This Is Not Ideal

This is Not Ideal: A Year of Coping Skills is a raw, deeply personal collection, encompassing multiple inpatient psychiatric stays and chronicling over a year of introspection, trauma processing, and survival. Themes of grief, identity, love, queerness, mental health, and resilience weave throughout, painting a vivid picture of struggle and triumph. Augstkalns’ poems explore the complexities of being human, especially through the lens of neurodivergence, trauma, and the search for meaning.

With a mix of lyrical prose, sharp wit, memes, illustrations, and unfiltered emotion, this collection is both a mirror and a lifeline, offering solidarity to those who have felt unseen and a reminder that survival is its own form of rebellion.

Reviews

“MC Augstkalns combines vibrant artwork, vulnerable poems, and clever humor seamlessly. Your heart will be soothed, your mind will be rapt, and your soul will be shaken to its core.”

—Eva Xan, Best-Selling Poetry Book Editor & Author of Esoterra

"Augstkalns, a linguist, explores neurodivergence, queerness, and childhood trauma in this intimate book of poems… Augstkalns invites readers into their private, complex inner world in this earnest poetry collection… A raw and candid examination of mental health."

—Kirkus Reviews