The Poet (delayed)

Episode 78: When We Are Tired

April 28th, 2026  |  Season 1  |  24 mins 24 secs

authenticity, poetry, self discovery

There is a quote attributed to Nietzsche that reads: When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.

I’ve found that to be true.

When we’re exhausted physically, emotionally, or psychologically, old fears return, clarity fades, and problems that are solvable can feel impossible. We forget who we are. We forget what we’ve survived. We forget that help exists.

In this episode, I reflect on fatigue, overwhelm, and the temptation to surrender ourselves when life feels too heavy. Drawing from my own poems, Forgotten Walls and Terrible Potential, along with images from Théoden and Wormtongue in The Lord of the Rings, I explore what happens when the fog sets in—and how we begin to lift it.

This is an episode about remembering who you are when you’re tired, asking for help when you need it, and acting with integrity in the next honest hour.

Episode 77: Why Things Fall Apart: Beauty Is Not Structure

April 21st, 2026  |  Season 1  |  16 mins 11 secs

authenticity, poetry, self discovery

Why Things Fall Apart

he tried
and so did she
but neither
understood
the other
and
that is how
things fall apart
despite
the trying

In this episode of The Poet (delayed), I reflect on why some relationships that feel meaningful, beautiful, and deeply connected still fail to hold over time.

Using the metaphor of a beautiful building with a weak internal frame, I explore the difference between appearance and foundation—between chemistry and character, connection and structure.

I talk about how trust, communication, comprehension, consideration, repair, and boundaries form the unseen architecture of healthy relationships. I also reflect on how many of us become “water”—adapting ourselves to unstable dynamics rather than building an internal structure of our own.

More than an episode about romance, this is an honest reflection on friendships, family, self-respect, and the wisdom of learning what can truly hold.

Episode 76: A Tree, a Star or a River: When Giving Becomes Loss

April 14th, 2026  |  10 mins 34 secs

authenticity, poetry, self discovery

Some giving comes from fullness.
Some comes from fear.

One sustains you.
The other slowly empties you.

In this episode, I explore the difference—and the truth we don’t like to face:

You cannot continue to give what you don’t replenish.

There is always a reconciliation.

Episode 75: The Gateway To Understanding

April 9th, 2026  |  1 hr 4 mins

authenticity, poetry, self discovery

We spend our lives trying to avoid uncertainty.

Fix it.
Solve it.
Get out of it.

But what if that’s the mistake?

This episode is about what happens when you don’t leave.

When you stay in the discomfort long enough for something to reveal itself.

Episode 73: Part 1. We Die of Being Alive: To Avoid Pain is a Death

March 31st, 2026  |  Season 1  |  12 mins 55 secs

authenticity, integrity, montaigne, poetry, self discovery

You don’t die of being sick.
You die of being alive.

But there’s another kind of death—
the one that comes when we run from our own lives.

This episode is about that tension…
and what it means to actually live.

Episode 72: Healing Alchemy

December 16th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  13 mins 20 secs

alchemy, authenticity, healing, meaning, poetry, self discovery, suffering

Healing alchemy:
That load you struggle under—
Is it lead or gold?

It’s an invitation to look at the weight we carry with different eyes—to see our struggles not as proof that we’re failing, but as the raw material for something deeper, stronger, and more meaningful. I brought in a line from Epictetus that has been sitting with me lately, and we explore what it means to transform our suffering instead of being crushed by it.

And as a way of saying thank you, I wrote this haiku in calligraphy, framed it, and I’m giving it away.

Giveaway details:
Email me at [email protected] with “healing alchemy” in the subject line.
I’ll put every entry into a drawing and choose a winner at random.

Thanks for joining me.

“may I be I is the only prayer—”
— e. e. cummings

Episode 71: Letting Go

November 11th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  45 mins 17 secs

authenticity, finding peace, letting go, poetry, self discovery, serenity prayer

We hold on so tightly sometimes—trying to shape outcomes, control people, or force clarity when life just isn’t ready to give it. But nature reminds us: the leaf releases when its season is done.

In this week’s episode of The Poet (delayed), I talk with my friend Sarah Daniels about the quiet strength of letting go—about learning to release what we can’t control, trusting the timing of life (or God, the universe, whatever name you give it), and finding peace in that surrender.

Letting go isn’t easy. It’s uncomfortable. It’s scary. But it’s also where calm begins.

Episode 70: What Steals Your Sleep?: The Human Condition and the Need for Connection

September 16th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  1 hr 1 min

authenticity, find meaning in suffering, poetry, poetry podcast, self discovery, the human condition, the poet delayed

In this special episode, recorded live at "Torchlight" last April, I reflect on the defining losses, trials, and awakenings of my life through the lens of poetry and personal story. Drawing on Nietzsche’s insight that “to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering,” I explore how our deepest wounds can become bridges—not barriers—to human connection.

This is an honest meditation on grief, growth, and the strange alchemy that happens when we turn toward our pain and find each other there.

Episode 69: The Rumble We Ignore

August 27th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  30 mins 4 secs

authenticity, poetry, self discovery

When Vesuvius
Rumbled in its deep, Pompeii’s
Blue skies were a lie.

Sometimes our gut warns us to leave, but we stay.
Other times, it calls us to act, but fear keeps us frozen.
And in both moments, the mind often steps in—trying to quiet what the body already knows.

This week on The Poet (delayed), we explore what happens when we ignore that deep inner rumble. Why we override our intuition. Why we stay when we should go. Why we hide when we’re being called to step forward. And what it might look like to finally trust the wisdom of the gut over the noise of the mind.

Episode 68: Go to the Limits of Your Longing

July 29th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  1 hr 39 mins

authenticity, gratitude, healing, poetry, rilke, self discovery, suffering

I was joined this episode by Chris and Elise Jones and Ali Talbot. We gathered in the warm, book-lined library at Chris and Elise Jones’ home and just talked.

We read Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem Go to the Limits of Your Longing, and from there we let the conversation unfold naturally. We talked about suffering — not in a heavy, hopeless way, but in the way you talk when you know that pain and beauty are woven into the same thread. We explored what it means to surrender to life’s difficulties instead of resisting them. We laughed about childhood memories, tofu meatloaf, and the glory of Saturday morning cartoons. We got real about trauma, caretaking, creating from heartbreak, and what it means to show up for each other when life breaks us open.

This episode is about sitting with what’s hard, about finding connection through vulnerability, and about how creativity — whether it’s poetry, baking, music, or just making something out of pain — can save us in quiet, powerful ways.