This is the story of a dark night of the soul, of traversing the depths of despair, and of rebirth.

It shows the reality of hitting rock bottom. Not by a self-reported narrative written after the fact, but through unfiltered poetic expression written in real time during breakdown and recovery.

The poems within this collection were written over a 24-month period and are presented in chronological order. They show the inner tumult and turmoil of a man desperately trying, and failing, to hold together the crumbling status quo of his prior existence.

They show the short-lived hopes, the shattered dreams, and the impact of ill-advised interventions that made everything worse.

They also show that there is light at the end of every tunnel.

That like a caterpillar entering a cocoon, sometimes what feels like destruction is in fact a necessary part of the transformation process, and perhaps that, like a seed, the engulfing darkness may in fact be the dirt from which you can bloom.