A short children’s story in response to the dVerse Poet’s Pub prompt: “You cannot pluck moonlight to bring in your pocket!”

Steven Thomas Harvell left us too soon. But his imprint is indelible, as you’ll know from this ragged, jagged little poem. A decade without him. A lifetime to go.

Sometimes, people die because they feel “less than”; they die because they think they’re alone. They think they’re the only ones crying in the night, because they’re crying alone and don’t feel safe enough to talk about it. We. Have. To Talk. About. It.

A poem dedicated to my brother, a victim of suicide, who suffered in silence. Call the suicide prevention hotline at 800-273-8255.

I remember my brother now more with joy at what was than sadness about what will never be.

A footprint, a feather and a leaf, about to be swept away. Remembering my brother in a haiku.

Suicide is born of indescribable pain and causes indescribable pain. Hope is the only way to climb out of the abyss.

Family-memory stories gain a patina with age and become the stuff of legend. The Story of Chicken is one of those stories.

50-year old photographs celebrate the birthday and memory of one who left us too soon: Steven Thomas Harvell.

I have never said this in a public forum: my brother’s untimely death four years ago was a suicide. Hear my plea: if you’re hurting, please tell someone.

Two little stories about the first day of school range from joy to violent despair.

My uncle Nathan, my mother’s brother, would have been 70 this month. He was only 40 when he died in 1988. Sad and shocked, I wrote this poem for my Mom at the time and it was part of his memorial service.  Just today, I…

Today would have been my brother’s 49th birthday.

This is a quiet little poem for him.

This little memoir is dedicated to everyone who loved my brother Steve, and has the same bigger-but-now-broken heart because of his presence in your life.