You have to die a few times before you can really live. - Charles Bukowski

There are seasons of life that consume you whole-where grief, love, heartbreak, and self-destruction threaten to pull you under. Lessons Learned the Hard Way is a collection of poetry and prose written from the depths of those moments.

Told in raw, unfiltered chronology, this book is less a retrospective and more a survival record-a translation of feelings too heavy to carry alone. Through cities and lovers, through longing and loss, through vices and revelations, these pages document what it means to feel everything deeply and still come out on the other side.