The Poetry Book That Got Lost in the Shuffle

A little love for my middle child.

Do you remember I Hope My Voice Doesn’t Skip?

My second poetry book. The “middle child.” The quietly brilliant sibling that gets left out of the family group chat. (My sister is a middle child, so I'm allowed to make this joke 😆).

Released SEVEN years ago TODAY, in 2018, I Hope My Voice Doesn’t Skip came into the world right after Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately took off—and before Sorry I Haven’t Texted You Back blew up. And this little paperback got a bit overshadowed somewhere between those two poetry mixtape-style books.

Which is kinda a shame, because I think some of my best writing is in there. Seriously, the best poems I’ve perhaps ever written are in this book, and I actually TITLED my poems in this book, instead of calling them “tracks” LOL. Here are a few of my faves: This Isn’t About The Number Six; Springtime in the Cemetery; Ten Little Girls; Aunt Em; 2,000 Forecasts; You Are Not The Sun; An Untrained Eye Will Miss Everything; I Am Marked; The ’90s Seem So Long Ago; Wandering, Wondering; Disquietude; and Hope (which is my mom’s favorite, I think).

This book contains what you’ve come to expect from me: healing, hurt, grief, and hope. It blends short poems and longer prose. There are even traces of my humor and my early attempt at songwriting threaded throughout.

And while I’m deeply grateful that nearly 10,000 of you have picked it up (seriously, thank you!), it’s also true that bookstores don’t really stock it anymore. Sad face. It kind of lives in the shadows of my other books. During poetry month this year, though, I made a point of reading quite a bit from it! And it brought me so much joy.

So, this is just me gently reminding you, on the book’s 7th birthday, that I Hope My Voice Doesn’t Skip still exists. And if you haven’t read it yet, maybe now’s the perfect time to give it a chance.

Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:

"But I am not like you;
I am not a killer."
- last lines from The Denouement

"My childhood.
I used to breathe here.
Impatiently."
- middle stanza from The 90s Seem So Long Ago

"It wasn’t a long while,
but it was worthwhile.
It wasn’t a long life,
but it was a wonderful life."
- last stanza from Absent

"You lose someone, and their ghost splatters
everywhere."
- first line from The Stains Left Behind

"Perhaps the branches are the ones
that are refusing to let go this year."
- line from Leaf-Strewn Sidewalks

"I wore your shirt to bed those days.
I still have it, the sleeves have frayed."
- line from 2,000 Forecasts

"Though I may never walk up those cracked stone steps again, or hear the swing of that particular kitchen door, there’s a deep security felt when a simple scent floods me with memories that only a handful of people I love could recognize."
- last lines from Hiraeth

"we were
a fatal mixture,
just pretty
in hindsight and pictures."
- line from Hindsight & Pictures

"Machines and humans share similar sounds.
They break the same, too."
- last line from Detergent & Denial

"Were you fifteen minutes late or
already fifteen miles closer to your next life?"
- question posed in It's About Power

"I trace our initials in the dock’s creases.
A lifetime has passed since we
carved those masterpieces."
- second stanza in Between the Notes

"Do not allow your heart to suffer.
It has been too good to you to allow it to suffer."
- last line in the last poem of the book

Thanks for being here. Thanks for reading. Thanks for remembering with me.