To Chase the Sun is a collection of work that charts one poet’s journey from the darkness back into the light. This search for hope is reflected in his stages of healing from Chaos, to Order, and Beyond.

Like many people, I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression my whole life. It was a dark cloud that hung over my every moment, but like many of us, I got really, really great at faking it. Which only makes everything worse. For years, I struggled in the same silent way so many do. Constant fear, relentless wave after wave of negative self-talk crashing down, one after another, always keeping me un-rooted in who I actually was. Perpetual terror that everything, at every moment, would collapse all at once and consume me.

I turned to writing as a way to process and in turn influence my thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of the world around me and my place in it.

I published these poems in the order their written order, in the different states of mind I found myself in throughout the healing process: Chaos, Order, and Beyond. They represent my concrete search for hope and how my entire world changed once I found it.

My hope-my end goal beyond using writing as a means to heal-is that this book can represent the possibilities that exist in each of us, of restoration, of healing, and of hope.

I lived so much of my life in the darkness, I’d learned to believe it was all there was. Pain became an unfortunate comfort, only by consistency and association, but not by choice. If we choose, we can move out of whatever feelings we have, and/or circumstance, and we have the power to build whatever life we want. I believe that.

Where are you at right now? Still in the darkness? In the pain? Or have you stumbled onto the path to healing?

Just know how brilliant and powerful you are. Know what you’re capable of, and your choices will guide your steps to what you want.

The world needs each of us to be the fullest versions of ourselves we can. It needs us to love and create and build to not just make ourselves whole, but our families and homes and communities along with us.

I find that I am in love with the night, perhaps it’s naught but an ache for the dawn. - Craig Randall