laddersofsweetmisery

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Well, it’s finally here. My essay I’ve toiled anxiously with is available through The Argyle Literary Magazine. Baggage Claim follows the journey of a woman (me ♡) feeling carved out by her experiences with men, desperately wondering if she will ever outgrow these feelings of emptiness. It is an exploration of familial trauma, gender dynamics, and the complexities of maternal influence. Using my grandmother as the centerpiece, I paint her as a matriarch that despite her own struggles and imperfections, embodies strength and resilience. Her actions, from defending her space with a metal ball bat to challenging societal expectations, serve as a testament to her protective instincts and the weight of her experiences. The narrative delves into the nuances of power, vulnerability, and the indelible marks left by those who raise us and hurt us.

Typically, I only send out poetry, but I’m trying to change that. So, this is my first piece of Creative Nonfiction I’ve sent out there. I genuinely didn’t think this would be picked up by anyone. It’s a particularly vulnerable piece, so to say I’ve been agonizing over its publication would be an understatement. I can’t even begin to count the hours I’ve spent in panic instead of sleeping.

I hope women out there with similar experiences find a way to their own voice after reading this. I write for connection, and I know how isolating these experiences can be. You are never alone, and maybe, one day, we really will outgrow it.

Trigger warnings: Drug abuse, death, domestic violence, sexual assault

I can't dictate whether or not you like it, but I thank you for reading regardless 🩷🎀

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Examining The Forgotten Girls by Monica Potts

The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America by Monica Potts is a personal narrative investigating the lives of Monica Potts and her close childhood friend Darci while living in rural Arkansas and the ways in which their upbringing, saturated with isolation and religion, affected their ability to leave the area. The investigation came from Potts exposure to a study revealing white women who didn’t graduate from high school were dying five years younger than women in similar circumstances just a generation before—more specifically women in rural areas. Upon hearing this, Potts sought out to discover what was killing the women from counties similar to her hometown of Clinton, Arkansas. When tracing the trails of her own life, she wondered what allowed her to succeed where her similar brilliant friend, Darci, could not. Through astute observation, insightful research, and vulnerable reflections from her childhood, Potts gives us a fresh, accessible, and enlightening look into the personal lives of these dying rural women and provides a potential cause to the ways in which they have fallen behind. 

When I started looking into why less educated, rural white women were dying and what was killing them, I thought my investigation would be straightforward. Study after study had offered answers: methamphetamines, opiates, suicide, and smoking. And yet each of these taken alone was unsatisfactory. Why did a drug like meth take over in some places but not others? Why would prescription painkillers, which are available everywhere, kill poor, uneducated white people in greater numbers than other groups? Why did the rate of suicide rise and spread in rural areas faster than elsewhere? Why did some women persist in smoking even though everyone knows it's disastrous to health? None of these questions had simple answers, but trying to answer all of them would take me past research and into the circumstances, accidents, and personal choices that fill and shape our lives. (Potts 11) 

Truthfully, this is not a book I can annotate in my usual way of intense analysis as there is no proper vocabulary that could accurately dissect and explain the specific rage and disgust I felt throughout reading. Seeing women, girls, stumble over the traps laid out by a religious doctrine working tirelessly to keep them subservient and reluctant of education is enough to piss off any woman who feels like they have made it out. I fear I do not have the time to quote each individual instance where my loathing nauseated me, but the entirety of chapter two, Church (42), is undoubtedly a defining moment.  

To counter feminist rhetoric, both male and female evangelical teachers asserted that the only thing that makes women truly happy is submission to their husbands and to the natural order. Straying from that ideal is the cause of every unhappiness...Evangelical women's groups explicitly tell a woman that if her husband, or some other male authority figure, is making her unhappy, all she needs to do is pray and return to the Lord, and then she will find that her husband has been a loving, good man all along and that her unhappiness was all in her own head...Women are to endure suffering, not solve it or complain about it. It sets up a woman's role as one of constant sacrifice and martyrdom. Religious communities intend for women to pray for everything, not to have the power to make decisions for themselves or for their communities. (52) 

As I remembered the women in my family line, as I reflected on their lives plagued by poverty, ravaging addictions, a swarm of health complications, husbands they never cared for but relied on, and lonely, miserable deaths, my revulsion rose through no fault of the writer, but through the shame of being unable to alter a course of history that deliberately held them down. I suppose Potts felt similar shame in compiling this research, as she admits her original question of investigation into this rise in early death among white rural women was not the true aim of her soul, 

At what point, if any, did I bear responsibility for what happened to Darci? What do I or any of us owe to the people we leave behind? For the well-being of my own soul, I needed to know: Did I have anything to atone for, and if so, what and how much? (61) 

They refer to this experience as survivor’s guilt, an intense need to reconcile one’s feelings of abandonment not for themselves, but for those they left behind while they chased brighter futures. And I have plenty. Potts has explored something I have always wondered with great guilt, “Why me?” When I look to my sister, I see someone exceptionally selfless, a doting mother eager to sacrifice and I wonder why the world imposed such cruelty on someone who is often criticized for being too kind. I, on the other hand, can be selfish, impulsive, neglectful, and have never acquired the same capacity for kindness at the expense of self-preservation. Yet, I am the successful one. I am exceptionally distanced from my family, and although I love them tremendously, I almost fear them. I have essentially placed them in quarantine, only allowing myself to love them through windows.  

I cannot say how this book will make me a better writer. I suppose I could bring up points as to how it taught me to implement research, how it taught me to navigate difficult subject matter, how it taught me to take care with others’ narratives as well as my own—But it wouldn’t be in good faith, and I’d ultimately be bringing them up as a means of completing the assignment. The true value is what this narrative did for me as a person. Potts articulated an experience weighing heavy in my bones and reignited that arduous flame urging me through the smoke trails rising in my throat to write down the stories of the women closest to me.  

I have yet to leave Ohio, but this home is a cage I took the time to decorate. I want to thrive without abandonment. I do not relish my neglectful nature. With a HELL IS REAL sign taunting me from the side of Interstate 71, I am reminded that I may not be able to afford escape, but I can afford to write. As Potts says,  

“I've seen many landscapes that were objectively more beautiful...but none of those places were where I came from.” (4)  

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JOURNAL / JULY 13 2025

Today was tiring. It was a day of starting things, preparation for the days ahead. I was assigned a new writing project for work, I completed some errands for the home, and I did some residency prep for my MFA program. All the while I dreamt of somewhere else.

By next week I'll be in Cali renting a boat to sleep in while I attend my MFA residency. I'll only be there eight days, but it's more than I ever thought I'd have somewhere so far from the Midwest. Growing up, I never thought I'd ever have the chance to travel--that was a rich people thing. To me, even those in the lower middle class looked wealthy by my standards. I didn't even think about dreaming of travel. Anything my brain considered unattainable I'd simply push away like it never existed. All I know is Ohio. The Midwest is a cage I've grown to love, but only because leaving wasn't a possibility to me. I have to love it here or I'd go mad.

I think we limit ourselves tremendously. Although I had to take out a loan to make this trip a reality, the monthly payments are surprisingly manageable. I could have left all along and I told myself no because I didn't think I deserved it. I didn't think it was something someone like me was allowed to do. I wish I could reveal why Cali means as much to me as it does, but I do deserve some secrets.

When planning my life, the only solid thing I ever considered was getting on a greyhound bus after my college graduation and running without telling anyone. But then I started dating another boy and my dreams went to the side as I tried to find comfort in stability. And I like it here. I do. I love having a home.

But something is rattling and my brain is a foggy mess. Words don't come as easily as the distractions. I can't think. Feels like a haze has fallen over me. Dense fog behind my eyes. I'm not well and I don't know why. There's this feeling in my gut I cannot recognize. I don't want to be so sad all the time. I don't want to live in this melancholy. I think I'm finally at a place where I can admit I'm unhappy rather than trying to go through my day faking a smile.

But will going away fix anything? I just want to know if leaving will kill me or not. I need to know this deeply ingrained fear of running away won't end in tragedy. I need to know I can say goodbye. I need to know I really can go anywhere I want.

In other news, I did some writing today, albeit small, but I'm very proud of the opening paragraph to a new essay I'm working on. Things may have fallen apart in the paragraphs that came after, but damn, that opening gives me hope. If I can just keep that tone up for the rest of the piece, we'll be cooking for sure.

I'm also working on developing a writer website. So many others in my MFA cohort have websites and I'm having feelings of inadequacy. I don't think this will completely repair that feeling, but it's a start. Any suggestions on wtf I'd even put on a website? I don't think I have the discipline for a blog outside of Tumblr, but maybe I'd include a portfolio or something, idk. Everyone else has these really interesting websites and lives, but truthfully I don't know how the fuck they do it. Like what do you mean you're able to sustain your lifestyle by working as a "spiritual dancer?" That's not exactly a career in Ohio. I don't know if I'm just not in the right tax demographic to fit in with the academics I admire, or if I'm just in the wrong home. I feel out of place.

And I can't tell if that feeling is justified or not. Eventually, I'll have to settle down, why not now? Why does it feel like a death of some kind? Truthfully, I can't tell what part of me genuinely feels this way and what's a symptom of my disorder. What do I want versus what does the illness want?

I don't know a damn thing.

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Lately, I've been employing this new writing method where I listen to trap music with my headphones turned up as loud as they can go while I write my traumatic little diddies, and I've gotta say, the resulting detachment is really keeping me sane through my mfa. In my undergrad, the things I'd write would really retraumatize me, but now the stories don't even feel like my own. I've been able to keep up with all my deadlines and not spiral into absolute oblivion. Highly recommend. Can't be sad while listening to Trap Queen.

Honestly, I think the beats are having a similar effect to EMDR--Did I just discover a new trauma therapy method??? Someone smarter should study this.

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Examining How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler  

How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler is true to its title as Sabrina Imbler guides the reader through significant portions of their life using comparative essays to explore connections between their own discovery of self to sea creatures such as the feral goldfish, the resilient yeti crab, and the elusive cuttlefish. The essay collection features a series of braided narratives, seamlessly blending marine research into the personal life of Sabrina Imbler where they directly address topics of gender, sexuality, multiracial identity, and the communities we find most sacred. 

Imbler’s most defining element of craft is their precise use of structure, of which there are several working harmoniously to create a narrative of polished intention. Their first structure utilizes an extended version of the block method where each subject receives a moment of focused exploration and analysis in alternating sections. In Imbler’s essays, the narrative is typically told by first concentrating on the sea creature in question before transitioning into an investigation of self. This shift between subjects is identified using a double space. The pattern is continued multiple times until the essay reaches a satisfying conclusion, or the topic has been exhausted. 

Their second use of structure is arranging the essays chronologically, starting with personal moments in childhood and ending with more contemporary experiences. While it can be argued Imbler’s essay, Beware the Sand Striker, deviates from this pattern as the events covered happened at an earlier time compared to where the essay is situated in the collection, one could just as easily argue this essay’s placement is authentic to the traumatic experience. It is common for traumatic memories to appear later in a survivor’s life as the experience goes unprocessed after the initial event. In regard to their experience, Imbler notes, “To believe this requires overturning a part of my past that I told myself was fine, pushed to the shaded areas of my mind, and allowing myself to feel...I have lived unconsciously existing as a physical body in space without the power to understand what I was doing or what was happening to me.” (Imbler 137-138) Since Imbler confronted the experience much later in their own life, this essay remains chronologically accurate. The memory is very much still present and no longer an artifact of the past. 

The third and most significant structure is thematic with each essay working towards reinforcing an ultimate thesis. In Imbler’s case, this thesis highlights the importance of community and connection, specifically for those existing in the margins of society. The first essays of the collection are distinct in their themes of isolation starting with their defense of goldfish alone in a Petco and isolated incidents with their mother and grandmother. At this point, Imbler feels a disconnect from the natural world and lacks a community of their own. It isn’t until the essay How to Draw a Sperm Whale that the reader notices a shift in Imbler’s personal narrative. In this essay, they have made a careful effort to explore their identity and invoke an investigation of self the same way scientists invoke an investigation of a whale’s corpse. The next essay, Pure Life, is where we begin to see Imbler carve out a space for themselves in a community via attending Night Crush, “A monthly party…thrown by queer people of color for queer people of color.” (103) From here, Imbler’s essays are steeped in connection with the collection ending with a collaborative essay. This is further mirrored in the titles of the essays. The beginning titles identify Imbler and the sea creatures as separate entities whereas, in later essays, the name of the species is excluded from the title and the reader sees Imbler and the varying marine life as one unit (i.e., beginning with If You Flush a Goldfish and later, We Swarm). 

In addition to blending multiple organizational structures, Imbler inspires the practicing writer to use their writing as an opportunity to remedy the moments where they may have fallen short in expressing themselves effectively. In their first essay, If You Flush a Goldfish, Imbler recalls an incident from their childhood where they intended to stage a form of protest in their local Petco by educating others about the cruelty of keeping goldfish in small bowls. However, when the opportunity to educate arose, they were unable to communicate their ideals successfully, “My carefully practiced argument devolved into sporadically recalled facts…until a blue- poloed Petco sales associate told me I needed to leave…my incompetence nauseated me. My first attempt to help something I cared about, and I’d failed.” (4-5) Through the very act of writing How Far the Light Reaches, Sabrina Imbler has repaired a moment in their past where they were unable to communicate efficiently by refining their arguments using their newfound confidence and stronger sense of self formed through building community relationships. When speaking of the tenacity of feral goldfish, Imbler explains, “I see something that no one expected to live not just alive, but impossibly flourishing, and no longer alone. I see a creature whose present existence must have come as a surprise even to itself.” (20) This line could be interpreted as alluding to Imbler’s own sense of comfort in finding a place of belonging.  

Using this framework, it is helpful for any writer to reflect on their life and the moments they fell short as a sort of prompt for future creative projects. After all, we write to be understood. In Imbler’s own words, “We swarm because we are full of the joy of being together, full of anger at the systems that exclude or endanger us, full of hope for the possibilities of the future.” (177)

And what is writing if not a formal expression of the hope we wish to inspire? 

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"what's your favorite poem?"

omg I'm so glad you asked,

it's this little diddy Queen Elizabeth wrote USING A DIAMOND while imprisoned in Woodstock.

I hang it on my wall to remind myself to always have the audacity.

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Examining The Years by Annie Ernaux 

The Years by Annie Ernaux is a tapestry of consumed experience, a life flattened and made comprehensible through the use of photo descriptions, songs, books, advertisements, headlines, slogans, and the dialogues encountered day by day. Anything and everything woven into the daily life, particularly of those living in France after World War II, is now braided into a single narrative of a woman living through the years 1941 to 2006. Using photo descriptions as the initial staging, Ernaux traverses her individual history by including precise details of the collective history of her generation, trading the subjective “I” for a communal “We.” Despite this specificity, her work still stands as a universal testament to the human being at any place, at any time. To put it simply, The Years is a prophecy of human experience. While The Years uses these elements of physical media to guide the reader through Annie’s life, the additional context added to each reference directly addresses the history lost when we require tangible evidence of lived experience.  

Although her literary prose is polished and, at times, romantic, it is also critical, direct, and sobering. Her astute observations are strangely horrifying in reminding the reader that history is a cycle. This is not just memoir. This is historical record, philosophy, and, on occasion, a look into a world that appears dystopian in just the right light. Additionally, Ernaux alerts the reader to the idea that history happens in the background of a life by highlighting the clear disconnect between the history portrayed in the media and the history of the lived individual—or rather, the perceived historical account versus the authentic historical account. This is most present in the following line: 

Apart from the ballerina flats, nothing in the appearance of this teenage girl reflects what was 'all the rage' that year or what was in the fashion magazines and the big-city shops…it is simply old, and belongs to the prehistory of self, where all lives that precede one's own are levelled and disappear. (Ernaux 49-50)  

The work can easily be read as a swirl of existential dread through her exploration of the human condition—particularly her remarks on the frailty of a defined age. When one encounters an aged reflection, we hardly see ourselves as any different, always circling back to our roots. We notice the wrinkles, we notice the gray hairs, or lack thereof, but the soul is in a state of agelessness: 

Once in a while, she looks at herself naked in the bathroom mirror…She is surprised; It is the same body she's had since she stopped growing at around the age of sixteen. (167)  

She sees the vague silhouettes of women…they are faceless…she sees them as images of herself…She pictures herself here in ten or fifteen years with a cart filled with sweets and toys for grandchildren not yet born. But she sees that woman as improbable, just as the girl of twenty-five saw the woman of forty, whom she had since become and already ceased to be. (169) 

And we did not age. The things around us didn't last long enough to grow old, replaced and rehabilitated at lightning speed. Our memory didn't have time to associate them with moments of existence. (188) 

Towards the end of the narrative, Annie catches up to her present life, a familiar today, where she is contemplating writing a book. In this section, Annie turns to the process of writing The Years and navigates the dread of writing a life compressed. This relates directly to any aspiring and practicing memoirist—to take a close look at your life, to have lived it, and to find a way to communicate the vast experience of everything you've encountered knowing well that everything you've encountered played a significant role in the development of your person. According to Ernaux, “What matters to her, on the contrary, is to seize this time that comprises her life on earth at a given period, the time that has coursed through her, the world she has recorded merely by living.” (227) In this single line, she imparts to the reader that the act of living is synonymous with the act of writing, forever homogeneous, bringing relief to the writer who fears unproductivity. Ernaux also utilizes a variety of specific craft elements elevating a reader’s experience and emphasizing some of her key motifs. For example, her use of liminal space in substitution of chapter separation mimics the act of living and encourages writers to explore methods of authentic expression.  

In the process of writing, one can easily feel apprehensive when faced with the sheer amount of content that goes into a life. We worry we’ll leave out, or possibly include, the wrong things. We worry we won’t capture our universe efficiently. We worry we’ll fail our lived experience, and thus ourselves. We worry we’ll forever be misunderstood, even when we’re in control of the final narrative. But Annie removes the pressure of a perfect form and reminds us of the reason memoirs exist, the reason we’ll never fully retire writing down the past, 

“We haven't forgotten anything, have we?” (221) 

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it's a gift to be left by me

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I could have had the world. But I gave it all up. Because everyone around me had too much to love.

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doomed by the stars.

I'm at a payphone. God on the other line. And I think I could believe in a forever if it meant sharing a moon in the same hour as you.

I'm outside of an abandoned Sears. Holding onto a thread. A fray that reminds me of 2007. Loving you on the brink of recession.

I'm at the foot of my mother's bed. And she's telling me to run. Telling me your arms are a safer place than the hell we've settled in.

I'm on a front porch in Ohio. And I hear that voice. Accent flushed down my ears like a whirlpool of infection. Something building.

I'm on a precipice. And you tell me you've always been there too. High on cliffs. Jumping from places before ever looking down.

I'm in an episode. Edges gone soft. Peeled open like a flower in the hands of a toddler. I am not where I need to be.

I'm outside of a mental hospital. And a man with a disorder calls me a star. Tells me I matter. But I'm just waiting to die out.

You're in love. And I've been known to give up. Obsessively romantic and terrified by phases. Fate bruised by my own hands.

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thinking of starting to post my book annotations for my mfa on here, of course I'll tailor them to fit the format. but with school I haven't had much time to write outside of my workshop packets and I haven't had any poetry to post since I've started submitting my work and most places won't publish work you post on social media. this might be a book review blog for a bit, idk

[laddersofsweetmisery]

According to Solomon, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I think women should do more crime

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White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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This afternoon, DOGE fired every employee at the Institute for Museum and Library Services, deleted their emails, and vanished federal funding for public libraries and museums.

They won't be so bold as to burn the books, but they will greatly limit your access. When the good learn, so do the evil.

When you really think about it, it's financial abuse. Institutions are being held hostage financially to bow to the whims of another or risk no longer existing. I don't even know if I feel angry at the institutions that have decided to bow because, at the very least, they are still available and able to help others with the few resources they have left. It's fucked all the way around.

We should bring back independent/community-supported pamphlets. (See: political pamphlets of the 1800's and Jstor's collection of 19th century British Pamphlets) Most of these efforts now exist on social media but are heavily censored via algorithms. What we need is something offline that can't be limited with the push of a button. Something tangible.

You can literally leave them behind anywhere like a lost glove. There's a lot of power in that. We could even offer QR codes on the physical copies so that viewing it online is still an option. I think the internet is too volatile a place at the moment to remain our sole source of information. It's too easily manipulated, the algorithms keep us in a vacuum, and there are too many bots proven to incite rage and prevent productive discourse. We need something people-oriented. I think zines would be perfect. They want the old ways back, so let's give it to them along with all the revolutionary efforts that come with it.

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spotted at Meijer in Ohio

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Normalise 👏 roasting 👏 long-dead men 👏 in academic articles 👏