We are humans and so we create. I took a dive into my artistic side in 2016 when I first wrote and performed my poem, Moment in Time, at Oh Snap! Poetry in the Lake of the Ozarks.

Now I wear multiple creative hats. I am a published poet, a photographer, a rapper and a published game designer. I now aspire to do all that I can to help and inspire.
In 2022 my life almost ended when my car slammed head-on into the end of a guardrail like the guardrail and I were jousting. I had been going 75 MpH on the interstate before I was launched into the air and flipped upside down, my little blue Prius destroyed. I was incredibly fortunate to survive, but I wasn’t out of the woods yet. The accident left me with a diffuse axonal brain injury, a type of brain injury that 90% of people never wake from. I did.
I will never walk through life the same again. If I listen to logic, it says my name should have been carved in a tombstone soon after that day. Instead of that tragic future, I woke up several days later in the hospital unable to walk without someone helping me balance by holding the gait belt around my waist. I also could not speak very clearly and finding words was a challenge unto itself. I had spent my life playing baseball and performing poetry. This new world I had woken up in held no promise that either of those things would be in my future. I wasn’t sure where my life would go from there. The weight of the thought — life could end in an instance — had grown exponentially.
I am recognizing more and more everyday that I am the one living my life. I get to choose how much every moment means to me. I only have a blip on this earth. I appreciate the feeling of using my blip to help people and live in harmony with the world. After I nearly died I was not going to waste a moment longer. In my speech therapy at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital I found inspiration to make my card game, Word Whizzes. It is a game I designed to help people who are finding their voice enjoy the journey using tongue twisters I wrote during and after my time in speech therapy. Since I was unable to work for a year after my car crash I got to put my brain to some more good use and create a poetry book inspired by and titled after my haiku Garden of Thoughts:

A garden of thoughts
Can be peaceful or deadly,
What you grow matters.

In the years since my car crash I have gotten back into performing in a major way. I became a part of the 2026 Fountain City Slam Team from Kansas City, and we will be competing in multiple national slams this year!
I have also taken up photography and am in love with the remarkable beauty of earth and all her creatures, including us. <3
Perhaps the thing that I am proudest of is that Word Whizzes has sold over 200 copies! It is now being used in a plethora of ways including speech therapy for brain injury survivors, speech therapy for children, and parties & vocal warmups for performers! I am so honored to have the opportunity to inspire a vast number of people!

Before I run out of time, cherish every moment
The Reaper will find I’m a fearless opponent
Life is a bull grab the horns, jump on it
I got one mind, one soul in this beautiful sonnet.

Life is indeed a bull and I got a miraculous second chance to ride it, so you better believe I will make it great.