Fallout

Fallout captures what happens next: Legal action, trauma therapy, lost faith, and a shattered family. There is grief not only for the relationship but for the belief that it ever meant what it was supposed to. Religious betrayal, systemic injustice, single parenting, and the first breaths of healing rise up through rage and sorrow. This section is a raw confrontation with the people and systems that failed. It speaks boldly where silence once lived.

Order of Poems & Prose: Sticks & Stones – Psalm 139 – Ghosts – Shepherd – Leash – Testimony – Predestined Pain – Genesis (prose poem) – Inhale – The Truth – Wretched – The System Isn’t Built for Me

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

Fallout

Sticks & Stones

Jonathan Valania

Bluntly, the emotional abuse was always worse.Bruises heal.But words echo.They take on a life of their own, commanding your attention.

Sticks & Stones

Jonathan Valania

Bluntly, the emotional abuse was always worse.Bruises heal.But words echo.They take on a life of their own, commanding your attention.

Psalm 139

Jonathan Valania

I was knit in my mother’s womb —Undone not by God.But by you.Abandoned.

Psalm 139

Jonathan Valania

I was knit in my mother’s womb —Undone not by God.But by you.Abandoned.

Ghosts

Jonathan Valania

Your praise never resides here,Only the scars you left.And I can’t look in the mirror,It triggers the figment of you.

Ghosts

Jonathan Valania

Your praise never resides here,Only the scars you left.And I can’t look in the mirror,It triggers the figment of you.

Shepherd

Jonathan Valania

You said nothing.Not to DHS.Not to the judge.Not even to me.A mandatory reporterwho choseto be optional.

Shepherd

Jonathan Valania

You said nothing.Not to DHS.Not to the judge.Not even to me.A mandatory reporterwho choseto be optional.

Leash

Jonathan Valania

Self-absorbed desires always push awaythe ones we swore would always stay.And still—you showed me I always deserved this leash.

Leash

Jonathan Valania

Self-absorbed desires always push awaythe ones we swore would always stay.And still—you showed me I always deserved this leash.

Testimony

Jonathan Valania

“Please raise your right hand…Do you agree to tell the whole truth?”I cough—something always feels stuckwhen I speak about you.

Testimony

Jonathan Valania

“Please raise your right hand…Do you agree to tell the whole truth?”I cough—something always feels stuckwhen I speak about you.

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