New Transmission

 I seem to call to the fractured—
as if the cracks in me
glow like runes carved by a witch’s hand.
They scent that glow,
those creatures who prowl the threshold,
like wolves tracking warm blood
through moonlit, untouched snow.

And I, always too late,
see the snare glinting beneath the leaves.
Another wound written,
another ghost threaded
into the hollows of my bones.

Then I’m left—
high, dry,
a husk abandoned at the edge of the forest path,
picking shards of my own heart
from the dirt like cursed glass.
How many times can a vessel break
before it becomes a different shape entirely—
before it begins to resemble
the monster it survived?

Yet still I rise—
resilient,
like iron reforged by a blacksmith
who works only by moonlight,
like stone standing
after centuries of storm and spell.
Perhaps this is the enchantment on me:
to wake, again,
because the old magic—whatever watches—
has not completed its design.

And so another day unfurls its claws:
the drudgery,
the forms and benefits,
the slow gnaw of pure survival.
Was this the future she divined
from her mirror that never reflected truth?
She said I would die alone.
They say the apple never falls far—
but I am not her.
I will not sink into the poisoned soil
where she has rotted.

And yet—
before her, there was him.
My father,
slipping away like a spell unraveling,
leaving me in her tower of shifting tempers.
He knew her wrath.
He knew.
And still he fled into the smoke.
That was the first fracture—
the door closing without a sound.
Did that emptiness crack me open?

She claimed he broke my nose,
struck me when I was barely more than breath.
But I remember no such tale.
Only her—
and her drawer of gleaming instruments,
each blade a whispered prophecy,
each spoon a possible lash.
Her fury endless,
her gaze lit
with the cold, enchanted fire of Princess Mombi,
switching heads,
switching hungers,
each one polished
on the whetstone of my fear.

There were nights I believed
she would never stop—
not until my lungs fell silent,
not until breath fled my body
like a frightened animal
into the darkened woods.

What if the things that once saved you—cartoons, pop songs, rebellion—couldn’t anymore? What if you had to find a new language to survive?

The Cartoon Didn’t Save Me is a deeply personal poetry collection tracing a journey through trauma, identity, and healing. Born from therapy notes and rediscovered in solitude, these poems span four transformative decades.

Beginning in the 1980s, the collection explores a childhood shaped by abuse and isolation, where cartoons and pop culture offered fleeting refuge and the first sparks of creative voice. The 1990s bring rebellion and excess—years of noise, addiction, and a growing distance from self, where poetry, once a lifeline, is lost in the chaos of survival.

Only in recent years, through sobriety and spiritual practice, does poetry return—not as pastime, but as a vital means of expression and transformation. 

In the quiet of recovery and pandemic solitude, a new language emerges...

For anyone who ever tried to outrun their past—and found themselves instead.

Echo Arcade