Under Normal Conditions

This is a book about what lingers.

Not the moment something happened, but what stayed afterward-
in the body,
in the mind,
in the quiet ways a person learns to move through the world.

These poems live in the aftermath:
after the bell, after the storm, after childhood ends but the damage doesn't.
They explore weight, shame, survival, memory, and the strange comfort of familiar pain, written not as confession but as condition.

This is not a story of healing neatly, or forgiving easily.
It is about understanding without absolution,
about learning how to live under pressure,
about finding brief light in dark places and knowing it will flicker.

This book is for anyone who grew up alert,
who learned to wait,
who survived something that didn't leave marks
but never really left.

(Currently writing as you read)