American adolescents are experiencing an epidemic of anxiety and depression. In this article, Eric Piotrowski explores how regular writing practice and conscious conversations help students struggling with loss, grief, trauma, and myriad associated difficulties including anxiety and self-harm. Students in his classroom use fictionalized presentations of self, lyrical creations, and no- nonsense analysis of authors such as Edwidge Danticat, Stephen King, and Donald Goines to construct bridges of consciousness from their pressurized lives to the release valves of the written word. According to him, English teachers have a special power--and therefore a special responsibility--to engage students on issues connected to trauma and sustaining what Cornel West called "a blood- drenched hope." Confronting loss in an open and honest way is essential for a conscious classroom and is inextricably linked to the prevention of self-harm among young people.