Jess Barselow lives in Greensboro, North Carolina with three cats. For years, Jess only wrote and edited formal, technical academic papers, but they recently found their way back to poetry as a way to process and express their complicated feelings about death and neurodivergence.
“I thought the pills would help/Ignore it/I see no reason/to pretend I am okay.” Poet Jess Barselow writes about masking and the tediousness of small talk.
Grief is a funny thing. It can be heart wrenching, devastating, or even performative. Jess Bareslow’s poem, free., details how hyperaware they were of how they needed to act after their father’s death.
