Exposure

The facade breaks. The turning point arrives. The centerpiece poem, 12:30 AM, details the night the violence can no longer be ignored, when the speaker is attacked, strangled, and finally escapes. From that point on, every poem becomes a step out of denial. This section tells the truth that has been buried beneath excuses and shame. This wasn’t dysfunction. This was abuse. It was real. It was physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological.

Order of Poems & Prose: 12:30 AM – Burn – Thanksgiving – December 12th, 2024 – Echoes – Agoraphobia – Berks – Split Memory – Creaks – Trauma Bond – 2024 (prose) – Shadows

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

Exposure

12:30 am

Jonathan Valania

You were in full control.And I couldn’t recognize you.This is the moment you died—not literally,but the moment I stopped lying for you.

12:30 am

Jonathan Valania

You were in full control.And I couldn’t recognize you.This is the moment you died—not literally,but the moment I stopped lying for you.

Burn

Jonathan Valania

Burn it down —That's what the tarot said in 2018.Deceit. Dishonesty. Discontent.Relent, still.

Burn

Jonathan Valania

Burn it down —That's what the tarot said in 2018.Deceit. Dishonesty. Discontent.Relent, still.

Thanksgiving

Jonathan Valania

The kids think you’re on a business trip,but only we know the truth.You’re gone this Thanksgiving—too busy saving the world.

Thanksgiving

Jonathan Valania

The kids think you’re on a business trip,but only we know the truth.You’re gone this Thanksgiving—too busy saving the world.

December 12th, 2024

Jonathan Valania

Even now, in your absence,my disorder answers to your voice.It thrives in your echo—and calls it memory.

December 12th, 2024

Jonathan Valania

Even now, in your absence,my disorder answers to your voice.It thrives in your echo—and calls it memory.

Echoes

Jonathan Valania

The boys are doing better with you gone,even if I’m silently breaking.And for the first time,I think it’s going to be okay.

Echoes

Jonathan Valania

The boys are doing better with you gone,even if I’m silently breaking.And for the first time,I think it’s going to be okay.

Agoraphobia

Jonathan Valania

Is it bad that I’m happy now?Even though I don’t want to be.But the relief is sweeterthan the pain of constant rejection.

Agoraphobia

Jonathan Valania

Is it bad that I’m happy now?Even though I don’t want to be.But the relief is sweeterthan the pain of constant rejection.

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