Sit in the Dark with J.J.S. Cleofas’ Talk to Yourself Long Enough and You’ll Get This

Some books try to comfort you. Others try to inspire you. 

This one does neither—it understands you.

J.J.S. Cleofas’ Talk to Yourself Long Enough and You’ll Get This is raw, unfiltered, and brutally real. These aren’t polished poems—they’re fragments of sleepless nights, cramped cabins, broken dreams, lost love, and quiet despair. There are no metaphors to soften the blow, no clever rhymes to romanticize grief. Instead, each piece bleeds emotion: depression, longing, devotion, defiance, fear, and even desire, all in one messy, human heartbeat.

This is a book for the unheard. For those who ache quietly, who write because speaking hurts too much, who have ever whispered into the void, “I’m not okay.” It will not “save” you—but it will sit with you in the dark, and that alone can feel like survival.

“After being diagnosed with mental illness, it became clear to me how taboo this topic among seafarers. Like a hot potato that’s being thrown around—the topic of mental health is always minimized, humored, and dismissed by the older generation. I wanted to showcase/reveal how a mind that is collapsing upon itself. I wanted to show people how change doesn’t come for free—that a cost of a ‘better’ you is by talking to yourself long enough to be tired of who you currently are, and doing something about it. Or not,” he stated.

He is always been a writer and poet at heart. His job has never been a ‘creative’ one, and he always craved to let his voice to be heard outside the confines of his head. He wrote his poems through gritted teeth and isolation. Through salt stained windows and thoughts that kept looping back in his head. He was forced to confront his demons and came out with this book.

However, upon writing he uncovers the unexpected truths and perspectives. “I have written poetry in private before and never thought to release it. Let’s be honest, in this day and age, who reads poetry? The thing that surprised me is how people don’t have the same voices inside their heads as I did. It baffled me that the things I feel normal to write about are uncomfortable to them.”

This book meant sitting with himself and all the things he experienced so far in life. He had to stare at the crossroads at which he was standing upon— to choose self annihilations, or moving forward while carrying every mistakes.

Cleofas’ advice for those in that space is simple, but revolutionary: Sit with it. Feel your emotions fully. Cry. Collapse. Hold yourself. From that darkness, you might just find a sliver of light—a pinhole of hope saying, “Ah, there you are.”

“I want readers to understand that it took a long time to be this self-aware. That the psychological basis of this has been studied for the past century, and I took it all in. Yes, I depict myself as someone who resists and wants connection when in reality, I’ve done a ton of inner work to notice my patterns and triggers and tendencies to be capable of sustaining a long lasting relationship,” he added.

Do not act on the dark thoughts. Instead, let this book hold you. Let it witness your pain, your anger, your longing. Let it be real with you, just as you are.

Talk to Yourself Long Enough and You’ll Get This is more than poetry—it’s a companion for anyone who feels unseen, a mirror for the broken, and a quiet rebellion against the world that tells you to “just get over it.” Read it if you dare to sit in your darkness and finally meet yourself.

Talk To Yourself Long Enough And You’ll Get This | J.J.S. Cleofas | Poetry