those
D
I
R
E
C
T
L
Y
opposing
the
N
A
R
R
A
T
I
V
E in my O
W
N.
Lord knows how many
people,
set out to destroy me.
Yet,
I allowed them to
walk
away…
unscathed.
Thinking
they
got one over on me.
Pulled the
wool E
over my
e
S.
Truth be told,
I simply saw how life could
bring
humankind outside our
humanity.
From now on when spilled ink
from others mars my
P
A
P
E
R,
I have to let it
stain
to
remember…
Or the empath in me will
always
push for
o
r
givness.
THE ARCHIVE:
To remember the stain is not to hold onto bitterness; it is to honor the truth of what happened.
When we refuse to scrub the paper, we acknowledge that our experiences… Yes, even the jagged, unfair ones, are part of the medium we work with.
It is a transition from being a victim of someone else’s mess to being the conscious archivist of your own life.
So What did the stain and forgiveness look like in your world?
Is it a lesson, a boundary, or a badge of honor?
I’d love to hear anything you’d like to share about your own interpretation of my lines.
Individuals who are fans of indieauthors and what they write.
Oh. No. What Did I Do?
Who actually writes for the comfort of the others. Writing the chaos in my head sharing trauma too heavy to carry alone.
I woke up before my alarm. Got up; Walked to the garage. I was intending to ease the tension gripping its claws in my skin with smoke, in my lungs. Outside the wind was howling louder than a banshee. It really felt as if both the house and I would both blow away for the second time this week.
Surprisingly, I made it inside the garage without blowing through the wind somehow. Taking my seat in front of my working altar. This is the place where I smoke, make all my physical store items, spells, rituals, readings, and more. I rolled up some green, lighting up within a few minutes.
Deciding to opened TikTok, went to my account page, intending on posting a draft. I scrolled through my twenty or so drafts. Choosing instantly, the video of Lake Erie’s waves crashing on beautiful Great Lake rocks.
The draft like most, I saved to post later and already formatted it. Meaningful visual editing is done how I’d like for the specific content. Usually it is:
Snipped and cut
Sound added
Stitched
Ready to use with and without text. This way, I can add relevant current text to some at any time over drafts.
I started writing in the text-overlay tool. IN THE TIKTOK APP LIKE A FERAL MAN. This is something I have never done. And honestly? I still can’t believe I just hit post. I did not read it back one time. I did not go back and do even first round editing. Which I pay no mind to that while I am in creative flow state.
Oh, and today is day 87 of my personal creative challenge. 100 poems in 100 days, creating habits and discipline. So, of course this poem will now hold that spot.
Rough Draft
So I know guys it’s just Lake Erie You say she’s dirty, basic, and nothing like the other Great Lakes But I already know she doesn’t let you see her, Like I do. She doesn’t call home to you. So tell me again why Tahoe in the west would make a better Great Lake than Erie…I mean she’s here with the rest but never mind that I find peace in the chaos she creates the inland salt-less seas Of midwestern USA would be a lot less beautiful without her So sleep on her, like you sleep on me.
Creative Flow
Creative flow is not some mystical, unreachable state. It is the rhythm of my work. Below are the most common times I find myself dropping into that zone. A bonus weird place that works for me every single time.
• While smoking: This is my primary ritual for shifting gears.
• The Drift: Right when I am about to fall asleep. If I do not get up and write it down right then, it is gone forever.
• In the wilderness: When the world is quiet enough to hear the thoughts I have been ignoring.
• The Weirdest One: Behind the wheel. I never hit this level of flow unless I am driving. I do the editing as a passenger, but the creation happens only when I am in control of the car.
The Creative Working Order:
“The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.” – Bruce Lee
This is the chronological order in which I write poetry. What is my cup of tea may not be yours. I want to mention I hate gatekeepers. Please feel free to borrow some if you find you like some of the herbs I layer within.
What is Creative Flow-
When I talk about flow, I am talking about the automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness. This is described by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. This was his foundational work, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Csikszentmihalyi, defined this as being so immersed in an activity. Time actually slips away and the egofades into the background.
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” –Maya Angelou
Tapping into My Flow:
When I am in flow, I do not care about perfecting the grammar, using stylized spacing, or worry about spelling. I do not experiment with word flow quite yet. I do not plan for my creative flow time when it comes to drafting new poetry. I just let it happen.
“My hand does the work and I don’t have to think. In fact, were I to think, it would stop the flow. It’s like a dam in the brain that bursts.” –Edna O’Brien
It is more about getting the words down in the exact order they hit my brain. For me, this flow and editingseparation allows for streamlined creation. I can and have written at least 13 poems in a single session. This can occur during one elongated smoke sesh. It also happens over a long stretches on the road home after a day spent in the wild.
“Flow is being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz.” –Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Maintaining the Rhythm:
If you are looking to get out of a creative rut, the current 2026 standout creatives offer clear advice. Focus on a clear destination. Maintain discipline, and establish low-pressure rituals that work for you.
Many creative minds rely on daily rituals like “human-free time.” These rituals often ensure zero digital disruptions. While also including a consistent 5-10 minute anchor before beginning work. Breathing exercises can work to tell your nervous system it’s time to chill.
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” –Vincent Van Gogh
Creative flow also is referred to as “being in the zone,” by many. This is actually, not just a matter of luck. It’s a biological “accident” you can make yourself more apt to experience.
Conscious Release of Control the act of letting go.
Tips from the Professionals:
Author and journalist Steven Kotler and others aiming to continue the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi point to several “pre-conditions” that must be met:
Challenge of Balance: Flow happens in a small sweet spot. Here the task is enough of a challenge to stretch your abilities. Just not to a point of inducing anxiety. Too easy, and you are bored; too hard, you are stressed.
Goals and Feedback: You must set an exact goal. They can be as simple as what you are trying to achieve in creating from one moment to the next. This gifts you a “compass” that prevents your mind from wandering.
Transient Hypofrontality: This is the neurological hallmark of flow where your inner critic named prefrontal cortex temporarily loses his voice. This leads to a loss of self-consciousness and a distorted sense of time.
“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” –Albert Einstein
Pause with me:
You have seen my process. You know about my garage, smoke filled lungs, and the wind. My brain shifts gears like an automatic transmission.
But I want to know how you handle your own creative rhythm?
Or maybe you’d rather share what you are doing out there in your own creative world. The successes and struggles. The in between trials.
Another idea if you feel like sharing, you could tell us about your weirdest flow state starter.
What is the one place, smell, thing, or ritual that always summons your focus? It does not have to work every single time, or make sense to you or to anyone else.
Whatever you chose to include mentioned above or from your own thoughts I appreciate it all your conversation and insight.
Talk is Cheap:
Actionable Ideas:
The 15-Minute Wall Stare:
Morning Pages Before Email:
Impose Weird Constraints:
Adopt an Alter Ego:
Protect Your Peak Hours:
Redefine Consistency:
Digital Switzerland:
Movement Over Optimization:
The Spark Journal:
Practice total destimulation. No screens, music, or podcasts. Staring at a blank surface for 15 minutes, seriously. This allows your brain to digest recent intake and fire up new, spontaneous connections.
Write three pages of longhand, raw thoughts before opening any digital app. This purges the mental clutter before the day’s stress claims your focus.
When freedom is paralyzing, force a constraint. Write exactly 100 words, rule out all words starting with a specific letter, or use a single, specific theme to kickstart your problem-solving
When stuck, step into a different identity. You could ask yourself things like , “What would my most fearless, creative self do right now?” This shift helps bypass old, self-sabotaging patterns.
Identify the specific time your brain is most alert and guard it like a vault. Do not squander this window on admin work or social media.
Consistency in 2026 isn’t about daily output. It’s about maintaining a lifelong relationship with your art. Even if that means touching base only once a week to keep the bond alive.
Designate a specific zone in your home where phones are strictly banned. Use this neutral territory as a sanctuary for your focus to recover
Arrive at your desk after a 10-minute walk without a phone or podcast. Physical space helps your brain transition better than sleep-walking straight into work.
Capture random ideas, quotes, or questions instantly in a physical notebook or notes app. Over time, these small sparks become a goldmine of raw material for future work.
Editing in Batches
Once the wildfire of the creativeflowstate is extinguished , I pause until I know that it’s time. Finally, I move into a different phase: the maintenance of the work. I do not attempt editing the text while the flow is live. That would risk wasting it.
Instead, I carve out specific blocks in my monthly schedules to act as the tumblrpolishing the stones. During these sessions I :
fix spelling
tighten grammar
adjust punctuation
refine the rhythm, add or minimize sentences, whatever it needs.
Poetry that asks for permission is polite way to saying nothing. Real poetry aims its punch at your gut leaving readers gasping for air, while searching for their next hit.
I tackle these in small batches, usually. A few times, I have spent hours on end doing deep-dive revisions. It depends on the pieces and their needs. Some poems only need a single pass to be considered finished. While others undergo several rounds of minor and major changes, until it feels right.
Once I am satisfied, I move these finalized versions into my themed personal portfoliodigital documents. This is a critical step, ensuring my work is not just scattered across drafts. It is archived, backed up multiple times, and ready for whatever is in the future for them individually.
Exploring Titles
Sleep on Me: This title is direct and defiant, I like that. It forces the reader to confront dismissiveness. Strengths: immediate punch; emotional weight. Weaknesses: may feel aggressive to some readers. Is that even a real weakness though? I didn’t think so.
The Midwestern Sea: This title grounds the poem in geography. Strengths: classic and descriptive. Weaknesses: lacks the personal emotional hook of the other options.
Chaos Finds Me: This highlights the internal creative experience. Strengths: invites curiosity; sounds mysterious. Weaknesses: may be perceived as too abstract or vague.
I chose “Sleep on Me” as the title. This is a direct, blunt, and maybe slightly aggressive challenge. That cleared the goal of perfectly mirroring the poem’s final punch.
“The Midwestern Sea” is cute and fitting. However, it is a bit too soft. “Chaos Finds Me” feels a too much like beating around the bush. It fails to convey the real experiences I wanted to express. “Sleep on Me” is almost visceral. It forces the reader to confront their own dismissiveness immediately. Thus, fully matching the tone of the piece rather than just describing the scenery.
It got what it needed fully; a title that doesn’t ask for permission. This demands attention, much like the poem itself, making the other two look like weak, observational captions in comparison.
First Round Editing
So, I know, guys. It is just Lake Erie.
You say she’s dirty, basic, and nothing like the other Great Lakes.
But I already know she doesn’t let you see her, like I do.
She doesn’t call home to you.
So, tell me again why Tahoe, in the west, would make a better Great Lake than Erie. I mean, she’s here with the rest, but never mind that.
I find peace in the chaos she creates. The inland, salt-less seas of the Midwestern USA would be a lot less beautiful without her.
So, sleep on her, like you sleep on me.
Changes and Explanations:
Punctuation:
I added the needed a few missing commas, periods, and whatever else I needed for word flow.
Spelling:
I fixed the one Great Lake typo. To ensure the reader understands and my meaning stays grounded in the subject.
Line Breaks:
I also added standardized line breaks which group the thoughts into coherent stanzas. Instead of the fragmented, rapid-fire lines of the initial draft.
Art is Subjective
The beauty of art is that it belongs to the viewer as much as the creator. When you read this, you might see a few different things depending on your view. You see a tribute to a lake, a reflection on a relationship, or an anthem for the misunderstood. That is one of my favorite parts of writing and a point I love to use. My intention is never to dictate how you should feel, because art is inherently subjective.
Poetry is the art of bleeding out in ink so you don’t bleed out on the people’s screens. With one goal making readers feel the same cauterized wounds you’ve been carrying all these years.
Axton N. O. Mitchell
However, I do layer my own truths into these lines. I wrote this to show that your love for a person is your own. Love anything is not bothered by what others think. It stands alone, regardless of their consensus. When people put you down or try to “yuck your yum,” they are projecting their own limitations. Their inability to see the value in what you love does not make your happiness any less real.
Polished Piece:
Sleep on Me-
So, I know, guys. It is just Lake Erie.
You call her dirty, basic, and nothing like the other Great Lakes.
But I already know she doesn’t let you see her, like I do.
She doesn’t call home to you.
Tell me again why Tahoe, in the west, makes a better Great Lake.
I mean, she is right here with the rest, but never mind.
I find peace in the unconventional. The peace in the chaos she creates finds me effortlessly.
Remember, she is just water to you.
To me, her inland, salt-less seas lining Midwestern shores would be far less beautiful without her.
So, sleep on her.
Just like you sleep on me.
Changes and Explanations:
Words:
I changed where I called her it all she/her references for thematic story. I removed certain elements to make the challenge more immediate and present. I then added the line. “I find peace in the unconventional” to emphasize that this is a choice of perspective.
Punchlines in Poetry:
The ending gut punch, by punchline. By changing So, sleep on her, like you sleep on me. To create a heavy, deliberate finality that forces the reader to stop then sit with the punchline. It become So, sleep on her. Just like you sleep on me.
It’s all decisions:
You have the pleasure of choosing-
Creating this post taught me something important. I often hold back my best work because I am waiting for the perfectedit or moment. The truth is, the real experience, born in a garage during a windstorm, pieces tend to be the most honest.
I separate the creative flow from the editing session. This allows me to create a way to honor both the chaotic spark and an editor’s discipline.
Please don’t forget art does not need to be polished to be valid. Your personal loves do not need to be justified. They do not need to be reciprocated by others to be worth protecting. Keep writing, keep creating, and most importantly, keep trusting your own voice.
If they do not get it, that is their loss, not yours.
