Poeaxtry's Prism

Spell. Stone. & Sparks that Ignite Change

Tag: trans writer

  • Spill: Letters from Poeaxtry, Volume Three Turns Out They Like Sad Trans Poems After All

    Spill: Letters from Poeaxtry, Volume Three Turns Out They Like Sad Trans Poems After All

    Newsletter Vol. 3 — May 12th, 2025

    The One Where I Got Published… Thrice.
    Dear reader in the wilds of the prism,
    You know those months where you blink and suddenly your inbox goes from “we regret to inform you” to “we’d love to publish your work”?
    Yeah. That happened.

    In the past few weeks, I’ve had three poems accepted, two rejections (because balance, of course), and I officially partnered with Forever with Pride which is a UK-based queer e-magazine and online store that actually gives a damn about uplifting trans and minority voices.

    It’s been a surreal stretch. Not in the dreamlike, float-above-your-body kind of way. However, more like I tripped into a publishing alley and somehow hit three bullseyes with a busted pen and a pocketful of trauma.
    So naturally, I’m celebrating.
    Well, WE are celebrating

    SALE: 30% OFF EVERYTHING
    Ebooks. Prompt journals. Witchy spells. Sad boy poetry with a resistance arc. Cool rocks and MORE!

    Use code: Axtongotpublished

    Valid until: May 13th – May 21st

    Shop the Prism on Etsy

    Whether you’re new to my work or have read me sobbing through syllables since the beginning, this is for you. These pieces were written between hormone shots and grief spirals, in hospital parking lots and on trailheads, with shaking hands that still wrote anyway.
    Publishing feels weird when you were never sure you were even allowed to speak.
    But here I am. Still writing. Still showing up. Still turning my story into spell work and eBooks stitched from leftover bravery.

    Maybe you’re reading this because you’re one of the ones who believed before I ever had a byline. Maybe you’re new and wondering why this trans guy keeps mailing you metaphors about dirt and ghosts and gender. Either way I’m damn glad you’re here.
    This is just the beginning.
    That I know is a fact.

    Community, Submissions, and the Power of Voice

    The Prism Discord is growing — and so are the projects.
    If you’re looking for a place to share your work, connect with other creatives, and find opportunities to get published, come join us.
    Right now, we’ve got two major submission calls open:

    Voices for the Voiceless — an ongoing eBook project highlighting art, poetry, and essays from marginalized voices in the aftermath of the 2024 election. Open to BIPOC, queer, disabled, immigrant, trans, and allied creatives. Submission cap? None for visual art, 10 for poems, and 2 essays. Deadline? September 2 (for now). The Joy They Cannot Erase a trans masc and nonbinary masc-centered collection that will become a full eBook project. Open to those who identify across the masc spectrum. More details, prompts, and themes coming soon but it’s already in motion. Looking for solo pieces and bros who want to go all in on one piece.

    Got a piece that fits? Submit it. Got questions? Come ask in the server. Just want to read and vibe? You’re welcome too.

    We’re building something honest, weird, and inclusive one poem, one eBook, one voice at a time.

    Discord
    UpDATES

    Or visit the updates button above for more.
    Now that’s out of the way have a goood day!

    Until next spill,
    Where the wild things write.
    Where silence softens.
    Where stories spill.

    With ink, bruised knees, and gratitude,
    Axton N. O. Mitchell

    @poeaxtry_

    I ALMOST FORGOT!
    Want to sharpen your spell work or stitch cleaner lines into your prose?
    Maybe you’ve got poems that won’t behave, a story that needs scaffolding, or a website dream still stuck in your notebook margins.
    Udemy has become a favorite haunt of mine lately. Plus, it is stacked with free and paid courses covering everything from:
    HTML & web design (so you can build your own digital altar) Creative and professional writing (because sometimes the magic needs structure) Storytelling, poetry, journaling, publishing, and beyond
    Whether you’re a total beginner or someone who just needs to refresh what your brain forgot during burnout season, you can scroll through their list yourself right on the Udemy app or their website.
    No subscriptions. No gatekeeping.
    Just click, learn, repeat.
    And maybe finally finish that weird little writing project whispering in the back of your mind.

  • “My BPD” A Poem About Living on the Edge with Borderline Personality Disorder 🚨

    “My BPD” A Poem About Living on the Edge with Borderline Personality Disorder 🚨

    An Original Poem by: Axton N. O. Mitchell

    Oh my borderline .

    Somewhere on the edges of alive and dead
    barely breathing though I am screaming 

    BPD just leave me, just be gone.
    I hate being alone this is 
    well known.

    However, I’d rather spend the 
    rest of my days without this 
    seed inside of me.
    It’s grown and it’s grown until 
    I can no longer control it.

    Separate me from BPD,
    not who I aim to be,
    having no control over me.

    Look at me, I’m a god.
    Bow before me and weep.
    Kiss my toes while I sit in this throne.

    Oh. fuck I’m unwell, this is hell.
    I hate my life.
    I hate my face.

    Please help me escape this….
    Place 

    I need you to see the 
    difference between me and
    My BPD. 

    Where does the current in this piece carry you?

    links

  • Through Dew and Texture – A Sensory Exploration of Nature Using Only Touch💐

    Through Dew and Texture – A Sensory Exploration of Nature Using Only Touch💐

    A hush of cool air embraces my skin, carrying the faintest whisper of gritty soil. Each caress of wet soft fiber unveils a world veiled in liquid light. My fingers glide over surfaces slick and yielding, a cold, smooth resistance that speaks of gathered nightly tears. Petals, some plush as velvet, others brittle thin like dried secrets, bow with the weight of a million tiny spheres. A brush against a cluster releases a sudden, icy shower onto my hand, a fleeting baptism.

    Stems, sometimes stubbornly firm, sometimes with a surprising bend, offer a slick passage for my exploring touch. The intricate etchings of a leaf’s veins rise beneath my fingertips, cool and precise as a carved stone. There’s a profound stillness in this tactile landscape, a damp hush where each blade and bloom is weighted with quiet wonder. It’s a world just awakened, still draped in shimmering, cool secrets, each touch a quirky revelation of form and the lingering kiss of the dew.

    What is the picture you see? If you get it right, I’ll let you know!

    The dailyspur writing exercise

  • He Raped Me on Christmas: A Journal Entry from Age 12

    He Raped Me on Christmas: A Journal Entry from Age 12

    Journal entry number 1

    The moment I started writing for survival is not one that would be difficult to pinpoint, especially if you know my story well.
    I’m not sure if I can even claim that story as my own. It was always more Arielle’s to tell; the kid experienced the hell of living through it.
    It is simply a memory we share. I no longer carry the trauma it produced.

    Let me paint you a picture: I was in 7th grade, around the age of twelve, a straight A student who loved
    sports, reading, chorus, and writing both short stories and poetry. I had just started hearing the murmurs in the halls, that boy this and this boy that. I had to hold my metaphorical vomit back. When did this happen? We want to ogle all the boys, since when? Not I, and then I realized my best friend and her thighs. This is not normal, and I am already weird so we can just pretend, go along with the boy trend. Fast Foward 7th grade Christmas break. This is the last place for you to turn around before the moment that changed me, and my reasoning for creating art through words.

    Okay one of us is at least still here…
    I had to go to the house of my enemy for most of the break. I remember feeling defeated. My mom could not stop
    the judge from sending me to what I mistakenly thought was the worst possible layer of hell. A bitch for a father who leaves me on porches for days and days, each weekend, each year (check out my poem still) or just lies to my face either way he’s more than know for abandoning me. Jake the fucking snake. Or the stepmom straight out of R.L. Stein. But they were not even close to the worst, and I would soon learn. I packed my bags and headed to Jakes apartment for what was supposed to be a few weeks visit.

    For once I really wish my evil stepmother was there this night and he had just lied about their goodbyes.
    We went to Uncle Heath’s the evil stepmother’s brother and somehow snake’s best friend. He had a wife, a bug infested house, and a bunch of dirt covered kids. The worst thing in the house was not there because of him. Enter the devil himself at just 17 with teeth sticking horizontally out of the vile thing known as his mouth.
    He’d touch me under the table with his toes through my pants in the kitchen, while his mom bragged about his large member claiming it put her husbands to shame. I tried and tried to tell, pinch me with his toes until i was quiet from fear. Would hold me down as soon as the adults left out of there. He would touch me all over under my clothes, always stopping before “taking it too far” as if he hadn’t already with a child my age, as an almost man.

    I wish I could say that was the end. I begged and begged every time to not have to go to Heath’s but hadn’t told on him. He’d growl at me and threaten to end what life I did have. Jake was usually pretty smart on the pervy way some guy’s minds work…I wonder why. anyway, he’d always tell the devil no when he would ask to stay the night with me. Until that Christmas Eve. The Devil asked and my fucking “dad” said yes knowing it was only us two and now three so my brothers wouldn’t be there to hear anything. My dad got us to his apartment building told devil man to stay in the living room and to leave me be. Jake the snake was always good at one thing sleeping. The devi snuck in and raped me in my brother’s race car bed. I didn’t think it would ever end, he slapped me around, threatened my mother, and left out the door. Although I watched him get up, I never stopped feeling his weight crushing me.

    I waited up all night for Jake to awake, and when I told him what happened He slapped me in the face, called me a whore, sent me out the door to the stoop to wait for my mom. This was Christmas day in 7th grade. I sat on the porch while it snowed and couldn’t shed a tear with my Christmas presents in piles unopened laying on the ground. For years I wish I had never said a thing. I told my mom at the age of 19. As sad as it is to say the reaction she had, the emotions, the pain finally told me everything. To my dad I never meant anything. My mom went after him of course. He lied and said I never told him, and pretended he was going to press charges all those years later, and still never did. Still closer to the man who raped his daughter than he ever was to her.

    This story gets a happy ending finally.
    The devil went back to hell where he should have always stayed.
    And my brother thinks he’s a good man, and wonders why I don’t talk to any of them.

    Thank you Mr. Matthew Mitchell. I sure hope you do better to protect your daughters than supporting the likes of a rapist even in death. To circle back around I started writing to escape the vicious rape at the hands of an almost adult, who was introduced to me as my cousin. This need to escape through writing grew as did I. While the size of the things I was writing to hide from began to shrink. I may be passed a lot of feelings this used to stir but I’ll still piss on this man’s grave.

    Much Love Forever to everyone but my father,
    Axton N. O. Mitchell
    @Poeaxtry_

    Links journal

  • The Spill: Letters from Poeaxtry, Vol. 1: Raw Trans Poetry & Survivor Stories on Trauma & Healing

    The Spill: Letters from Poeaxtry, Vol. 1: Raw Trans Poetry & Survivor Stories on Trauma & Healing


    Vol. 1-April 30th, 2025

    Welcome to Poeaxtry’s Poetry Prism. This is the beginning of our very first newsletter!
    No not the shiny corporate kind, think raw, real, and always a bit chaotic kind. This is the
    section where I will spill thoughts that don’t quite fit into boxes, update you on projects,
    a bunch of behind-the-scenes rambling, giveaways, and maybe I will even spill the tea.

    Thank you for being here, with me, in this moment, wherever you are. Maybe you found
    me from discord, perhaps you stumbled off the gram, or maybe you even wandered here by
    accident wondering where you were going the whole way. Whatever the case maybe I am genuinely
    glad to have you here. Please stay as long as you’d like.

    This newsletter will be an array of mixed and matched things, sprinkled together, including and not limited
    to part:
    blog, confession booth, love letter to the misfits, and always chaotically honest. I won’t schedule these posts
    and they won’t be algorithm polished perfection. They will just be real, honest, and exactly what you should come
    to expect from me, if you do not already

    Expect:
    -Project Updates
    -Themed prompts
    -Poetry that doesn’t always make the main stage, maybe it isn’t sitting quite right with me
    -Notes on grief, gender, politics, that fight to stay soft, and other items I find relevant.
    -You’ll probably get some rants here (by probably I mean definitely), reflections, and freebies here and there.
    -Any new info and details on everything Poeaxtry’s Poetry Prism will be here

    This is a space for survivors and storyteller, for the messy and the magnificent.
    The wonderers and the wandering not all of us are lost you know.
    The women who felt more like Alice than the princess and
    the guys who would have liked to be the beauty sometimes too.


    A quick heads up:
    This site is rated R. Not for shock value but, because real life isn’t censored.
    I speak about a lot of triggering topics, and that is your warning. The topics include but, are not
    limited to general trauma, sexual assault, mental illness, domestic violence, drug abuse, parental abuse, sex,
    body parts, needles, grief, death, sexuality, queerness, minority status, poverty, discrimination, hate crimes,
    murder, disabilities, politics, morality, anti-Christianity, deconstructing Christianity, conspiracy theories, curse words, acts of kindness,
    taking back slurs, self-harm, suicide, suicidal ideation, women’s suffrage, afab things, menstruating, childbirth, resistance, anti-government, estrangement, abandonment, transphobia, dysphoria, homophobia, biphobia, racism, medical trauma, chronic illness, consent violation, toxic relationships, religious trauma, witchcraft, eating disorders, body image issues, systematic violence, state-sanctioned harm, blood, medical procedures, surgery mentions, genocide, war, global injustice, capitalism burnout, financial instability and many more. Sometimes this can get gritty, other times it feels intimate, but it is always mine.

    If you are still here reading thank you.
    I appreciate you!
    It seems like you may belong here too.
    subscribe if you would like to keep walking this path together, or don’t
    I will still be here, writing like the wind forgot its name.

    This is where the wild things write. Where silence softens.
    Where stories spill.

    See you next post.
    Much love always,
    Axton N. O. Mitchell

    Links journal hike