I Like to Read, You Like to Watch the Life Drain Out of a Person is a 56-poem collection. This was written between late 2024 and early 2025. The poems here confront mental health, identity, pain, resilience, and the complexities of existence. All of these are written from the perspective of a transgender man navigating life in Ohio.
Content Warnings
This collection contains references to suicidal ideation, sexual abuse, childhood trauma, emotional inability to regulate, identity struggle, internalized rage, dissociation, mental illness including borderline personality disorder, self-harm, self-erasure, PTSD, panic, and depersonalization. This work is not softened; it is shadow work in its darkest and barest form.
Why Read This Collection
These poems bleed, scream, and name what was never supposed to be spoken. This collection is for readers prepared to engage with shadow work, emotional truth, and the survival of a human being facing immense struggle. Each poem invites reflection, awareness, and empathy.
There’s a temptation every January to pretend the year before didn’t bruise us, to slap a fresh number on the calendar and call it rebirth.
But real change doesn’t work like that. It carries memory. It carries consequence. This poem doesn’t ask 2026 to save us. It asks us to arrive honestly, eyes open, grief acknowledged, hope still breathing.
After you read this poem, comment something you wanna manifest for the year of 2026. Or you could tell me if your manifestations send something like mine all input is appreciated.
2026
As we enter 2026,
we need not forget
the implications 2025
had on our lives.
Set our course and stay afloat.
We cannot begin to give up hope.
Dry our eyes from the tears we cried in 2025.
Forget fear in the coming year.
This year we will lead
the majority of humanity
to see each individual equally
for the first time in human history.
Poet’s Note
This poem exists in the space between grief and resolve. It refuses erasure. 2025 mattered, for better or worse, and pretending otherwise only weakens what comes next.
Writing this felt less like predicting the future and more like setting an intention that requires participation. Equality isn’t automatic. Hope isn’t passive. Both are choices we make out loud.
2026 isn’t a reset button. It’s a continuation. What we carry forward matters just as much as what we leave behind. If this poem resonated, it’s because you already understand that change doesn’t come quietly. It comes when we decide to see each other fully and act like it.
Share this with someone who feels like they need permission to hope again, so they can manifest alongside us, not alone.
Peace isn’t some distant, fragile dream…it’s stitched together from everyday moments and rituals that quietly steady me when everything else feels like it’s spiraling. I find it in the calm that comes when I intentionally slow my mind, pulling back from the noise that threatens to swallow me whole. It’s in the deep breaths taken during those rare stillnesses, a soft reset that slices through chaos and invites clarity to settle in like a whispered promise.
I usually find peace first by quieting the storm inside my head…finding a natural calm that softens the sharp edges of stress and noise. It’s not about escaping reality… it’s about slowing the mind enough to breathe, focus, and reset. This calm haze settles the chaos, giving me space to think clearly and find balance when everything else feels overwhelming. Without it, peace would feel like a distant, unreachable luxury. Especially for someone like me, juggling ADHD, other diagnoses, and whatever else life throws my way. THC has been more medicine than anything else. Simply a way to calm down in more than one way, grounding both mind and body when the noise gets too loud, when I can’t regulate my emotions, or even when my brain cannot seem to calm itself.
There’s an unshakable kind of peace in the steady presence of something… or someone, that grounds me without needing words. The kind of quiet loyalty that pulls me from the abyss of my thoughts and reminds me I’m not facing the storm alone. That steady heartbeat beside me, the simple warmth of shared silence…it’s a reminder that calm doesn’t always have to be loud or flashy. Sometimes, peace is just the steady pulse beneath the noise.
Moving through nature is my way of hitting reset, step by sweat soaked step. The world outside reminds me how to be resilient, how to keep moving. With every crunch of leaves underfoot and a fresh breath of air filling my lungs…I’m reminded that peace grows slowly, like roots digging deep into the earth. When the city’s weight presses hard…the wild offers a refuge. This is a place where I can rebuild myself, piece by piece and step by step.
I hunt for hidden treasures. A few quiet gems buried beneath dirt and time. This slow, focused search pulls me into a mindset of curiosity and patience, drowning out the mental chatter. Finding those small pieces of beauty in unexpected places is like stealing back peace from a noisy world, holding it in my palm like a secret victory no one else could see coming.
The work of my hands when polishing, shaping, crafting… pulls me into the moment with a clarity no other practice can match. The hum of tools, the steady pressure turning rough edges smooth…it’s meditation made tangible. A reminder that transforming raw chaos into something shaped and controlled is its own kind of peace, earned with every steady spin or careful cut.
Writing and journaling let me wrestle the storm inside onto the page, turning tangled thoughts into something I can hold and understand. This act of creation is both a shield and a weapon… helping me reclaim control when life feels anything but. Words become the map through dark forests, a way to find footing when the ground shifts beneath me. Without this…peace would slip like sand through my fingers.
Let’s be real…peace isn’t always sacred. Sometimes, it’s petty. It’s in those sharp, satisfying moments where I call out bullshit, get the last laugh, and watch karma unfold like clockwork. These moments aren’t trivial; they’re survival tools and ways to reclaim power when the world tries to crush it. Petty shit keeps me sharp and my boundaries solid. That’s peace with a bite.
Watching karma take its course gives me a peace rooted in faith… not in miracles, but in balance. Knowing the universe holds justice in its own time frees me from carrying bitterness or vengeance. It’s the quiet trust that lets me focus on growth and keep my eyes on the work ahead, leaving grudges to dissolve in the background.
Peace is also that last laugh, the quiet but fierce victory when the noise finally dies down and I’m still standing. It’s not arrogance; it’s validation. And it is the proof that persistence pays off. That grin when I know I’ve outlasted the doubters, when my story is mine to own. That moment grounds me, fueling a peace that’s both hard-earned and unbreakable.
But peace isn’t just personal…it’s collective. Helping to be the change I want to see roots me in purpose beyond myself. Lifting marginalized voices, pushing for real transformation, and building community are acts of peace that extend outward. This ongoing fight feeds my resilience and connects me to something greater, a calm fire burning steady through chaos.
Share a story about someone who had a positive impact on your life.
It wasn’t the kind of impact most people celebrate, but it changed everything about whom I became. My dad taught me about boundaries by constantly violating them. He’d call and say he was coming to see me. “Be ready,” he’d say. I’d sit there, bag packed, watching the window all weekend. And most of the time… he never showed.
He never paid child support. Never helped. Not financially, not emotionally. But he always made sure I knew what disappointment felt like, like it was his signature on my childhood.
And still, in a strange way, he taught me. Because of him, I became the kind of person who honors their word. Who shows up. Who doesn’t use love as bait or trust as a trick. I am fiercely in tune with my own boundaries because I know what it’s like when no one respects them.
He taught me who I’d never be especially as a man. He showed me that masculinity built on control and silence will always collapse. Mine is built on presence, softness, and honesty. I know that real strength means protecting others from the kind of pain I lived through. So yeah… maybe that’s a kind of impact. Maybe even a gift. Just one I wrapped myself in survival.
I’m learning to make lemonade where my lemons are. If that is all life is going to hand to me.
I will make something from all the lessons I learned and continue too. No longer allowing myself to continue brooding over what should have, could have, would have been.
No matter what life throws my direction I can only elevate above the shit. I will continue to be the man I was raised to transition to.
Forever serving you my lemonade in different flavors of emotions painting a mural of my life in different fonts.
Hopefully, those who resonate won’t be so alone after they read m vulnerability, every page I print covered in it.
He dreams of being his own muse. Able to look inside himself and find something to keep him going.
He doesn’t want to be all knowing, just someone who needs others less. As a means to be less depressed. As each and every person will always fail the test.
You said it just like chucky “We’re friends ’til the end!” My favorite childhood movie You pulled a nostalgic string, loose. Thread worn and weathered as my soul already was.
I ignored the neon blinking red flags blame it on bpd blacks and whites. and always needing to see it for myself, won’t take the word of someone else. When it would be the one thing to save me. The end on your screen.
Somehow my mom dying prepared me for many things. Though you aren’t close to dead you are worse than buried to me I see you as below the enemy supposed to be my brother from another. Is this why you lost your living family?
Can’t stay ten toes down for someone always plotting on worsening anyone’s misery. so full of fucking negativity. No matter how much positivity is wasted on your perpetual self-inflicted rain clouds and yet….
we’re both still breathing.
I should have known words have no meaning instead I listened when you said “We’re friends til’ the end” Hey, how come neither of us Is dead? You use people like a habitual liar does lines neither can keep anything straight from the chaos they create and pretend is out of their control.
A pussy who can never stand by his whole truth, open your eyes… blinding them to the truth Won’t change Their root… here’s a clue The problem is always you. Change your name until you find one to fit a chameleon, changing its skin.
Problem, liar, and other choice phrases you’ve heard a time or two. Pos but you’re good at your game. When your friends go through Emotional pain plan your attack. You are that fucking Wack. Sabotaging every good thing sent your direction.
Maybe you deserve wallowing in your self-inflicted emotions. Alone for eternity. But I will keep pressing send sitting here left on delivered not even making it to seen embarrassing.
