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Alicia Cook

@thealiciacook

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Writer. Readers tend to find my poetry books by accident and I love that. 📍Newark, NJ 📚 I write about mental health, addiction, grief, and hope.

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Today is World Mental Health Day, a reminder that mental health is the lens through which we experience our lives. Do what you need to do for your brain today. Whatever that looks like for you. Read a poem, check in with yourself, go for a walk, take your meds, call your therapist, reach out to someone you care about…you know, try to notice the good parts of life (minus the persisting horrors). - Alicia Cook by @thealiciacook

Sad Girl Autumn...it's a lifestyle 🍂 Here are some of my favorite autumnal poetry excerpts from my poetry books alongside some moody photos captured over the years by @kamelia_ani_photography. by @thealiciacook

For everyone in my comments diagnosing me with avoidant attachment...I know already 😆 This is the 41st poem from the poetry book The Music Was Just Getting Good by Alicia Cook

When some were still new enough to cry over losing balloons to the sky, I was losing people. I don’t think you understand how that has changed how I interact with the living.

Loneliness is a constant vibration just below my surface. There has always been something a bit sad about me. My heart is always a little bit broken, even when I am in love. Apologies are easier for me to accept than compliments but maybe I deserve the compliments I am not accepting and maybe you don’t deserve the forgiveness you’re taking. I’m a disaster moonlighting as a New Jersey success story; a beautiful view out of the window of a train wreck. Equal parts prodigy and project, the fixers always become infatuated with me. - Alicia Cook #grief by @thealiciacook

This is one of my favorites. It's the 3rd poem in the poetry book Sorry I Haven’t Texted You Back by Alicia Cook.

We may sleep together, but my dreams are my own. That’s always been a problem. I shut people out. I only let them see me from certain angles, in certain lighting, at certain moments. My mother says it’s because I am independent. My therapist says it’s my defense mechanism. My ex says it’s why we broke up. My friends say they love me anyway. I say it’s because I feel safest in half measures:

I’ll love you (but not completely). I’ll hold your hand (but won’t interlace our fingers). I’ll take pictures (but won’t tag you). I’ll miss you (but never enough to ever question leaving). - Alicia Cook by @thealiciacook

This is the 70th poem in the poetry book The Music Was Just Getting Good by Alicia Cook.

When your emergency contact dies and you can’t think of anyone else to list in their place. When mail still comes in their name. When you have to break the news to someone else, and have to console them even though you’re inconsolable. When you hear their belly laugh, smell their scent, swear you see them in a crowd, and your brain forgets for less than a second and you lose them all over again. When they come to you in a dream. When they leave you in a nightmare. When you have to switch bills to your name and remember what day the recycling gets picked up. When you are the only one left who remembers that it is their birthday. When psychiatrists want to pathologize grief and say you have a disorder if you don’t "get better" within one year of their death. #griefsupport by @thealiciacook

A big thank you to Alicia Cook for spending the afternoon with us today! ❤️📚
We loved having her in the store and getting to share her beautiful poetry with our customers. Alicia signed copies of her three poetry collections, Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately, Sorry I Haven’t Texted You Back, and The Music Was Just Getting Good.
Thank you to everyone who stopped by to meet Alicia and support her work! We hope you enjoyed the afternoon as much as we did. 🫶✨
#AliciaCook #Poetry #PoetryBooks #AuthorEvent #BarnesAndNoble by @thealiciacook

This is an excerpt from a much longer poem by Alicia Cook, from the poetry book The Music Was Just Getting Good.

I’ve been to so many funerals, I cannot walk by a florist without smelling death. In lieu of flowers, give me my innocence back so I can walk past a florist and smell romance and spring; not loss and oblivion. In lieu of flowers, build me a time machine or get the fuck out. #grief by @thealiciacook

Another poem about a funeral home parking lot. Found in the poetry book The Music was Just Getting Good by Alicia Cook.

I always feel an odd relief whenever I pass a funeral home and notice that its parking lot is empty.

No one in this particular neighborhood is sucking on stale mints while someone they love is breathless, sewn into the last dress they’ll ever wear. No one is watching themselves smile in old photos, while coming to grips with never being that person again. No one is having any of those other eccentric, private thoughts in a public space that buzzes with the constant, low hum of elevator music and sporadic sobbing. No one is wondering if they should walk around and greet people they only see when they have a dead person in common. No one is wondering where they are going to put all those flowers or casseroles, since there isn’t enough space in the house or refrigerator for all of that sorrow. No one will have to keep a list of who sent what, to write the strangest thank you notes later. No one needs to find where the extra lightbulbs are hidden in the basement or decode passwords or worry about how many death certificates they should request.

No one needs to fear what tomorrow will be like, or the next day or the next. That is because no one is here. The parking lot is empty. What a relief. #griefjourney #grief by @thealiciacook

The Opposite of A.I. is a Four-Year-Old’s Imagination

My four-year-old niece
just learning her sight words
can read the sky better
than the gadget in your pocket.

She points at clouds—
knows their names, motives, grudges.

"That one is angry," she says,
fluent in their language.
"That's why her gone gray.
That one hurt her feelings.
Now look! Her starting to cry."

As the one cloud weeps
the others gather close,
darkening at their fluffy edges,
heavy with shared rain.

She cups her hands into a bowl—
catches their falling tears.

"They all cry together," she says.
"Because when one cloud gets sad,
the rest of them do too.
That’s what happens
when you love somebody."

Poem about childhood, imagination, and artificial intelligence by poet Alicia Cook. by @thealiciacook

New Jersey poet Alicia Cook will be at @bnledgewood on Saturday, October 3 from 12-3pm. Come say hi and get a signed poetry book!! (The first handful of people that get her poetry book will get a bookish surprise as a gift!!) by @thealiciacook

I've been grieving Jess Cook longer than I actually knew her.

Forgive my sweaty face. I came here right from my run. Today my cousin Jess Cook has been dead 20 years, officially dead longer than she was alive, and I'm dealing with that by rambling to you all. She died when she was 19 (and I was 20). I am 40 now. I have lived more years without her than I ever lived with her. That is a fact I can calculate, but not one I can fully comprehend.

Maybe I don't have to. Grief is partly learning to live with the things that will never make sense... that a person can become harder to remember and no less real. #grief by @thealiciacook

We are back with another amazing poem ‼️

We’re excited to share “The Last Mile” by Alicia Cook @thealiciacook for this week’s highlight of the Poet’s Press with co-editors @urucker and @yolandawisher.

This poem is inspired by the daunting surge of AI usage and how threatening it can be for AI to take over the world as we know it.

The goal of The Poet’s Press is to bridge the gap between real people and mainstream news coverage.

We are looking forward to featuring poets and their work as they continue to provide context and challenge narratives.

Visit lovenowmedia.com to learn more or submit your poet. Comment ‘poet’ to receive a link to submit ❤️ by @thealiciacook