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Free Hand #9

May 4, 2017April 2, 2022 Alina H. Hansen Writer & Poet

In the night

My mind spins. Blood boils, oh boiling not in rage. Not in peace, oh why why.

The sun shines. Shining and sweet against the flesh.

How the blood runs cold. In the night. Your eyes bury themselves. Into your skin. Into your body. Why cold, why now?

Ramblings, into the darkness. The eyes are here watching us all go off into the night.

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If you’re reading this, thank you for taking time out of your day to read my writing. I hope you return in the future!

-Alina

Notebook Excerpts #3 (April 2017)

May 1, 2017April 2, 2022 Alina H. Hansen Writer & Poet

Here are some excerpts from my April 2017 notebook!

key: pieces are separated by a ‘+’

How I bled.

Let it fall down, marble the cold sky. And the clouds are fat. FAT. in the meat of the sky. What are the words that break each other up and out, down and inside it all? How death becomes a reality eventually, for all of us.

Your sky buries itself down into the hell of my sky.

and the words open themselves, combine and dive into the hell of the mind. How I drew up and deconstructed the poison of my hell.

Hell, or purgatory.

and there is no quiet heart destroyed by the endlessness. No quiet heart explodes and climbs up up up…

All that I know buried against the sun. My blood returns cold and

crisp against the bitterness of one heart. Heart. Into another. What now? How does it relate to the cold? personage of a destroyed world. All my eyes bleed. Across my mouth the night climbs and buries itself. cold. cold against the sun.

Sickness in my gut

light shine too bright,

poetry

writing about poetry

it all blossoms with death.

Death.

Destruction is the key to the endless heart of it all. And I fade quietly into nothing cold and calm.

All over the world, the bits and pieces destroy each other.

The edge of my mind held me close to the edge of the night. All I do is dive into nothing the world follows me into nothing. All I seek, is doom in fire. Let go and crumble into the sky the edge is here and let go you never destroyed the edge of the night but embraced it.

Guitar, guitar

carpet/floor

heater, book case, bookcase,

bookcases. laptop

just kidding.

window window

lamp.

prison, prison,

prison.

If you are reading this, Thank You for taking time out of your day to read my writing! I hope you return in the future!

-Alina

End of the Month Reflection: Blogging, Writing and Reviews

April 30, 2017June 18, 2023 Alina H. Hansen Writer & Poet

Hello Readers ?

This is an end of the month post reflecting on what I’ve done and what I plan on posting on my blog.

Firstly, I have made progress in posting ‘Free Hand‘ poems and a few short stories as well as a ‘Fight Club‘ reflection and ‘T2‘ reflection. I am glad that I have succeeded in posting a good amount of short stories and poems since it is my blogs purpose to present these two particular forms of writing .

Secondly, I plan on posting a handful of ‘Book Lists‘ and an ‘Introduction’ post that will include a brief summary of the books, movies, and music that I like.

I chose to not do this intro post in the beginning because I wanted to see how the first month would go. I wanted to keep the focus of my blog centered on my writing but I realized from looking at other blogs I want readers to get a feel for the interests I have.

Coming in May: Booklists, Poetry, Short Stories and More

2-3 Booklists (Fiction, Horror, and Poetry)

Free Hand Poetry Posts ( and revisions)

Launch Party (photos and info on publication release party)

Notebook Excerpts from April 2017

2-3 Short Stories (and/or revisions)

Enjoy my writing? Hit that LIKE button or leave a comment!

Opioid/Heroin Addiction in Utah

April 27, 2017February 26, 2022 Alina H. Hansen Writer & Poet

I know this isn’t related to my categories Film, Music, Art for reflections but because I find this relevant to SLC, UT (where I live) and kind of mind-blowing, I’ve including this small reflection on Opioid/Heroin Addiction and Overdose related deaths in Utah.

I recently did a project for one of my classes in which I researched heroin/prescription opioid related deaths in Utah. This is after hearing multiple stories from different people in the last six months who had relatives and friends die from overdoses of these two drugs.

Contrary to the ‘clean’ and predominately MORMON ‘family’ state that Utah is perceived to be. We have a few issues that any big city can relate to. One of them is the problem of Perscription Opioids and Heroin Addiction which leads to some of the highest rates of drug related deaths (overdose) in the Nation.

For the past ten years (a sky rocket increase in deaths since 2007) Utah has ranked (often fluctuating up and down) as one of the top nine states for the highest drug overdose related deaths, specifically Opioids/Heroin.

In my research I found that often males in their twenties and females in their fifties had the highest rates of overdose. I also found that because of changes in the laws regarding prescription opioids which restricted certain opioids for a time there was an increase in Heroin overdose related deaths. This is an issue that I have barely heard the news, radio or gov. in Utah talk about, the only recent event to mark the importance of this issue was a summit meeting in 2016 in which issues such as the price for pain killers and opioids were exponentially more expensive than Heroin and affected the stats of overdose deaths. But even with the summit I’ve never heard people talk about this issue-I get the feeling that this issue is being ‘swept under the rug’ and silently dealt with by rehab centers and the gov. in Utah so as to not tarnish Utah’s image of being safe, clean, pro-family and a Mormon stronghold. (BUT I COULD BE WRONG!)

There is a discussion on the fact that about 60% of residents in Utah are members of The Church of Latter-Day Saints (MORMONS) and that because this issue of drug related deaths, specifically pain killers (Opioids) is on such a rise that Mormon residents may contribute to a large amount of the numbers of abusers and overdose related deaths (alpinerecoverylodge.com).

This is a discussion I stumbled on quite a few times in my research. Most articles stated that since it is against the belief practices of Mormons to ‘poison’ their bodies with liquor, cigarettes and even caffeine that if they are prescribed pain medication by doctors, Opioids must be OK, and that they may think that these pain medications will have no adverse affects on their body. It is extremely easy to become addicted to Opioids/Pain Meds and since an addiction leads to using up prescriptions and getting cut off, the next step is to find an equivalent drug which is HEROIN. It is dirt cheap on the streets and has the same affect but in the long run just like Opioids, addiction leads to death (most opioid deaths are accidental).

I am skeptical of the idea that most Opioid abusers are Mormon since I’ve known plenty of Mormons that refuse to even use Aspirin (because it is against their belief system). But the fact that a good amount of Utah’s residents are Mormon and that these drug related deaths are on an increase still does suggest there could be a correlation between the two.

There is also data to support that drug overdose related deaths in Utah, outnumbers deaths by car accidents and firearms which are some of the top causes of death in Utah next to accidents in the home (2014 pdf data).

Reflecting on my research, I find this issue to be extremely relevant and find it amazing I don’t see billboards and posters up all over the city addressing this issue (I honestly only recall seeing two billboards about this problem, one on State Street and another on 21st South in the past two years). After all that I’ve read and living in Utah for almost my entire life, I will say I am not surprised that this is an issue.

Sources:

https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/overdose.html

https://www.rt.com/usa/361009-utah-heroin-opioid-summit/

http://www.addicted.org/heroin-treatment-utah.html

http://www.alpinerecoverylodge.com/utah-drug-abuse-statistics/

https://highwaysafety.utah.gov/crash-data/

https://www.health.utah.gov/vipp/pdf/FactSheets/2013FirearmDeaths

https://health.utah.gov/opha/publications/hsu/1409_RxOpioidDth.pdf