Tag Archives: the pit

Alaska Love Poem

In 1984, during my troubled early twenties, I fell in love with a friend of mine. This poem was written to her. But it's especially a poem about how I came to love myself, & to give up my former self-hatred.
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It's all just an act… or maybe not

My last trip into the pit — my name for the worst form of depression/despair I sometimes go into — was in November & December 2007. Want to know what it feels like? I'll try to explain. And also how I get out of it.
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Night of the butcher knife

An excerpt from "Dream," the fifth chapter of Mistress of Woodland, based on two actual experiences — including a depiction of that state of depression I call the pit.
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Remembering Nicholas Hughes (1962–2009)

Nicholas Hughes: a wildlife biologist at University of Alaska Fairbanks who died by his own hand in March 2009. Something tells me his family, friends, colleagues, & partner saw him as something far more than one the headlines over the past week have painted him as — the putative victim of his mother's "suicide gene." His death was a tragedy, yes: but a tragedy because it was a loss of him & for all who knew him. And for many of those, like me, who didn't.
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Hiisi

(For the Scheherazade Project, on the theme of fear. Constructive criticism always welcome.) Last night I told Rozz, I’m not always at the edge of the pit, but I’m never far from it either. She said, That thing you call the pit is there in you all the time, it’s part of you. She said [...]
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