The Simple Life of Johnny Mayhem

Poem • 1999

Originally written in 1998 and published the following year in Erehwon, the award-winning poem, “The Simple Life of Johnny Mayhem,” compresses an entire young life of depression, desperation, and unanswered cries for help into nine lines and eleven words.

Memoir • Currently In Development

What started life as a poem has evolved into a full memoir of the same name. The project traces my family’s history—and my own—examining depression, addiction, homelessness, recovery, grief, artistic identity, and the long process of rebuilding a life once imagined as already lost.