Descent

Here, love becomes a performance. The poems chronicle a steady collapse into silence, denial, and dangerous hope. Abuse enters the body and the home. The speaker tries to save what cannot be saved, internalizing blame while navigating fear. Fatherhood arrives as a sacred calling in the middle of chaos. This is the year-by-year unraveling that so many survivors know well—when loving turns into surviving and survival becomes a quiet act of endurance.

Order of Poems & Prose: Pills – 2019 (prose) – Leap Year – Equally Yoked – Becoming a Father – 2020 (prose) – Fix You – 2021 (prose) – Wild and Free – Sinister – Deceit – 2022 (prose) – Gas Stations – Carbon Monoxide – 2023 (prose) – I Failed – Cold

*Please be advised: This book contains references to physical and emotional abuse, child abuse, gaslighting, suicide threats, and domestic violence. Reader discretion is advised.

Descent

2022: The Year I Nearly Lost Everything

Jonathan Valania

You cried for him louder than you ever cried for me.And that’s when I knew—this would never make sense again.

2022: The Year I Nearly Lost Everything

Jonathan Valania

You cried for him louder than you ever cried for me.And that’s when I knew—this would never make sense again.

Carbon Monoxide

Jonathan Valania

You told me you were ready to die—because I called you a fraud.I didn’t want you dead.I just didn’t want to hear about him.

Carbon Monoxide

Jonathan Valania

You told me you were ready to die—because I called you a fraud.I didn’t want you dead.I just didn’t want to hear about him.

2023: The Year I Realized She Didn’t Want Saving

Jonathan Valania

It wasn’t my failure.It was the year I finally learned I couldn’t save you.Because you never wanted to be saved—just someone to blame.

2023: The Year I Realized She Didn’t Want Saving

Jonathan Valania

It wasn’t my failure.It was the year I finally learned I couldn’t save you.Because you never wanted to be saved—just someone to blame.

I Failed

Jonathan Valania

“Mommy, mommy — why did you hit me?”I failed. I couldn’t protect him.I broke the promise of fatherhood.

I Failed

Jonathan Valania

“Mommy, mommy — why did you hit me?”I failed. I couldn’t protect him.I broke the promise of fatherhood.

Cold

Jonathan Valania

We’re not partners. We’re not even friends. Just two broken people who mistook shelter for home.  

Cold

Jonathan Valania

We’re not partners. We’re not even friends. Just two broken people who mistook shelter for home.  

Read Letters I'll Never Send

What began as court documents, voicemails, and text messages became something more. It's a story about survival, truth-telling, and the long, sacred work of healing.

Letters I’ll Never Send is a raw, autobiographical collection of poems and prose written through the aftermath of emotional abuse. It speaks for the moments you couldn’t. It says what was never safe to say out loud.

Ordering the print edition includes exclusive poems and reflections not available online—and directly supports outreach efforts for survivors of domestic abuse.

This book is for the ones who made it out, and the ones still finding their way.

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Click here to view all the poems in Letters I'll Never Send