Beginnings and Endings is my first self-published poetry collection. A staggering 93 poem journey through the sparks, mess, and echoes of relationships. From first connection to final silence, these poems hold space for hope, hurt, and unapologetic vulnerability.
Whether it’s a love that healed, or one that hallowed. These poetic works explore the real, bittersweet truths that live inside us all. Written from a transgender man’s perspective, while capturing beginnings, messy middles, and the inevitable endings with honesty and grit.
Themes and What to Expect
Relationships: first spark, deep connection, heartbreak, reconciliation
Emotional journey: hope, grief, self-discovery, reflection, mental health
One of the most sound pieces of advice I’ve seen in recent graffiti. Two other examples of good advice in graffiti in the post below. I found all three here today in Wheeling, West Virginia at the Overlook Castle.
This collection captures Days 13 through 19 of the 100 poems in 100 days creative challenge I am participating in. These entries were written daily. They were just shared as a batch in one post. The first 12 were shared daily as solo posts. These poems reflect a week of observation, reflection, and response. Each poem is a moment in time. You’ll find poetry that is personal, political, and more. I am documenting memory, grief, injustice, and the search for clarity and home.
While these seven poems are shared together, the writing continued daily,as it will continue until day 100. Future entries (Days 20–100) will be posted either individually or in small batches, like the first 19. This will keep readers present and on their toes as to when new daily poems are coming. The ongoing rhythm mirrors life itself: unpredictable, urgent, and evolving.
Each poem is paired with a Poet’s Note to deepen the context. It reflects on its inspiration. It draws connections between the personal and societal, and the intimate and the global.
Day 13 – 1/2/2026
“Rhyme”
Ukraine
Palestine
Venezuela
There is no point in trying to
Rhyme
Nigeria
Iran
Sudan
Their lives the cost at the end of the billionaires
Riches
Oil, minerals
Human greed
The West strikes again to save the Middle East
American propaganda machine
Poet’s Note
In the shadow of global conflict and the Christmas night bombing in Nigeria. This poem names the human cost behind headlines. Revealing the repeated cycles of violence. Then highlighting the ways ordinary people bear the burden of power, greed, and war. This is poetry that challenges the systems that profit from oppression. Naming places directly like Venezuela, Iran, and Sudan. I want to mention this poem is about all the places affected by these systems, and the people impacted. It is a call to witness what is often ignored.
The Top level View and the Rolling hills in the distance at Mount Wood Overlook in Wheeling, WV.
Day 14 – 1/3/2026
“Warm Places, Cold World”
I am blessed to have
many warm places in a world so cold.
My home
My car
The woods
places I feel safe
Yet when the lonely days are too rough
My partner’s arms
My mother-in-law’s couch
Or friends with shared spaces
Are places I am blessed to know
On this winding road, finding pieces of home
West Virginia roads once led me there
now the memories of
the place are
scattered
everywhere
Curating a place for me
after searching eternally
Poet’s Note
Written 1/3/2026, this poem reflects on the fragments of home we find throughout life. Safety, warmth, and belonging can appear in unexpected places, from people to landscapes to fleeting moments. Home is not just geography; it is collected through memory, connection, and care.
View from the top landing of the spiral steps at Mount Wood Castle.
Day 15 – 1/4/2026
“The Same”
Swipe.
F
l
i
c
k. M o .
v e
The days on the calendar float on by,
though they always stay the same.
R l o l.
T u r n. Change….
The numbers on the clock, never showing a repeating moment….
Though, they always stay the same.
Fast-forward or reverse, wherever you choose to press play.
World history or familial ties through bloodlines, cursed or blessed, they never look the same.
Though, they always stay the same.
Who is to blame for never making the change?
Those in history? Or Those of us living through its repeats?
Poets note
This poem traces the rhythm of repetition, the illusion of movement in days, clocks, and history. Swipe, flick, turn… As we do on our phones. Then we press play, like a movie, thinking we are deciding, thinking we are moving. Yet so much is actually left unchanged. The poem artistically depicts the movements we make on our phones. As well as showing how we rewound, fast forwarded, and pressed play on VHS tapes, DVDs, and more. Using both depictions to show time and how things change yet stay the same.
The lines stretch, scatter, and move on the page like our attempts to grasp time and meaning. Showing how moments pass, events unfold, generations bear patterns… Yet in their echo, the sameness persists. Asking quietly and plainly: when cycles repeat, who holds the responsibility? Those who lived before? Or those of us who carry the weight now?
This piece is both a mirror and a map. Acting as a reflection on history’s repetitions and the intimate, daily rhythms we navigate. It acknowledges the frustration of watching patterns endure while searching for change. Poetically playing on tension between inevitability and agency.
Axton a Transgender man posing next to graffiti reminding people to chose love over hate.
Pause here with me for a moment.
Did any line, feeling, or piece here stick out or to you more? I’d love to hear the details regarding which and the ways it resonated. Think about it and tell me in the comments?
or
At the end of this post you could comment a line, quote, or your full poem. Poems from the past, that align with these daily themes are welcome, as well as those written this week.
Any and all interactions or additional conversation pieces and starters highly appreciated. We enjoy reading your creative pieces, input, takes, reviews,reflections, and all the interactions in between.
Day 16 – 1/5/2026
A micro-poem on Grief
“Goodbye, Breathe”
I wish you had
thought to
breathe your quiet
warmth inside of me
one last time
before you said
goodbye
Poet’s Note
Today’s micro-poem captures grief and the longing for a final shared moment. Its brevity emphasizes the weight of absence, memory, and the lingering warmth of those we lose. Even in few lines, poetry can cradle the unspeakable and hold the echo of those gone. This was written in the shadow of grief after the loss of my mother. “Goodbye, Breathe” works at showing how some poetry is adaptable to any type of loss. Here I leave the meaning up to interpretation by the reader yet fully convey my feelings.
A Cute Graffiti Art Cat to Brighten the Post.
Day 17 – 1/6/2026
“Circus and Cake”
Downplayed self‑care in society
Overworked, under‑lived lives….
Romanticized
You work a hundred hours a week…
Just to spend all your time off feeling weak.
You barely scrape by.
Yet you have the mind to brag
and boast.
Making the hours you waste working
a competition to make yourself feel better…
No matter how much you try to… disguise it
it’s true
They made the working-class slaves
Then we thanked them for it.
They took away the circus and the cake. And instead of throwing a fit…
we blamed each other for it
Poet’s Note
“Circus and Cake” a poem reflecting on distraction through comfort. Small pleasures and fleeting indulgences that can pacify people while systemic exploitation continues. The stolen “circus” and “cake” are symbols of joy and entertainment. Throughout history, government agencies have used bread and circuses to distract their citizens. Panem et circuses was the Latin term used to represent this. The poem highlights governmental distractions and questions readers in different ways.
What has changed in our society? We had our stability (bread, cake, food, etc) and entertainment (circus, distractions that are fun, etc) all but fully removed. Yet we remain distracted. Why?
View of West Virginia, Ohio, and the Ohio River from the Overlook In Wheeling, WV.
Day 18 – 1/7/2026
Prelude: Axton curated the piece below while sitting at Mount Wood Overlook in Wheeling, West Virginia. Also called the Castle Overlook or just the Overlook. At present time tourists and locals alike use this overlook for an array of things. Most visitors come for sightseeing, unique photography, and outdoor hangouts. Others are drawn to public murals created by the local Wheeling Art Commission. Urban-exploration also tops the list of reasons you’d find an individual visiting the overlook.
But, for creative and emotionally driven humans, this paces exists to reminisce. Grief, childhood memories, or even a longing for home. Add to that the need to unpack big things in equally big spaces, that call us places like this. Last and maybe most important a giant serving of nostalgia. And now you can truly see why the overlook fits for these needs, as well as some mischievous happenings too.
“Cremated”
And every time I come home,
it’s a little
lonelier
than the last.
And every time I come home,
I wonder if
somehow
home
has picked up
and left.
Or did I?
Was the place I knew turned to crumbled remains with you? Cremate my home right along with you?
Ashes to Ashes,
Dust to Dust,
I still
just
collect
the
pieces
along the way.
My torture evergreen.
Poet’s Note
Written at Mount Wood Overlook in Wheeling, WV. A poem that explores home, memory, and loss. Sharing Feelings of grief and loss I feel when returning to the place I grew up since the death of my mother. The loss of feeling at home since she was cremated, “Cremated” poetically describes the cremation of home. The overlook, was built in the 1920’s. It was originally supposed to house a doctor before life drama got in the way of completing it. The structure now watches over absent families and scattered histories. The overlook castle (as locals call it) also showcases wicked graffiti, which doesn’t stay the same long. Here home is collected in fragments, in memories, and in what remains. For some reason, even when it feels lonelier each time I return.
Day 19 – 1/8/2026
“Vigilante Justice”
Let’s start a fire inside the United States,
figuratively, of course.
We can start by using oppression,
hatred, and bigotry
as gasoline to fuel this movement.
Melting down ice into nonexistence.
Covering the country’s soil in fluids
other than
spilled blood
from darker complexions,
the first time in a whole fucking year….
The presidency ….
has three entire years to go, still ….
Scariest thing, if you ask me,
the collective inability to remember how things were before…
When they were just a minute fraction of the pie closer to equality
We do not want… Venezuelan oil.
We do not want to overthrow……
Greenland.
Mexico.
Canada.
We want education, affordable healthcare, workers’ rights,
equality for all
Now
OR vengeance for each and every infraction.
Come tomorrow and on.
A vigilante is what we need….
And a vigilante I may soon be.
Poet’s Note
A piece that uses fire as metaphor, representing accountability and resistance rather than destruction. It critiques complacency, systemic injustice, and the erasure of memory. Then it names the need for moral vigilance and collective action. This is poetry that refuses to stay passive in the face of oppression.
These seven days trace a path through personal and global reflection, grief, memory, and resistance. They examine cycles of oppression, moments of warmth and home. The tension between complacency and action lives in these poems. From international injustice to intimate loss. Stolen joy and moral awakening find their homes here. Poems as witness, critique, and call-to-action. Each a fragment of a daily personal creative contest. Join me in observing the world and responding with honesty, urgency, and reflection.
I feel like everyone in the world could use this advice right now.
Please feel free to share this post with anyone you think would benefit from reading these poems in any form. Have an artistic or poetic friend? Share this with them and challenge them to create one poem or piece of art every day for 100 days.
Before you go, are you interested in supporting the creative dreams and goals of a small-town Ohio poet? Axton N.O. Mitchell the voice behind Poeaxtry is a transgender man with a neurodivergent thought pattern. He has a black belt in being a mental health warrior, he earned through lived experiences. The digital creations Poeaxtry by Axton designs always align with advocacy. Axton ensures Poeaxtry and the prism always keep community care centralized.
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Poeaxtry Links. Portfolio. Random day. A different day. This book feels relevant to the last 19 days. Thank you for reading Poeaxtry by Axton’s original poetry.
More surprisingly sound advice from graffiti in Wheeling, West Virginia.
I’ve got something soft and bright to share today… my poem “Sunlight In Honey” has been published by Magique Publishing in their collection Furrily Lovable. This collection isn’t just poems. Instead it’s full of pictures, art, and heartfelt pieces about the ones we love most: our fur babies.
Writing “Sunlight In Honey” felt like tracing pawprints across a mountain trail, capturing the warmth of golden light on fur, the quiet bond between dog and human after a long hike. I pictured my dog tail wagging, tongue lolling, ears perked soaking in the forest’s hush. I wanted to hold that moment in words, to honor the loyalty, the joy, the wild love.
When Magique Publishing posted about the submission call bing open, I felt like this was made for me. Their collection brings together art and soul, dog lovers and dreamers, human and animal kin. Holding the physical copy, seeing my poem next to paintings, photos, other poems, felt like standing among many storytellers all speaking the same language: love for the creatures we share our lives with.
If you want to grab a physical copy, it’s available on Amazon now. Look for Furrily Lovable flip the pages, feel the brush of whiskers, the softness of paws, the pulse of life we sometimes rush past.
For those who know me you know this kind of publishing is the reason I started Poeaxtry_ and The Prism. It’s about collecting the whispers, the small wild moments, the love that often goes unseen. It’s for the underdogs, the moon-lit hikes, the pages stained with dirt and hope.
If you grab a copy, I’d love to hear which poem or art piece hits you hardest. And maybe someday I’ll share behind-the-scenes of writing “Sunlight In Honey” from trail dust to printer ink.
November has its own temperature in my life now. A private weather pattern that settles into the days leading up to my birthday. Sometimes even the days after my birthday too. When grief meets a date that is supposed to feel bright, something shifts, something lingers, and something refuses to fade. This poem moves through that space, the place where candles and memories coexist. The place where a mother’s absence still shapes the month and every breath inside it. I wrote this to honor that truth…
to let November speak the way it insists on speaking.
“No November Will Ever Be the Same”
November holds its own weather, a sky that remembers even when I try to forget.
My birthday rises, a candle in a tiny room that never carries your scent four years later… I have grown to miss it.
Four years without you, the month keeps its imprint, a bruise under the skin of another year, tender when I press it, tender when I don’t. I press it just to feel alive sometimes…
November keeps the ledger open, ink still wet, pages turning with your scent hidden somewhere between the cold mornings and the early nights.
People say time softens, but November disagrees. I walk through this month as if I am carrying two fires, one that celebrates my breathing one that flickers for the woman who taught me how to breathe at all.
What does November mean now? A point between what was given, what was taken? A place where joy and loss sit at the same table… neither greeting the other?
No November will ever be the same.
I keep moving through it anyway, candle in one hand, memory in the other, hoping the light I carry is enough to keep them both lit.
Poet’s Note
This one carries the weight of four years. The very echo of that week and a day before my birthday that will forever lead me back to her. Writing it felt like holding two flames at once. The one that marks my birth and the one that marks her leaving. The poem flows with the tension, the ache, and the pull. They meet at the quiet acceptance that no November will ever return to what it used to be. If you are someone who walks through a month that changed you, I hope this piece sits with you in a way that feels steady.
We all know grief never asks for permission to reshape a month, a date, or a ritual. It moves in and alters the light around everything that follows. Sharing this poem is part of learning how to keep moving. With my candle in one hand, and her memory in the other. I will continue trusting that honoring both is enough. November will never be the same, but it still holds space for growth, reflection and the kind of love that keeps shaping us long after loss has taken its form.
I woke up at 7 p.m. because my phone vibrated on the side of my face! Kelsey had been in a hit-and-run while door dashing. Thankfully I can get up and go because I left immediately to make sure they were okay. The car was drivable, and Kelsey was unharmed, but the shock of the situation was definitely hard on both of us. Later, we had friends over and they brought dinner! They also super helped us with the TV Bull crap. I think the good company made the evening a little easier managed.
Not 3 minutes after she left, Kylie called (three doors down.) “You have to come outside! NORTHERN LIGHTS!” Both of them are bordering on giddy. I personally was skeptical and assumed it was going to be like the last few times we could see them… which was only in photos. But when they showed us on FaceTime we got up and got outside instantly. We actually had to walk down to their place to see them being that they were literally on top of our house.
There were pink and green lights sweeping across the sky in Central Ohio?!!
I now not one of us had ever seen the northern lights like that. They were bright, moving, and mesmerizing. The lights didn’t erase the weight of the day. The stress of a hit-and-run, the TV, and the ongoing grief of losing my mom on four years ago. However, they did offer a sudden, unexpected lift.
Amid all the ordinary chaos and grief, the northern lights were a rare reminder that small bursts of beauty can matter deeply.
Aurora Borealis Facts & Emotional Reflections
Auroras, or the northern lights, occur when charged particles from the sun collide with gases in Earth’s atmosphere. Oxygen then produces green or red light, while nitrogen produces blue or purple. These collisions tend to occur near the poles because Earth’s magnetic field funnels the particles there. That being said seeing the aurora over Central Ohio is rare. Though solar storms and high solar activity can make it possible.
Historical events like the Carrington Event of 1859 show us the power of geomagnetic storms. In extreme cases they produce auroras visible at unusually low latitudes. Telegraph systems across the globe failed during this event, and auroras were visible as far south as the Caribbean. This shows both the beauty and power of the sun interacting with our planet. The northern lights above our house were not of that degree though.
The tie in is knowing to a lot of people grief and depression feel intertwined or undistinguishable from the other. But grief is episodic, typically tied to loss, and often unpredictable. This bad boy surfaces in waves that can crash with no warning.
Depression on the other hand can be more persistent, a shadow that affects every part of life, dulling your favorite color and adding weight like nothing else. When I lost my mom in 2021 I was left with a steady ache that resurfaces, to go along with my depression, to go along with my seasonal affective disorder.
Obviously this is especially worse for some people around death anniversaries, holidays and birthdays. But last night, the aurora brought a lightness, not a fix, but tiny pause in the heaviness. A small moment, bursts of joy, is bigger than you think. These things matter. Things like a friend’s call, a shared meal, or a flickering sky. The moments that anchor us to the ground when life piles on all its shit are usually the most profoundly simple .
The day had been full of catastrophes. Kelsey’s accident, the TV, the ordinary weight of a difficult year. Tiny moments you’d often let pass unnoticed can fix your day. We let the northern lights force our attention, to them. This gave us pause, notice, and a quiet awe to share. It’s the contrast between chaos and beauty that makes such moments stand out.
Looking up at the lights, the weight of the day shifted slightly. It isn’t erased. The TV, the wreck, the grief, the ordinary trials are still present. Just now with a reminder of wonder, of unpredictability, and of something bigger than routine and worry. It’s often the little things, like noticing a rare northern lights display, that make a day worth remembering.
Life continues with its challenges. Grief continues to arrive, as does anxiety, tech failures, accidents, and the everyday weight of living.
