This Is Life

Arvilla Fee

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9798385204762, 9798385204779
• eBook ISBN: 9798385204786
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

To say "life isn't fair" is an understatement. As human beings, we endure grief and hardships that nearly take our breath away, and there are so many moments where we cannot begin to understand the why behind our suffering. To face loss, toxic relationships, addiction, insecurity, exhaustion, aging, and the ugliness of the world around us may shake our faith and weaken our resolve, but in the end, we are a resilient lot and somehow find strength through nature, laughter, and our own fierce determination to keep fighting the good fight. This Is Life holds the tough and tender moments of daily living and gives us the validation and connection we seek in each other so that we never have to say, "Am I the only one?"

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• This is Life
• And the World Moves On
• April Ashes
• The Art of Mourning
• Battles Unseen
• Blue Black Hours
• Brain Storm
• Don’t Die on Me
• Getting Orders
• The Great Divide
• The Great Pretending
• Grief
• Happiness is a Choice
• I Am Nobody
• I Carry the Weight
• In This God-Forsaken Place
• Journey through Meth
• A Little Lazarus
• Masquerade
• The Mourning Road
• No New Normal
• Not the Only One
• The Other Side
• Put a Pin in It
• Ruins
• That Moment
• There Used to be a Garden
• Those Remember Days
• Time
• When Doves Cry
• All that Remains
• All that You Were
• Beware the Counterfeits
• Body Language
• Candles
• The Cycle
• The Drought
• The Fatted Calf
• Flash in the Pan
• Flight Risk
• Full of Yourself
• Gaunt
• Left to Dry
• Location
• Nothing at All
• Primitive
• Remember
• Sister Long Gone
• Square Pegs
• Truth be Told
• Untethered
• Water Fresh and Salt
• We Opened a Joint Account
• What Lies Beneath
• You Wore Religion
• Aren’t We All a Little Bit Mad?
• Between
• Did I Sleep
• Driving Blindfolded
• Empty
• Fresh Out
• Galaxies
• Hitchhiking to the Stars
• Imagining a Slow Down
• Left Hanging
• Lord I’m Tired
• The Razor’s Edge
• Redial
• Today
• What the World Sees
• Aging: Not for the Faint of Heart
• Carry the Wish Seed
• Church Campground Reunion
• The Decline of Old Detroit
• The Edge of Remembering
• Forgive Me If
• Grandma’s Sunday Kitchen
• How to Anti-Age Gracefully
• Life Defined
• The Lovely Janitor
• Nostalgia for Nostalgia’s Sake
• What Did You Do with the Dash?
• When I Grow Old
• You Can’t Take it with You
• Actions Speak Louder
• Chasing the Unicorn
• Civilization
• Corner of Fifth and Main
• Count the Seconds, Divide by Five
• Cracks in Humanity
• Decay
• A Different Kind of Hunger
• Expendables
• From a Former Skeleton
• Genetics
• Left Field
• Lessons from Mrs. P
• Listening
• Melting Down
• Mouths in Motion
• No Common Ground
• Origami
• Rabbit
• Silencer
• The Sound of Silence
• Stained Glass Prayers
• State of the Human Address
• We Came Back
• When I Grow Up
• The World is Cancelled Today
• Beach Mornings
• Breakthrough
• Lake Erie in Ashtabula
• Lake Triolet
• Life in the Cracks
• Ocean Triolet
• Pilgrimage
• Porch Summers
• River for Keeps
• The Self-Made Poet
• Stopping in the Woods with Frost
• Summer Triolet
• Under the Canopy
• When Foxes Play
• Writing Muses
• Before Social Media
• Family Reunion
• Hats off to
• I Heard a Fly Buzz
• I Named Him Patrick
• Measuring Stick
• A Memorial Service for Memory
• Out of Order
• The Pros and Cons of Love Explained in Twenty Lines
• Read the Sign
• The Art of Being
• Been a Long Time Coming
• Fanning the Flames
• The Grand Escape
• Make Space
• Not in My DNA
• Patched
• Remote Control
• Sweeping
• A Time to Burn
• Today I Will Eat Potato Chips
• Where I Belong
• Who Says
• Without Saying a Word
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author