A raw and unflinching journey through trauma, survival, and the complex psychology of healing.
Troubles is a powerful collection of poetry that maps the psychological landscape of childhood trauma and its lasting impact on adulthood.
Structured in ten sections, this collection takes readers along the speaker’s path from early innocence (“Origins”), through the shattering of that safety (“Breaking”), the desperate strategies of survival (“The Performance” and “The Stripping”), and into an unflinching reckoning with trauma’s long shadow.
Rather than offering easy answers or false redemption, Troubles provides something far more valuable: an honest witness to how trauma actually lives inside a human mind.
What Makes Troubles Unique:
• Psychological Sophistication — Instead of simplifying trauma into victim/perpetrator binaries, these poems explore the complex internal systems people develop to survive.
• Internal characters like "Aria" and "Callow" — Embodying protector parts and wounded selves, they give form to inner conflict and the struggle for healing.
• Lyrical precision and mythic metaphor — The language ranges from raw confessional to symbolic and psychological, transforming personal devastation into universal resonance.
• Authenticity over neat resolution — This collection doesn't promise "fixes." It explores what it means to live with complexity and claim agency from within it.
For Readers Who Appreciate:
• Poetry that blends trauma literature with psychological depth
• Themes of C-PTSD, family dysfunction, inner voice work, and self-reclamation
• The emotional arc of memoir, expressed through lyrical, mythic, and confessional forms
• Work reminiscent of Ocean Vuong, Sylvia Plath, Kaveh Akbar, or Sabrina Benaim
A Note on Content:
This collection includes mature themes such as abuse, mental illness, suicidal ideation, and sexual trauma. It is intended for adult readers navigating complex emotional terrain or seeking connection through shared experience.
Final Thought:
Troubles doesn’t offer closure but instead it offers recognition. In witnessing a mind’s effort to survive, fracture, and eventually seek wholeness, it invites readers to reflect on their own relationship to pain, memory, and healing.
This is poetry as psychological roadmap—uncomfortable, honest, and profoundly human.