I Picked Him Up Today…
I picked him up today. I didn’t think it would hit me so hard. The drive there felt ordinary: red lights, traffic, even passing his old apartment. It was more sad than gut-wrenching. But when I pulled in, I froze. I couldn’t go inside. I didn’t want to see the tchotchkes. I didn’t want to see the cards. And I absolutely didn’t want him in my car. Not because I didn’t want to be with him, but because I did.
Written by Leah Hannon
I picked him up today. I didn’t think it would hit me so hard. The drive there felt ordinary: red lights, traffic, even passing his old apartment. It was more sad than gut-wrenching. But when I pulled in, I froze. I couldn’t go inside. I didn’t want to see the tchotchkes. I didn’t want to see the cards. And I absolutely didn’t want him in my car. Not because I didn’t want to be with him, but because I did.
Still, I did what I had to do. I went inside. The woman at the desk asked for my ID. Confused, I asked why. “So the right person goes home with you,” she said. Fair enough. I signed the papers, gathered his things, and a kind man helped me carry him to the car. I buckled him into the front seat. No sense putting him in the back. By then the tears blurred the windshield.
My kid had suggested going through a drive-thru since he was coming home with me. You know what? That was brilliant. I got a Coke and some fries. He loved Coke. And fries—well, potatoes in any form. It felt like the perfect tribute. I managed to hold it together until I got home, because it is hard to drive when you’re crying.
Once I got him home, I settled him in the spare room. I looked around and thought about how we would eventually have to make it usable. But that was a problem for another day. I sat down at my computer, and that’s when my heart cracked open.
I sobbed for our dads, for what they had lost. Then I smiled for what they had gained. I thought about their kids and grandkids, how proud they were of them. I even felt a small, guilty relief—no more trips to that Walgreens where everyone seemed dumber than a box of hammers. The thought made me laugh through my tears. I remembered their stubbornness, Irish and German tempers shaking fists at the people they loved most. I chuckled at all their antics over the years. But mostly, I felt the warmth of knowing how much they loved me, my man, and my kid. How special we were to them. How much we still mean. Always.
I cried again for what we had all lost—for their families, for their friends, both now and twenty years ago. And I smiled once more, imagining them together, raising hell and probably instigating half of it.
I picked him up today. And it wasn’t as bad as I thought.
Image courtesy Leah Hannon
‘Mercy’ by Stephanie Alvarez
Stephanie Alvarez is a poet whose work dwells in the borderlands of grief, transformation, and desire. Her writing does not shy away from darkness—instead, it inhabits it fully, letting readers witness how pain splinters and reshapes the soul. What sets her apart is the way she threads resilience through despair, allowing even the heaviest words to carry a strange and haunting beauty.
Written by Epi Arriagada. Photography and Narration by Stephanie Alvarez. Visuals by Epi Arriagada
Artist Feature: Stephanie Alvarez
Stephanie Alvarez is a poet whose work dwells in the borderlands of grief, transformation, and desire. Her writing does not shy away from darkness—instead, it inhabits it fully, letting readers witness how pain splinters and reshapes the soul. What sets her apart is the way she threads resilience through despair, allowing even the heaviest words to carry a strange and haunting beauty.
Her poetry feels like a mirror to the body’s inner weather: frozen stillness, sudden fire, and finally, the soft possibility of awakening. Each piece offers a visceral reminder that brokenness does not end the story—it becomes the very material from which new worlds are formed.
Image credit: Stephanie Alvarez
Mercy
Only, lonely, lovely,
Hello.
Once upon a time became
30 below.
Hearts touched by Death’s cool kiss
Lay quietly still in
Hypnotically cruel bliss.
A deliberately coy trist
And a motion of the wrist,
All breaks down to this -
Loving, Unloving, Fateful,
Unfaithful, Missed.
Miscommunication plus
Misinterpretation
Equal grief stricken
Heartache times three.
Then comes the thaw.
Tiny winding splinters through veins
Inescapable pain
Inexplicably remains.
Climbing high and dropping low.
Rapidly, fire builds in the depths and rages,
Races,
Screaming towards the top.
Towards light and open air
And once it is there
It meets a flame.
No name, no hope.
No pain that any ear can hear.
Only lonely and lovely.
Hold me.
Hello, sweet Mercy.
Mercy is a portrait of heartbreak in motion, unfolding through images of freeze, fracture, fire, and fragile surrender. Alvarez begins with repetition—“Only, lonely, lovely”—a chant that frames the entire poem. These three words don’t just describe emotion; they create a rhythm, a pulse of contradiction where isolation and beauty exist in the same breath.
The first half of the poem carries the weight of disconnection. Relationships collapse into miscommunication and misinterpretation, and love is reduced to arithmetic: “Equal grief stricken / Heartache times three.” Her use of numbers to measure pain shows how heartbreak defies language—reduced to cold calculation when words themselves fail.
Then the thaw comes, and the poem changes shape. Pain is no longer silent; it moves like splinters in the veins, building into a fire that cannot be contained. Alvarez captures the body of grief—how it climbs, drops, rages, and races toward release. This physicality is what makes the poem visceral: it doesn’t describe pain from afar, it inhabits it.
Yet even the eruption offers no easy resolution. The flame that greets the reader at the peak is nameless, hopeless, and unheard. It is both climax and void, the raw space where suffering becomes too vast for expression.
Still, the closing refrain circles back: “Only lonely and lovely. / Hold me. / Hello, sweet Mercy.” The poem does not offer resolution in the traditional sense, but what it does offer is invocation. Mercy becomes the whispered presence that grief calls to—not the erasure of pain, but the grace to live with it.
Visual Interpretation
The video extends this cycle without explaining it: stillness in nature, the body at rest, a hand at the cold window, fire breaking through, and an awakening into a dreamlike world. These images move with the poem rather than define it, creating another way of entering its rhythm—quiet, eruptive, and searching.
The Petal’s Guidance
Kat Robinson is a writer, photographer, and model based out of Phoenix, Arizona. Her writing explores the quiet resilience of nature, feminine transformation, and the art of blooming through adversity. Whether behind the lens or on the page, she captures the beauty of becoming.
photo by KBRofficial
Artist Feature: Kat Robinson
“Poetry has been something dear to my heart from a young age. Every time I was dealing with a low point in my life, I turned to writing poetry. It wasn't until high school when I started sharing a bit of my work. Since then, I have worked on refining my writing and making poetry that makes people feel things. I hope these pieces resonate with you, and inspire you to make your own art.”
— Kat Robinson
Kat Robinson is a writer, photographer, and model based out of Phoenix, Arizona. Her work explores the quiet resilience of nature, feminine transformation, and the art of blooming through adversity. Whether behind the lens or on the page, she captures the beauty of becoming.
Her story is one of struggle and renewal. Through her creative practice, she has taken life’s lowest moments and transmuted them into art that is not only palpable but healing. You can see this journey of overcoming most clearly in her poetry, which carries the imprint of both shadow and light.
‘The Petal’s Guidance’
I let the flowers guide my soul
The perennials have always taken my breath away
For even though they wilt, they are still beautiful
May all the flowers continue to influence my heart
I cherish the lesson I’ve learned from the flora
Should your petals begin to fall
Prevail the storms and bloom again
Robinson’s poem radiates the quiet wisdom of nature as a teacher. She draws from the perennial cycle—bloom, wilt, and return—to mirror the human journey through hardship and recovery. What is striking is her framing of beauty not only in the blossoming but also in the wilting; she reminds us that imperfection and decline are part of what makes life sacred.
The language is gentle but directive: “I let the flowers guide my soul” suggests surrender to nature’s rhythm, while the closing lines shift into encouragement, almost like an invocation for resilience—“Prevail the storms and bloom again.” In doing so, Robinson redefines resilience not as resistance, but as an acceptance of cycles, trusting that renewal always follows loss.