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I sit in the sand at five in

the afternoon,

salt drying on my skin, a gallon of lukewarm water next to me,

watching the ocean hurl itself against the shore.

The waves slam into my kids’ bare ankles

they laugh, they scream, they throw their small bodies into the foam.

I look at them, and I realize… I am holding the camera

and playing the lead role all at the same time.

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Yesterday, my heart violently misfired on the loop.

I was driving out east, on my way to visit my niece. She had just welcomed a new 2026 edition to the family, a healthy baby girl with a ferocious set of lungs and a voice that demanded to be heard. Total, unfiltered aliveness.

Then, a song came on my playlist.

It ambushed my body.

My chest and stomach instantly locked up. If you’ve ever felt it, you know the sensation: imagine a coarse cord tied around your heart, knotted tightly to your gut, and some unseen force outside of your skin is violently yanking on it.

It was a physical alarm, a signal telling me that something deep inside needed immediate attention.

I turned down the radio, forcing myself to sit with the noise inside my own chest. I even changed the track to break the spell, but the activation refused to leave. It stayed rooted. I had to mentally zoom out, pulling the camera back to get a clearer view of what exactly was rattling my cage so violently.

And there it was, waiting for me in the quiet of the car.

Grief.

At first glance grief and romance seem like polar opposites.

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They always tell you that you never forget the sound of a mother screaming.

The sound of deep pain, of knowing your child has passed.

And they’re right.

It sticks.

It’s not a sound you hear with your ears

It’s an animal ripping its own throat out from the inside.

It fills the room like thick smoke, getting into the curtains, into the carpet, into the pores of your skin.

But the men….

I’ve seen it.

It’s different.

With the fathers, the air turns to solid lead.

There are no words.

The voice doesn’t just stop; it gets murdered in the throat.

Then there’s the stare.

If you held a match in front of his face, his eyes wouldn’t even flinch.

He isn’t looking at the flashing red lights bouncing off the window, or the neighborhood screaming outside.

He’s looking right through the wall, right into the basement of nothingness.

He’s a statue.

He’s trapped at the center of an explosion, paralyzed by the shockwave, waiting for his brain to catch up to the fact that the world just ended.

In one split second, gravity multiplies by ten.

It’s a loud pain, but it doesn’t make a sound.

On the outside…. No tears. Just a heavy stillness.

But inside his skin, the plumbing is tearing apart.

Everything holding him up is snapping in total secrecy.

They cross my mind from time to time,

depending on the season or a passing street.

He crosses my body in the summer months

stored memory recognizes a season.

The body is the antenna of the outer world.

An imprint shared on different sides of pain:

You have the Observer, the Absorber, the Witness, the Experiencer.

The First Father

I remember a man on the floor,

his back pressed hard against a cold brick wall on the side of his house.

You know, the side with the trashcans…

I watched him look at nothing.

It wasn’t a blank stare.

It was motionless agony.

On the outside, there was nothing showing.

No blood, no thrashing, no tears yet.

Just absolute stillness.

His eyes were locked onto something far outside of himself, witnessing the exact moment his universe fractured. It was as if his heart and his brain were running a frantic, desperate race in the dark, trying to catch up to each other, trying to comprehend a reality too heavy for a human soul to hold.

On the exterior, a frozen statue; on the interior, everything burning to ash.

And I had no words.

What do you say to a man

whose teenage son was just shot and killed in the front yard?

Knowing the outcome while putting up crime scene tape,

getting IDs from different people around the neighborhood,

while the outside world is screaming.

The House of Febreze

I once saw a man on his front lawn on his knees, holding his face.

I was the first one there, to see him in that form of unraveling.

Also in the summer, because I remember the heat on my skin.

Walking through the front door,

I see the TV in the living room still on.

It was a cozy house. It smelled like Febreze plug-ins.

I walked past the kitchen, past the family photos.

I saw two boys... one with glasses, one without.

The Febreze was still strong.

It seemed as if there was a plug-in in every outlet.

I opened the door at the end of the hallway, straight ahead.

There were bunk beds with a black frame.

To the right, I saw the computer desk, the screen still on, playing music.

And I see him laying in the bottom bunk.

The same boy with the glasses from the pictures, the one who was smiling.

The shotgun on his bed. Half his face gone.

What can I say?

Up goes the tape.

Feelings going into a box.

Another hot day on repeat in the front yard.

I can still hear him say: “I said I’d be right back.”

The shotgun was a gift for his 18th birthday.

He learned to shoot it that day.

The day he exited was the same day he arrived.

The Return

The first man, I never saw him after that day.

Until one afternoon, I drove by the house on my way to visit my parents and something in me said….. pull over.

I sat in my car, just remembering.

And then again the next day, the same thing. That pull at me. I pulled over.

This time, a woman comes out. It was the mom.

She was just looking.

“Were you here yesterday?”

“Yes,” I said, and introduced myself.

She hugged me.

The man I saw 8 years earlier came out

This time I got to hug him

She said the day I stopped was the anniversary of her son.

Again, just a reminder of how the body holds memory.

Two people on different sides of a coin,

experiencing the same day, somewhat of the same memory.

The Bleeding Out

The other man, I think of him in passing.

His pain took a different shape.. he turned to alcohol.

I remember the domestic violence calls coming in.

It seemed as if his pain started to bleed outward, years later.

Years later, I saw his house up for sale.

I do hope he’s doing better.

One thing I continue to learn is that pain is universal.

Wherever they are today,

I wish them both a peaceful Father’s Day.

06-19-2026

there’s a part of me that wants to eat the whole world

with her hands.

she wants the peach juice running down the wrist,

the sheets still warm from someone else’s body,

the second glass of red wine on a Wednesday

just because the light through the window

was doing something extraordinary

and nobody was there to see it but her.

she leans into heat.

she is the reason I have stood in the summer rain

at 7 years old

the neighbors probably thought… absolute idiot’s

our mothers voice would say go play outside during the thunder storms with my sisters

with our face turned up

and our mouths open.

she doesn’t care how she looks.

she wants the bass line in the chest,

the smell of garlic in a hot pan,

the moment a conversation

tips over into something real

when you can feel the other person

stop performing

and just arrive.

this other part

she is not young.

she has never been just young.

she is something older than that

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My fingers are suspended over the keyboard, dead weight in a momentary paralysis. I’m sifting through my “Drafts” folder that has become a messy cartography of my soul..a map of all the times I went down the drain and the few times I crawled back up the pipe these last two months.

In these drafts, the ego is a shifting shadow. I see the entries written from the depths of an internal landslide, those moments where the “solid ground” of the self turned to water and just washed away.

Then there’s the high-octane prose from the studio, electric, Zen-like frenzy where I bared my soul and found myself vibrating in the aftermath, a bell that’s been struck too hard.

Then, I hit the notes stained with the salt of my own face.

My daughter.

Seeing my own bloodline standing tall, encased in the rigid geometry of a uniform, it’s a primal shift in the scenery. I reached out and ripped the old patch off her chest, velcro sound, like the tearing of an umbilical cord and I threw the damn thing behind me.

The past was just debris. I pressed the new promotion patch onto her uniform, feeling the solid resistance of the woman she’s becoming.

I looked at her face, and then at her siblings looking up at her like she was the North Star.

People use the word “pride,” but “pride” is a word for the track or the office. This was something else…a frequency I haven’t learned the language for.

It was my own first death as a mother and my birth as a witness.

She has stepped out of my story and into the Great Stream, into a life of service that belongs entirely to her.

I look at my draft folder again.

I wonder why I keep these files locked away like old betting slips. Maybe I’m afraid to let them go, or maybe I’m not yet ready for the world to see some of the plumbing of my own transitions.

We spend so much time trying to steer the boat, only to realize the river was moving us all along. I’m just the one sitting here now, trying to map the water.

Posting a draft would be to easy… Today the focus is on “Motherhood is the ultimate scene”

It fits for today.

My resume is a collection of contradictions

the Badge

the Dungeon

the Couch.

On the surface, they're worlds apart, but in the trenches of motherhood, they weave into a singular, lethal toolset.

I’ve realized that the tactical world didn’t just make me a professional, it forged me into a better mother through a series of relentless stress tests. As a cop, you learn quickly that your nervous system is either your greatest asset or your worst enemy. I spent years being broken down and built back up, learning to function in the "red zone" where the heart hammers against the ribs and the world narrows to a straw.

Motherhood, I’ve found, is sometimes just another high-stakes call in different scenarios.

Same Same but Different.

"The scene" might be a grocery store floor with a toddler tantrum or a teenager’s midnight crisis, but the physics of the human spirit remains the same.

My time on the streets taught me that matching a person’s volume only feeds the fire.

it depends…. on whats going on…

When one of my kiddos is spiraling, I don't join them in their tornado. I use the same internal dial I developed in training to drop my heart rate, find my center, and project a calm authority. You learn to keep your head when everyone else is losing theirs because you know that automatic reactions in a crisis leave a permanent imprint….especially the words you choose and the cold, hard frequency of how you say them.

watch your words.

The human animal doesn’t change much just because the room does. Whether I was wearing a vest on a midnight shift or a corset in a dimly lit dungeon, the job has its similarities.

Observation

Responsibility

Authority

People have this cartoonish idea of a Dominatrix, all cruelty and black leather.

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I’ve spent enough time in the trenches of human behavior to know that the first three months of any dynamic isnt a silver platter of truth.

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I’ve been sitting here with ink and paper, the old way, sealing envelopes with a kiss and dropping them in the slot, watching the post office swallow them whole, in hopes she gets them in time for mail call.

I’ve been looking back at memories, especially this being the first birthday apart and watching you grow into someone who will eventually have to face the meat grinder of the world and I decided that the “light and love” books on the shelves are a waste of paper, they serve some type of purpose but they don’t tell you how to survive.

I don’t want to give you the sunshine-and-rainbows garbage that people use to mask the rot, pain, responsibility and even accountability. I’m going to start this series of writing for record, for when the world decides to take a swing at you.

I’ve spent too many years carrying around rules that weren’t mine. Learned behaviors, polite lies, the “shoulds” that people shove into your hands when you aren’t looking. I wore that baggage like a heavy coat, even when the sun was out, just because I thought that’s what you were supposed to do.

In your 20s, you think you’re building a house. You pick your beliefs like furniture, hoping they’ll last forever. In your 30s, you start to notice the foundation is cracking. By your 40s, you realize the whole structure needs a remodel. What I believed at twenty was a suit of armor I thought I needed to survive; by now, I’ve had to strip it off piece by piece because it was actually preventing me from breathing.

Growth can feel like a constant process of destruction. You aren’t “inconsistent” because you change your mind.

The version of you that existed five years ago was doing the best they could with the information they had. You don’t owe that version of yourself a lifetime of loyalty.

The Reality

Most of the weight and baggage you’re dragging around… It’s not yours. It’s stale. Probably expired. It was handed to you by a world that wants you small, quiet, and predictable. It was also probably handed to you by me or your dad. If a habit or a belief feels like a lead weight in your gut, check it… is it wisdom, or is it an anchor?

You are not required to keep it.

You are not required to be polite about dumping it in the trash.

Do an audit.

Strip it down.

If you’re doing something because you’re afraid of what some stranger or some society thinks, stop it.

Your peace is the only thing that matters, and you don’t need anyone’s permission to stop being a mule for their bullshit expectations.

1. Name the Emotion: Don’t just say you’re “upset.” Are you angry, ashamed, or afraid? Name it so you can see it.

2. The “Why” Check: Why am I still holding onto this? Is it because it’s true, or just because I’ve always said it?

3. The Audit: Does this belief serve the person I am right now? A belief that protected you as a teenager, twenty’s, thirties.. whatever it is, it might be the very thing choking you at forty.

4. The Pivot: If it doesn’t serve you, define what you want to believe instead. You are allowed to switch up.

Don’t let them sell you on the lie that staying the same is a virtue. The world is a vulture, circling overhead, waiting for you to pick a role and die in it. They’ll try to hand you a script, tell you to stand on your mark, and keep the show running until the curtain falls. It’s a trap, a way to keep you stagnant, quiet, and predictable. The Rat Race.

You aren’t a statue carved out of unmoving marble, you are a living, breathing mess, and the only way to survive the grind is to admit that you’re a work in progress.

Keep learning how to play the game, watch the way people move, study their habits, and pay attention to human behavior so you don’t end up as just another pawn.

You’re part of something bigger than yourself but don’t let that swallow you whole, that’s not your entire identity.

The deconstruction of who you were comes with time, so don’t rush the demolition.

For now, enjoy the ride and wear the scars you earn like medals. Keep the work active, stay sharp, and don’t hesitate to burn down whatever is weighing you down. If it doesn’t fit the person you’re becoming, let it go and keep walking.

Mom

04.21.2026

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” — Alan Watts

I find myself looking back at the years between 2005 and 2019. This past week my body has felt hijacked by old narratives, the ripples of a seventeen-year marriage that ended in a divorce so long and challenging it felt like a war of attrition.

It didn’t need to be that way, but when emotions flare, people become unpredictable. The man I grew up with, the man I created a family with and slept next to for nearly two decades, became a total stranger.

I’m certain he felt the same about me.

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the poets.

everyone wants to buy the book,

to run a thumb over the rough paper

and think, “here is a soul.”

they see the scarves and the shadows,

the deep, cavernous eyes in the back of the bar,

and they think it’s a goddamn movie.

they think falling in love with a poet

is a stroll through a rainy garden.

...

it’s a crawl through a sewer with a flashlight

that’s running out of batteries.

you want to sit at the table and have a drink?

fine.

we can sit in a booth, slap on the niceties and hold conerastions with a smile, like we give a fuck… only to be looking for the exit out of the conversation

and the bartender starts looking at the clock

like it’s a loaded gun.

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The cursors blinking slowly on the screen, feels like a rhythmic bleed,

and I am sitting in the middle of it,

tasting the copper of the thrill like a secret held under the tongue.

What a savage, gorgeous thing it is to be a meatsuit

in a room lit by the amber color of a neon sign,

the mirror reflections are signing a lullaby to the shadows.

We sit on the carpet, tangled in pillows and small tree lights,

speaking words so free they would wither in the noon day sun.

Safe.

Dangerous.

The same thing in the dark.

Then I am at the dinner table, watching the children eat,

wearing the memory of the frenzy like a silk slip under a heavy coat.

The wildness is a stowaway,

a primal growl tucked behind a polite smile.

To look into a pair of eyes and own them for the hour

that is the high, the whimsy that makes the organ in my chest

thump like a trapped bird.

Bashar would call it the highest frequency

Jung would call it the shadow’s kiss

I call it being absolutely, wonderfully impolite.

A sinister smirk, a low purr, the deep vibration of a soul

shedding its skin to reveal the teeth underneath.

What a wonder to feel the heavy press of strong flesh,

the air thick

time stolen

feeling heat

as I claim the moment, as it claims me.

To be totally inappropriate and admit, with brutal honesty,

that I fucking love the weight of it.

I inhale the cosmos, rotate my hips on a lap,

and grab the throat of the minute just to feel it pulse.

I am the mirror and the light,

holding up the mirror so we don’t get lost in the beige of the world.

We taste test life in hotel rooms booked in a rainy city,

a communion of pizza, bodies tangled in white sheets.

And then

the kick in the chest, the reminder of the limitation,

the gravity that Jung promised would always be there.

The leak in the ceiling, the leak in the heart,

the honest drip of a life lived without the filter.

What a wonderful thing to be a disaster and a masterpiece

in the same breath.

To be present in the leak,

to be honest in the dark,

to be.