Welcome to my journal. Here find stories and poetry inspired by my life and wanderings. 

I wish you well on your own journey.

Nick Crutchley

This series of eight photographs first captures emotional dysregulation, self-cruelty and suicidal ideation. The next five images show how mindfulness can help lift one from such negative states of being.  
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Deadweight places the reader in the heart and mind of a young adult with a fragile self-identity. The novel's unconventional plot revolves around the personality development of the author, and how he played different characters to shape the desolate emptiness he felt inside. As the story develops, it offers clues as to the underlying forces shaping his depression, delusions and dissociation, and the many other symptoms he experienced. Nick’s life reflects the effects of a warring family, drug use, and early exposure to the occult.

Deadweight represents those on the fringe, who experience psychosis or self-harm, and who often fall through the cracks. For the curious reader, it reveals how trauma and belief can devastate a promising young life.
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​The times we share
Having a laugh while shovelling up muck
That smelly gold that gardener’s love
From which grows beautiful flowers
 
The times we share
Watching movies both new and old
While the dogs jump and lick my face
My friends, the canine race
 
The times we share
I watch her care for both horse and dog
While I race for charity a plastic frog
And laughter pours from all
 
The times we share
As a child I swam a hundred lengths
When she cried, come on Son, you can do it!
The support she gave while growing up.
 
The times we share
The good times, the hard times, you know
Maybe you have a mother too?
Love them, for they are precious things…
 
Did I just call my mother a thing?
Now I will be scolded
By gentle laughter, and engaging wit
The times we share. . . .

​There’s a part of me that remains sane
Undamaged by the blame
A gentle soul with an altruistic goal
Who is not scared of his own shadow 

Everything rendered just-in-time
Reality wrought by brains insane
Advertising Epoch—cornflakes abound
When a cornflake falls, does it make a sound?
 
Take these pills, son, and the reality we teach
Take these pills, girl, square peg in round hole
Open your heart so we can close it down
You are the cornflake, we are the sound