In 2015 I started drawing with pen in sketchbooks at bars and cafes around Capitol Hill in Seattle. It started with innocuous doodles of silly characters, but quickly turned to the personal and dark.

I gave a print of one of these drawings to a woman I met outside a Seattle coffeehouse. We dated for over a year, but it didn't work out.

I've struggled my whole life with being a hopeless romantic. A hopeless, anxious, overwhelmed, addict-romantic. I like to think these cartoons represent a bit of a cry for help—a yearning to finally relinquish my anxious identity and be cradled in the safety of love.