🖤 Who is SceneWall?
"SceneWall was born in the wreckage—crafted from addiction, loss, recovery, and the pulse of music that saved me."
I’m Mikey Sabo — a screen printer, a music head, a misfit with scars, and the heart behind this whole thing. I’m not some faceless brand.
I’ve lived a hell of a life — lost it all, built it back, and found my purpose in giving people a way to make *their* spaces scream. SceneWall was born out of heartbreak, hustle, and a deep love for music, rebellion, and meaning... not to mention the wreckage—crafted from addiction, loss, recovery. Ultimately, it was the pulse of music that saved me.
This isn’t mass-produced BS. This is precision-cut, professionally laminated -OR- "Flyer Feel" demo prints — your choice, hand packed chaos from my hands to your wall. And I do it all right here in Grand Rapids, MI.
SceneWall was born with the mind-set that even when the world is falling apart we all deserve our own personal space that is — just us. Our own sanctuary that we can retreat to and forget everything else and drown in what keeps us going — or what can stop us in our tracks for a moment...
I had lost everything—
My son.
My business.
My home.
My bank account.
My wife had just passed away.
I’d pushed away every friend who tried to help. And there I was—dying by the needle in my own bathroom, haunted by addiction, paralyzed by grief.
I wasn’t living. I was a ghost in my own house.
And I was haunting myself.
But time... time and consequence started to shift something.
Recovery court came into my life like a slap I didn’t ask for—but holy shit, I needed it. I don't even remember how I got tangled in the system again, but that was the rope I grabbed onto.
Accountability.
Consequences.
Knowing I couldn’t use without risking a cage—that was the first grip I had on change.
It sucked.
But it worked.
Then—somewhere in the static—I picked up screen printing again.
At first, it was a distraction. A hobby.
But the second I stepped back into that ink-stained world, I felt it: This was mine.
I started hitting shows again. The sweat, the screams, the crowd howls—I remembered.
Music has always been my lifeline. My anchor when nothing else held.
One night, after a set that cracked my chest wide open, I came home, looked at my wall, and thought:
“Why don’t I have something from this? Why doesn’t anyone offer that?”
So I started printing.
First one poster.
Then two.
Then a full-blown shrine to every band that ever pulled me back from the edge.
Friends saw it and wanted their own. I hooked them up.
The project became therapy.
The therapy became SceneWall.
And SceneWall?
It became the thing that helped me stay clean.
Stay creative.
Stay alive.
If you want to know more — like the raw, unfiltered truth — what it took to get me where I am today — starting from my roots — keep reading. You're in for a ride. My story is long, yeah, but I can almost guarantee you'll be on the edge of your seat, at least from time to time :)
💀 - Mikey Sabo, Forever Scene, Always Seen 🖤
Mikey’s Story: What’s Left to Live For?
I was born in Grandville, Michigan, in 1983, to two loving parents and a sister whom I loved just as much—though we didn’t always show it. My childhood was full of contradictions. I went to St. John Vianney, a strict Catholic school where we had Mass twice a week and had to wear uniforms, like straight out of a movie. But while the other kids stuck to the rules, I found ways to defy them. Baggy navy corduroy pants instead of the stiff dress slacks, a chain wallet clinking against my hip, black nail polish, a pierced ear, and long hair that brushed my shoulders. For the early 90’s, I was a walking contradiction—too wild inside to be normal, too young to understand why I felt different.
By the time I was 10, I was already a hustler. The first kid in school to have a personal computer, I figured out how to print nude photos and sold them in the bathroom between classes for a dollar a piece. A fifth-grade black-market operation, fueled by a tiny inkjet printer and the thrill of doing something I shouldn’t. But that was me—always looking for the next hustle, the next thrill, the next way to prove I was more than just a kid in a uniform.
My parents owned flower shops, which meant late nights, early mornings, and a kind of independence most kids didn’t have. I spent my childhood in the back rooms of those shops, watching my parents grind, watching customers come and go, learning what it meant to build something from nothing. But it also meant a lot of time alone. My sister, nine years older, looked out for me when she could, but mostly, I had to figure things out myself. By the time I was seven, I was working in the fields, picking flowers in the dead heat of summer until way past bedtime. I remember coming home exhausted, dirt under my fingernails, knowing the work had just begun.
The first time I smoked anything, I was eight. Someone left a cigar burning in an ashtray at the shop, and curiosity got the best of me. That’s how it always went—curiosity turning into experience, experience turning into addiction.
I never fit into the mold of a normal kid. G.I. Joes? Make-believe games? That wasn’t me. If I wasn’t building something, I was outside chasing whatever thrill I could find. I got my first skateboard when I was nine or ten—an old-school one with a single kicktail, straight out of the '80s. That board became my escape. The road was endless, the pavement was freedom, and every fall was just another reason to get back up.
I had two sets of friends—the neighborhood crew and the school crew. The neighborhood kids were my partners in crime, the ones I built forts with, swam in the lake with, and ran through the woods with, daring each other to go further, climb higher, be braver. The school friends were the ones I stayed up late with, playing video games, eating pizza, talking about life like we had any idea what the hell we were doing.
At 12, I had my first kiss in a roller rink during a game of “Suck and Blow” with a playing card. The smell of the rink, the sound of skates scraping against the floor—it’s all still burned into my memory. That same night, I saw something I wasn’t supposed to. Two kids outside the rink in the grass, tangled together, pants down, the night swallowing them up until a furious mom stormed out from behind glaring headlights, screaming bloody murder. My first exposure to sex. My first glimpse into the chaos of growing up.
A couple of weeks later, one of my closest friends got hit by a car. Almost died. And just like that, I learned how fragile everything really was. One minute, we were invincible, skating through life without a care. The next, we were staring death in the face, pretending we weren’t scared.
By middle school, the innocence was gone.
By the time I hit middle school, the kids I called my play buddies had evolved into something else—something deeper, something that would start shaping the edges of who I was becoming.
It started with the girls in the neighborhood. They took me in like a walking, talking, living doll. Dressing me up, painting my face, teasing my hair. And I let them. Not just because I liked the attention (though I did), but because I fit in. Maybe for the first time, I felt like I truly belonged somewhere. And in the world of a kid trying to find where the hell they stand, that shit is everything.
Then, there was him. The guy in the neighborhood who was a few years older. The one who had his license before the rest of us. His dad was gone most weekends, off riding his Harley and doing God-knows-what, and that meant his house became our kingdom. A place where there were no rules, no curfews, and no one telling us we were too young to do a damn thing.
It was there I had my first drink.
Canadian Mist. Seagrams 7. The bite of it. The slow burn in my stomach. The way my face flushed and my body got warm, like someone had reached inside my bones and flipped a switch. I remember looking at myself in the mirror, the reflection of a kid about to step over a line he would never uncross. And I loved it.
Every weekend after that, we had a ritual. A knowing glance, a smirk. “Al’s coming over.”
“Al” being alcohol.
It was code. It was freedom. It was the thing that made us feel invincible. And every damn weekend, we drank like we were grown, like the world couldn’t touch us.
I got wasted almost every single Friday and Saturday night from 6th through 8th grade. I wasn’t just drinking. I was drinking with a purpose. And for a 12 or 13-year-old, nothing in the world could have been better.
We had the time of our lives.
And then… just like that… it stopped.
Because high school happened.
And something in me shifted.
High School: The Turning Point
I didn't touch alcohol at all in high school. Not a drop. Not a sip. Nothing.
It wasn't because I didn't want to. It wasn't because I suddenly cared about the rules or thought about what I was doing. It was because for the first time in my life, I had something to lose.
School was everything to me. I had my eyes set on more. The drinking, the rebellion—none of that fit into the picture I was painting for myself. I was building something, and I wasn’t about to let it crumble before it even got started.
And then there was Kate.
Kate.
She went to Jenison High School, and I met her while I was at Grandville. She wasn’t just another girl—she was the girl. The kind that made you forget how to breathe when she looked at you, the kind that made the whole world go quiet. The kind that changed things.
And for a while, she was my everything.
But then… there was Stephy.
Steffy was from Grandville High. She wasn’t like Kate, but that was the problem—she didn’t have to be. She was the opposite. Where Kate was calm, collected, in control—Steffi was wild, free, unpredictable. And where Kate was steady, Steffi was an irresistible freaking storm.
She didn’t just walk into my life—she crashed through it, like a wildfire with no intention of burning out. And I loved every second of it. She was reckless and radiant, sharp and untouchable—the kind of girl you chase even when you know you’re running straight into destruction.
And God, I chased her.
And just like that, I was torn between two different lives.
Two different loves.
And it was hell.
I don’t know if you've ever been in a position where your heart is literally split in two. Not in the poetic, tragic way people write songs about. I mean physically feeling like your body isn’t whole unless both people exist in your world.
I loved them. Both of them. And no matter what I did, no matter how much I tried to justify it, someone was going to get hurt.
The worst part? I kept delaying the inevitable.
I told each of them I was going to end things with the other. I swore it. I promised. But how do you choose between two parts of your soul?
So I waited. I put it off. And in the meantime, I soaked in every ounce of love they gave me. Not in a selfish way—not because I was trying to play them. But because I knew, deep down, this feeling wasn’t going to last.
And when it ended?
It ended badly.
I hurt them both in ways I still regret to this day. Ways that still haunt me.
And in the aftermath?
Well… I hurt them both.
Terribly.
But in the end, I ended up with Kate. Not because my heart had settled, not because I had chosen—but because my family had already decided for me.
Kate was safe. She was familiar. She was someone they could see me building a life with—predictable, stable, the kind of girl you bring home for holidays and never have to explain.
And Stephy?
She was the one they quietly pushed away.
Not because she wasn’t good enough—God, if anything, she was too much. Too intense, too deep, too real. The kind of love that wrecks you in the best and worst ways. The kind of love that doesn’t just fill a space—it expands inside you until there’s no room for anything else.
My family saw that, and maybe they feared it. Maybe they feared her. Or maybe they feared what I would become with her.
So the decision was made. Not by me.
And that’s the part that still haunts me.
Because love like that—Stephy-level love—it doesn’t just fade into old memories and Facebook updates. It etches itself into your bones. You carry it, even when you move on. Even when you know it’s not yours anymore.
I had my fun—God, did I have my fun. I partied, I drank, I lived fast and reckless, but nothing ever felt like it was tipping too far over the edge. Not yet.
But somewhere in between the chaos, I had an idea.
It wasn’t some big, genius, world-shaking plan—I just wanted to wear something that felt like me. Something that wasn’t the same recycled, mass-produced crap everyone else had on. So, I started printing my own shirts. Just for me. Just to be different.
Then people started noticing.
At school, it became a thing. Kids were asking me, “Yo, you made that?” and when I told them I I did, the next question was, “Can you make me one?”
So, I did.
I wasn’t running a company yet—this was just me, a heat press, a screen printing machine, and some ink. Just a high school kid pressing designs because people liked what I was doing.
And I’ll never forget the moment it hit me that what I was making actually mattered to people.
I was in Disney World—of all places—when I saw a kid wearing one of my shirts. Someone from my school. A kid who, just months before, had been standing in front of me in my classroom asking for a shirt.
It wasn’t random, but it felt like a sign.
Still, I had no idea then what it would grow into. Not yet.
Fast forward, and that little side hustle? It stays with me. It plants a seed.
Years later, after high school, after everything, it blows up.
Not just me pressing shirts in my parents’ basement anymore. A real company. Real employees. It takes off, and so does my life.
I marry Kate. We have our son—Emery Cobra Sabo. My heart. My last name’s final hope.
And while my life on the surface is all about business, marriage, fatherhood—there’s still that other side of me. The side that never stops chasing the high.
Cars. Big ones. Fast ones. The kind of machines that can snap necks at a stoplight.
Two Hennessey Motorsports Dodge Vipers—one twin-turbo, one supercharged. 1,883 horsepower to the rear wheels. A monster. I’d pick the front end right up like the laws of physics didn’t apply to me.
I felt unstoppable.
But here’s the thing about moving at full speed—you don’t notice the walls you’re heading straight for.
And me? I had no brakes.
I was an entrepreneur, but more than that, I was an opportunist. If a door cracked open, even the slightest, I was kicking that bitch wide open and stepping through like I belonged.
But at some point, I stopped knowing when to stop.
I didn’t have boundaries. I didn’t know how to say no. If I had—Goddamn—if I had just said no at the right time, maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here telling this story today.
But I didn’t.
And one of those yeses led me to Kiaeneto—a gaming apparel brand. It started small, but it had one major advantage over every other brand out there: Walshy.
Walshy wasn’t just anybody—he was the best Halo player in the world. Ranked #1, world champion, a god in the gaming scene. And when you’re in business with a god, people notice.
With his name and my hustle, we took off. Suddenly, I wasn’t just printing shirts anymore—I was flying across the country, shaking hands with people I had only ever seen on TV.
And that’s how I stumbled into a life that didn’t feel real.
You ever hear people say "I’ve done things you wouldn’t believe"? Yeah. That’s me. Except I’m not exaggerating.
I’ve partied with Eminem. Smoked a blunt with Snoop Dogg. Shot pool with Mos Def in the hardwood suites of The Palms. That’s the floor right below the infamous Playboy Suite—the one owned by Hugh Hefner.
And when I say the Playboy bunnies were right above us, I mean literally—right there. Flashing us from the balcony.
That wasn’t my thing, but still—this was my life now.
I was in the kind of places most people only see in movies. Standing next to people whose names alone could buy entire cities.
One minute I was some dude with an idea, pressing shirts in my bedroom, and the next, I was standing in an infinity pool overlooking Las Vegas, watching the skyline blend into nothingness like I had just hit the edge of the earth.
I should have felt on top of the world. I should have looked at everything I had built, at the people I was standing next to, and thought, “Damn, I made it.”
But I didn’t.
Because the thing about constantly climbing higher—is that you don’t notice when you’re about to fall.
And I was about to fall hard.
The Fall
If I wanted to make an incredibly complex, tangled, long-ass story short—
I made some bad business decisions.
Not just wrong decisions—catastrophic ones. The kind that gut your life from the inside out before you even realize it. The kind that make you wake up one day and everything is gone.
If I had made one different call, if I had just said no at the right time, I wouldn’t be here telling this story.
I’m sure of it.
That was my fork in the road. And I took the wrong turn. Hard.
And when the money was gone, the booze filled the space where it used to be.
At first, I thought I was just coping—a few drinks to smooth out the rough edges, a few nights at the bar to pretend I wasn’t losing everything. But the more I drank, the more things fell apart. And the more things fell apart, the more I drank. The spiral had no bottom.
I got my first DUI.
Then I started drinking alone.
Then I stopped going home.
And through all of it, my wife was still fighting for me. She told me we could leave Michigan—start over, anywhere. She’d follow me to the ends of the earth if I would just stop drinking.
But I couldn’t.
At first, I thought I could. I told myself, "You got this, Mikey. Just get it under control." But it didn’t matter how hard I tried—because trying meant nothing when my own brain was working against me.
And once I realized that?
That’s when the real fear set in.
Because now it wasn’t just bad habits or poor decisions. It was a losing battle.
So, of course, the inevitable happened.
She left.
And that’s when the drinking went from bad to something else entirely.
The DUIs stacked up. The isolation got worse. The spiral? It became a black hole.
One night, my parents showed up at my house. They could see what was happening. They wanted to help. But I didn’t want help.
I wanted them gone.
I told them they couldn’t come in, but my dad—he forced his way through the screen door. He stepped inside, and something in me snapped.
I grabbed a knife.
I wasn’t going to use it. I wasn’t going to hurt him.
I just wanted him gone.
Because behind that fridge was a fifth of vodka, and in that moment, it mattered more than he did.
My mom called the cops.
Even though I was on my own property, even though I hadn’t hurt anyone, even though I was just drunk and broken and drowning in it all—they came for me.
Eight months in jail.
A year of probation.
No contact with my parents.
And since my business was still inside their warehouse, that meant I couldn’t be there when they were.
So, I started working opposite hours.
But here’s the thing.
My hours had always been insane. I worked from 6 AM until 4 AM, barely sleeping, grinding, building, trying to make something of myself.
But now?
Now I wasn’t working.
I was drinking.
I was f*cking drowning.
And this?
This was only the beginning.
The Spiral – The Disease That Owned Me
Here’s the funny thing—
I never had an off switch.
If you knew me back then, you knew I worked like a maniac. My days weren’t 9 to 5—they were 6 AM to 4 AM, every damn day. I’d crash for an hour or two, just enough to keep my body running, then I’d start again.
But when my world started to crack?
I wasn’t working anymore. I was drinking.
And suddenly, all those extra waking hours?
They weren’t fueling my ambition.
They were feeding my addiction.
The DUIs stacked up.
The rehabs piled higher.
At some point, I stopped getting out. I just kept cycling through—one program, one facility, one last shot at turning it around, over and over again.
Bear River. Once.
Salvation Army. Twice.
Chester Ray? Seven, maybe eight times.
Robert Brown? A handful.
Brighton? Four or five, at least.
Turning Point? Five, six times.
Pine Rest? I don’t even know. I lost count.
And those are just the ones I remember.
People love to talk about addiction like it’s just a bad habit. Like it’s just a matter of willpower.
Bullshit.
Addiction is a disease—just as much as cancer, just as much as Alzheimer’s, just as much as diabetes. It doesn’t give a shit who you are, where you came from, or what dreams you had.
It takes everything. It makes you watch. It makes you help it destroy you.
It rewires your brain—makes it believe that if you don’t get your next drink, your next hit, your next escape, you won’t be able to survive.
And the worst part?
That obsession doesn’t stop. The moment it gets into you, that wheel starts spinning. That rat in the maze starts running. And it never stops.
For those who understand?
You get it.
For those who don’t?
You have no freaking idea.
Go read a book. Do some research. Ask someone who's lived it.
Because this shit is real. And if you don’t believe it?
You will.
The Collapse – When Everything Fell Apart
I wish I could say I saw it coming. That there was some big “aha” moment where I realized I was throwing everything away. But addiction doesn’t work like that. It steals you in pieces—a little bit at a time—until one day, you wake up and nothing is left.
My home? Gone.
My cars? Gone.
My business? Gone.
The 13 employees who were more than employees—they were my family? Gone.
It’s a funny thing—watching your own life fall apart in slow motion. You’d think at some point, the brain would wake the hell up, pull the emergency brake, and scream, “STOP! Look at what you’re doing!” But no. Instead, I just kept moving forward. Or rather, falling forward.
The Worst Decision I Ever Made (And Didn’t Know It)
Jail was supposed to be a wake-up call—but instead, it became the final nail in the coffin.
That’s where I met an unnamed kid. Rich kid, didn't give a shit about money, but had all the bad ideas in the world. I don’t remember what we were talking about—probably nothing important—but at one point he leans in and says:
"Hey man, if your family doesn’t want to smell alcohol on you anymore, you should try heroin."
I should have laughed. I should have said, “Dude, are you out of your f*cking mind?” But I didn’t.
Instead, I listened.
That first hit? Nothing. I didn’t feel it. I should have walked away right there. But instead, I said, “Hit me again.”
And this time? Oh. Oh, shit.
I felt it.
I felt the weight of my entire life melt away—every mistake, every regret, every ounce of pain and stress that had been crushing me into the dirt.
For the first time in God knows how long, I was free.
I was home.
That’s the thing they don’t tell you about heroin. It’s not just a high—it’s a warm hug from the universe itself. It whispers in your ear and tells you, “You’re safe now. Nothing can hurt you here.”
And once you know that feeling? You can’t unknow it.
Heroin & Vodka – The Perfect Storm
I didn’t stop drinking. I didn’t stop anything. I just added heroin to the mix. A drink in one hand, a needle in the other. I lost time. I lost reality. I lost myself.
Jail again.
Rehab again. Chester Ray.
Kicked out. Again.
I wasn’t even pretending to fight it anymore. I was all in.
And this? This was just the beginning of the worst years of my life.
The Coldest Winter – And I Shouldn't Have Survived It
I was kicked out of Chester Ray—again. And this time, I didn’t have the guts to call my parents. I couldn't stand the shame. I was exhausted. Tired of failing. Tired of being the disappointment.
So I did the only thing I could think of.
I vanished.
Hitched a ride to the next city and just… let go.
No plan. No home. No future.
Just the streets.
And I picked the worst possible time for it. Michigan’s coldest recorded winter in over a hundred years. And I was sleeping outside.
I had a pair of jeans, a hoodie, a coat, and two t-shirts. That was it. No gloves. No hat. No real shelter. Just me vs. the forsaken elements.
Panhandling to Survive (And to Die Faster)
I learned quick—standing between Walmart and Meijer made the most money. And I needed money.
For food?
Sure.
For a hotel?
Maybe sometimes.
For my “family”?
Yeah—if you count other addicts as family.
But mostly, I needed money for the needle.
I wasn’t just using anymore. I was shooting heroin. Shooting cocaine. Shooting crack. If it could be put in a needle, it was in my arm.
And every time I pushed the plunger? That was me, checking out.
The Night I Should Have Died
There was a mission shelter that let people in before 9 PM. But one minute late? You were effed.
I was late that night.
And I will never forget the way that wind screamed through the streets like a living thing.
-20 degrees.
-23 degrees.
Windchill making it -34.
I banged on the shelter’s window. I begged. But no one let me in.
I turned around and stared at the city—lights flickering, wind howling, a frozen world where nobody even knew I existed.
And that’s when I realized—
I was going to die.
Digging My Own Grave in the Snow
I took off my shoe.
Dug into a snowbank.
Made a little alcove—just enough to curl into and let the snow drift over me.
And I lay there.
Waiting.
My body went numb. My breath slowed. The pain of the cold became a lullaby.
And then—
Nothing.
The Pain of the Sunrise
I shouldn’t have woken up.
But I did.
And let me tell you something—the sun is supposed to be beautiful. It’s supposed to be this hopeful, golden thing.
But when you’ve been frozen almost to death—the sunrise is the most painful thing in the world.
When it hit me, my body screamed awake. It felt like my flesh was ripping apart.
The warmth was like fire against my frozen skin. I had to crawl into the shade, because thawing too fast actually freaking hurt.
I’ve told this story before. But right now? Reliving it?
Damn.
It’s like I’m back in that snowbank.
And I still don’t know why I woke up.
Kat – The Girl I Shouldn’t Have Loved, But Did
At some point, my parents found me again.
I don’t even remember how—whether I reached out or they just couldn’t stand the thought of their son dying in the streets. But they took me in.
I was beyond broken. Hollowed out. Just bones wrapped in skin and a bloodstream full of poison.
So they sent me to rehab. Again.
And that’s where I met Kat.
She Was Just Another Addict. But Then… She Was More.
She wasn’t like the others—not just some lost junkie or a street-kid like me. Kat had been normal once. Her life had gone sideways after her eighth back surgery.
Yeah. Eighth.
She was beautiful in that messed-up, tragic way that only addicts know how to be. A mix of pain and resilience, of softness and danger.
And the moment I saw her shaking—withdrawing so hard she could barely breathe—I leaned in close and whispered:
"Hey girl, you want something that'll make you feel better?"
She looked at me with pure desperation. "What is it?"
I pulled out a strip of Suboxone and slid it into her hand.
"Just give it five minutes."
And when she put that under her tongue?
I became her savior.
That’s how it started.
The Addiction We Built Together
We weren’t in love. Not at first.
We were just two addicts, clinging to each other like we were drifting in the middle of the ocean.
But something about saving her that day made me want to keep saving her.
And eventually… I did the opposite.
I introduced her to heroin.
And crack.
We shot up together. We spiraled together.
And eight years disappeared.
The Price I Paid For Loving Her
For eight years, I didn't see my son.
No, wait. That’s a lie. I saw him for five years.
Then one day, in one of our supervised meetings, a needle fell out of my pocket.
And just like that?
I lost him.
No more visits.
No more calls.
No more "I love you, Dad."
Just a closed door.
And Kat? She was still right there.
My partner. My love. My co-conspirator.
Kat had witnessed the single worst mistake I ever made.
Kat – My Love, My Tragedy
For years, we were lost together.
But when we decided to get clean, we swore we’d do it the same way we did everything else—together.
Kat was my ride or die. And I was hers.
We pulled each other out of the hellhole we had dug, crawling toward something bigger, better. We got sober. I turned myself in, cleared my slate.
And when I was finally off papers, I looked at her—really looked at her—and knew there was no one else I’d rather fight through this life with.
So I asked her to marry me.
And she said yes.
The Wedding & The Dream We Almost Had
We weren’t like other couples.
Our love wasn’t built on some storybook bullshit.
It was scar tissue and survival.
But God, it was real.
And that was enough.
We sealed the deal and took off for Las Vegas, for a honeymoon that was supposed to be the beginning of everything we had fought for.
We went to When We Were Young, an emo festival—her in her hard rocker glory, me in my emo soul. We screamed lyrics into the night, felt the music in our bones, like we had finally made it.
No drugs. No running. No hiding.
Just us.
The Last Night
We had just wrapped up our final night in Vegas.
Back at the hotel, she crashed in bed, exhausted. I watched her for a second—peaceful, beautiful, alive.
I pulled the blankets up over her, kissed her lips, and whispered, “Keep sleeping, babe. I’ll wake you when it’s time to go.”
Then I got up, went to the bathroom.
Something felt off.
I turned back.
Something in me told me to kiss her again.
So I did.
And… she was cold.
Too cold.
I stared at her, really looked at her, and suddenly, the world wasn’t real anymore.
I opened her eyes.
Black.
Frozen.
Gone.
💔 She died on our honeymoon.
The day after we promised each other forever.
The day after we swore we’d never go back.
But there she was—still, silent, gone.
And just like that, I was alone.
Again.
The Aftermath – Dying Without Dying
Grief is supposed to be something you feel.
But I didn’t feel shit.
I was done.
There was nothing left of me to grieve.
She was gone. Kat was gone.
And I wasn’t supposed to be here without her.
So I did the only thing that made sense.
I tried to follow her.
I shot up so much heroin, I should have been dead a hundred times over.
I pushed it to the limit—far beyond it.
But somehow, I kept waking up.
It didn’t matter how much I took.
I just. Wouldn’t. Die.
The Bathroom—My Coffin Without a Lid
I was living at my parents' house.
Well—living is a strong word.
I was existing inside their bathroom.
That’s where I stayed—for eight and a half months.
The cycle was simple.
🎭 Shoot cocaine.
🎭 Shoot heroin.
🎭 Shoot crack.
🎭 Shoot heroin again.
🎭 Repeat.
Over. And over. And over.
I stopped trying to kill myself.
Not because I wanted to live—
But because I had failed at dying.
So I just… kept going.
A House That Wasn't a Home
My parents had a strict no-drug rule.
But grief changes things.
They didn’t want to know.
They didn’t want to see.
They would knock on my door,
But the second I opened it—they looked away.
I could see it in their eyes.
They were scared of what they’d find.
Scared of what I had become.
Scared that if they really saw me—
They’d have to face the fact that they had already lost me.
So we played the game.
They knocked.
I opened.
They stepped back.
Every time.
Because if they didn't see it,
Then maybe it wasn’t real.
But we all knew the truth.
I was a ghost in my own house.
And I was haunting myself.
As time went on, I started to heal—with the reluctant, but necessary help of recovery court. I don’t even remember what got me wrapped up in the system again, but it turned out to be the thing I needed most. Accountability. Consequences. I couldn’t use without knowing I might wake up behind bars—and that fear was the first real grip I had on change. Don’t get me wrong. It sucked. But I needed it.
Somewhere in that haze, I picked up screen printing again. What started as a hobby quickly became a lifeline. I found myself going to shows again, soaking up the sweat, the screams, the crowd chants—and I remembered what I had forgotten: that music has always been my freaking lifeline.
One night, after a show that hit me harder than I expected, I looked at my wall and thought, “Why don’t I have something from this? Why doesn’t anyone offer that?”
So I started printing. Just for me. One poster. Then two. Then a mini shrine of every band that gave me a reason to keep breathing. Friends saw it and wanted in. It turned into a project. The project turned into therapy. The therapy turned into SceneWall.
And SceneWall? It became the thing that helped me stay clean, stay focused, and stay here.
