Poeaxtry's Prism

Spell. Stone. & Sparks that Ignite Change

Tag: emotional survival

  • Book Spotlight: Canvas of Scars By: Shane Blackheart 🖤

    Book Spotlight: Canvas of Scars By: Shane Blackheart 🖤

    The Work

    Title: Canvas of Scars

    Summary: Wandering alone late at night in the dark. Searching for meaning as your heart melts in your ribcage. A longing to be alive, but you’re dead and staring through a veil to experience a semblance of life. Canvas of Scars is a collection of dark poetry, short prose, and art with themes of PTSD, depression, psychosis, and other dark subjects.

    Link to buy: https://books2read.com/u/4AePLk

    Favorite piece, quote, or moment: 

    At the End of Time is one of my favorite poems from the book. It was written in a spur of the moment while dissociating, so the imagery was very strong. I’d went on a walk before writing it, and I described everything I was seeing and feeling as if it were a stage play. Like everything was a set and I was on the outside of it all as an observer.

    About me and why I created the book:

    I’m a nonbinary trans masculine author and artist, and I’ve also spent a lot of my life struggling with various mental illnesses, including CPTSD and a panic disorder. Canvas of Scars wasn’t something that was planned, it just became what it was over time as I wrote more and more poetry privately on one of my blogs. The art in the book is also drawn by me, and they’re all pieces that were, again, not meant for publication but as vent art to help me cope. I eventually combined them all in an effort to talk honestly about severe mental illness and trauma, as well as show visually how scary things can feel. It became a part of my work as an advocate for mental health awareness, and as a way to share my own story of survival.

    Future projects: 

    Right now, I’m juggling a few different works in progress. One of them is called The Soulless Ones, and it’s a Backrooms-inspired sci-fi that also takes inspiration from I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. It’s about four people who wake up in a strange, indoor community to find that they can’t remember their past. No one else is there, and nothing else seems to exist beyond the four walls around them. Another work in progress is the third book in my series, The Requiem Series. It’ll be the final book in the main storyline, and I’m really excited to get back to the fantasy themes of the first book; angels, demons, and a bit of a Biblical apocalypse will unfold.

    Links:

    Website – https://shaneblackheart.com

    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shaneblackheart/

    Threads: https://www.threads.com/@shaneblackheart

    Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/shaneblackheart.com

    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ShaneBlackheart

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  • Carrying the Unspoken: A Trans Man’s Journal on Loss, Love, and Survival

    Carrying the Unspoken: A Trans Man’s Journal on Loss, Love, and Survival

    “I still carry the sound of your promises that never made it past your teeth.”

    -Axton N.O. Mitchell

    Hi Jake.

    I know I swore I let go of all this shit.
    All of you.
    But I still carry the sound of promises that never made it past your teeth.

    Dad
    the disappearing act that always came with excuses,
    the birthdays you ghosted like it was a tradition.
    The ball games, the plays, the sick days, you’d call for them all big or small.
    I carry the echo of your words:
    I’ll be there this time.
    You never were.

    I miss you Momma!

    I carry the way Mom said my name
    right before everything stopped.
    Eight days before I turned 30, my sisters both not even 21. She stopped existing in a world that never deserved her.
    I still talk to her like she can hear me.
    They did teach us energy gets replaced it never leaves.
    Maybe that’s the part I haven’t let go of.
    I doubt I have let go of much but her physically.
    Maybe that’s the part I never should let go.
    I won’t. I can’t let more of her slip away. She falls through the cracks between my fingers as I pretend. I was definitely not crying again. Not that anyone asked.

    I’m the Problem, so They must be the Reason.

    I carry the weight of being told I make people miserable,
    like I’m a curse wrapped in skin.
    The way an ex said I’d ruin everything I touched the opposite of that king Midas, I think. I don’t remember, but as a kid, my mom would read me a book. It was about a king who turned everything to gold.


    As well as other Ex’s and other things they said they never meant to say… but still said.
    Anyway, for a while, I believed them.
    Because when you hear it often enough,
    it doesn’t sound like abuse anymore.
    It sounds like proof.

    The Demons they Left behind

    And honestly, if I’m being real, it still does when the demon bpd shows his ass. It’s way further apart than it was known to be in history but I’m still clearly sore in many places. I don’t like to talk directly about that shit.
    It’s hard when the person you talked to the only one is located on your shelf in an urn. What a joke.
    The weight of all this is sometimes enough to drown me, I fear.

    Those People who left When Axton stopped Hiding


    The people who said they loved me
    until I came-out, found me, or loved me.
    I chose a name that fit, and they couldn’t try to call me it.
    I started to look like someone they hadn’t imagined. So they didn’t come around and get used to me as I changed. They decided it was better to walk away.


    I carry the silence that followed coming out,
    the way their love had fine print and conditions. That I didn’t see until I bled through it, of fucking course.
    They loved the version of me I had to bury.
    But I didn’t die with her, she was always a shield for a boy too weak to exist. You just knew him by a different name and set of pronouns.


    I became something more. I was lonelier at first. Fresh out of my shell. I found my tribe, and the more, I grow the louder I am about equality for everyone.
    That scares them,
    so, it is theirs to hold.

    I’ve got enough of my own weight to carry.
    And I do.
    Every damn day. I carry all the things I said I had burned.
    The truth is I just folded them up,
    pressed them behind my ribs like a sad collection.
    I still read those letters sometimes.
    They still sting.
    And I can’t do a thing to stop them from opening.

    “Every damn day, I carry all the things I said I had burned. I still read those letters sometimes.”

    -Axton N.O. Mitchell

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