PTSD affects 3.5 percent of Americans every year, which is roughly over 11,630,00 people. The disorder is commonly known as “shell-shock” or “combat fatigue”. It has a stigma surrounding it that falsely assumes only certain groups of people can suffer from it. PTSD, like every other health disorder, does not discriminate. Combat veterans are the ...

I haven’t written a word on my novel since November 30, 2021. True, on the heels of National Novel Writing Month is the Christmas Season rush, but that wasn’t the only thing holding me back. I wasn’t injured, or sick, or depressed, or too busy. The truth is that I needed a break. And I’m ...

***Trigger Warning: Physical and mental abuse are portrayed in this article. Please proceed with caution.*** The entire world is made of darkness—my entire world. I’m the only one here. But sometimes, a light flashes, and I’m pulled somewhere else. Someone is always with me. It’s the same person every time, speaking those scary words: you’ll ...

Read Part 1 | Part 2 ~ Red curls bounce and reflect light on the television across the room. In the deep recesses of my visual cortex an impulse fires and a chain reaction of electrochemical events cascade into a single thought. Madison?  My heart quickens. A lightness creeps into my chest, bubbling up as ...

Who’s Michael? Devoid of perception, I am falling. I am aware of nothingness. Neither asleep nor awake, the existence of time suggests I’m alive. A crooning infiltrates my perception. “My son is back.” A tachycardia alarm shakes me as nausea changes gravity’s directions in the nightmare half-sleep. Swirling, tossing darkness stretches between seconds and eternity. ...

Two eyes struck him cold Like snowballs pelting him flush His body frozen in fear, the streets   rising up in him again, shoulders tightening Legs burning in a crouch ready to pounce & catalyze another man’s demise   His nemesis, sitting in his mind’s eye, reached in his pocket for prison house sharpness, the ...