I'm glad I've learned not to hold my breath, but to surrender while walking - hoping you will catch the white flag and write something back. I've learned that unfinished stories, loops that cannot be broken, still drum in your belly if time tells your nerves that this is not done. 

If you never felt pain during take off, the struggle to not start something unknown, it was not meant to be a part of your story. If it drums in your heart day and night, you are not done. I've learned how to tightrope months of silence into smiles that sometimes make it past my eyes, knowing that silence will only cause a burning against your spine from the weight of waiting. 

I will not leave your doorstep until you say so. I will not put down the pen until you take it out of my hands. But this time around  as I slide the white flag across the table, I will not include a jar full of expectations, except one. =

To give it back.

Brilliant and raw Thomas Fucaloro. 

Harold and the Purple Crayon was one of my favorite books as a child. This concept for his latest poetry video is outstanding.

I still have to finish his book. I read the first 65 pages within a day, but took it out my book bag and my mother keeps moving it! 

In the meantime - go to his site and contact him about this great video.

I walk
in
pulsating 
hollowness,  
pretending 
to 
breathe in 
morse code,
-•••

•
•-••
---
•••-
•
-••
breaking
against
lung cages
day and night
as if
my body only
knew one
symphony
to 
be smeared
onto the
camera-eye.
[...]

Hello Write Queeners,

I am so excited to tell you that my latest passion, my literary journal Typoetic.us has finally released its first issue!

The concept of the site was in the works for a while, but in late 2013/early 2014, I connected with my editors and we got to work!

I learned a lot through putting together this journal about teamwork, organization, passion, and the ability to keep on going. The submissions were wonderful and my team even more so! I don't even know what to say about this experience except that I can't wait to put out the next issue! So poets, submit, submit, submit!

Thank you to everyone involved! Take a look below:

​

1. Create a group chat on Facebook Messenger with good friends to hash out the harsh realities of love on the go. Tell them everything.
2. Use an abundance of emoticons and stickers in said chat. Your emotions should get out somehow.
3. Now that the modern tell-all fix is out of your system, put away the phone.
4. Sit in your office for over four hours and write the person you want to talk to a letter. Stop everything. Say everything.
5. Leave the office and find a stamp. Pray that it gets to that person before the storm. Mail it without regret.
6. If you are braver, pick up the phone. Dial, don't text. "Do you have some time?" is one of the hardest things to say and wait for.
7. Go all in if they want to talk about it.
8. If they don't, find your peace in your letter, in picking up the phone, in sitting on a Subway bench and asking, "Are you done with this?", fighting back tears.
9. Throw yourself into things that give back: projects, careers, friends who are willing to watch you pull the back of your hands before gently pulling you back on track. Give your love to something willing to open up for you.
10. Change your "Today I Feel" chart everyday. Say it out loud to the picture taped to your printer. Say it to your friends, in your half attempt at poems, and to the bottom of your homemade glass of frozen margaritas. It's better than texting your weakness at 2 AM "Hi". 

Realize that with ten steps, there's twenty more to go.

10 Ways You Can Overcome is a weekly blog series that I will be writing as I confront who I am as a person, a writer, and a creative entity in life. I hope my path will be able to help someone out there as they confront some of these issues in their own lives, personally and professionally.