Dear 2024

You came in softly,
wrapped in frost and resolve,
blank pages and promises.

Sunrises I savored,
shadows I couldn’t outrun.
Ashes smoldering in the aftermath
of moments bright as fireflies.

I learned to carry hope,
balanced in trembling fingers,
and let go of what
no longer fit in my hands.
Found pieces of myself
in your quiet mornings,
left pieces
in your restless nights.

Goodbye, 2024.
I leave you behind,
but carry your truth
into what comes next.

In your final hours,
I fold you gently,
and tuck you into the book
of years that shaped me.

 

Wishing You Had Chosen To Stay

Your name spoken softly
by trembling voices
searching for answers
they weren’t ready to know.

"She's at peace", someone said,
as if peace were a place
that could only be found
by leaving.

We placed flowers on your casket,
and whispered things we needed to say:

We loved you.
You mattered.
There was so much more to this life.

And we wished you had stayed
long enough to hear them.

Your absence screamed
in the silence between sobs,
mourning rain falling on flowers
that did not belong
in your beautiful young hands.

 

The Echo You Left

I see your face in dreams,
just out of reach,
wishing I could tell you
how much you were loved.

You didn't leave a note.
No need to, I guess.
The reasons replayed
in every conversation,
searching the echoes,
for something
I should have said.

But there was nothing
that could have kept you here.

 

Three Broken Friends

Watching snow fall
through barren winter trees,
her fragile smile leaks
through cracks in her heart,
like mine, a threadbare coat
we wear together.

Her hands tremble,
mine are steadier today.
Yesterday the opposite.
I reach across the rift,
take her hand.
Not to fix,
just to hold.
And tomorrow
she'll do the same for me.

Each of us carries
the weight of our wounds,
different shapes,
but the same ache,
while another friend
confronts her ghosts
among gray walls
and lab coats.

When the nights are darkest,
we find each other,
broken friends,
holding our pieces together,
forming something whole enough
to keep going.

 

When Words Aren't Enough

I know that look.

The emptiness in your eyes,
the way your voice wavers,
a guitar string tuned too high,
about to break.

I was there once.

You tell me you’re tired,
the kind of tired
that pulls you under,
like an ocean wave,
and holds you there.
You can't breathe.
You don't want to.

I know where this path leads.

I want to tell you
that you matter,
that you are loved,
that you are more than what happened to you.
But the words feel too small,
too thin to hold you.

I can’t stop this.

I want to fix it,
to reach inside
and take the weight
you carry in silence.
But I can’t.
And it breaks me
because I know
what you're thinking.

Please don't.

So I sit with you,
my presence the only thing
I know how to give.
It’s not enough.

But I hope somehow
you feel it,

and it keeps you here.

 

I Will Not Leave

Sitting beside you
in the heavy silence
of all the things you can't say.

I watch you fight a quiet war,
a mirror image of myself.
The tremble of your voice,
the way your eyes
look through the world
instead of at it.

I know you.

I can’t fix you.
That truth hangs between us,
like jagged edges of a broken mirror.
But I will stay,
my words a bridge
when yours fail.

I will hold the weight
that spills from you,
the guilt, the shame,
the broken pieces of yesterday.

I will hold it all
until you can.

I am here
to walk with you
through the wreckage,
the rebuilding.

I will not leave.

Until you learn
to look in the mirror
and see what I see.

 

Poems

Breaking the silence,
whispering simple words
wrapped in truth.

Spoken, written, felt,
they find the splintered edges,
filling the cracks where
nothing else can reach.

They heal not by erasing pain
but by holding it gently,
teaching it to sing,
transforming what's broken
into something beautiful.

 

Finding Her Way

Beneath the weight of silence,
she carried the broken pieces.
Jagged shards pressed against her ribs,
aching with the sharpness of memory.

In the quiet of her solitude,
where no one demanded her words,
she learned to gather herself,
to write a new story
in the form of a poem.

Her trembling hands
wrote words of exploration,
to cradle the bruised parts,
turn them from wounds to be hidden,
into truths she could live beside.

Breath became a rhythm,
a prayer for her own survival.
Each inhale pulling shadows apart,
each exhale stitching threads of light
in their place.

The girl who once felt stolen
started writing poems about hope,
about the future, about strength.
Not because her scars healed,
but because she owned them.

And when she learned to smile again,
it was not to forget what was taken,
but to remember the strength
it took to find her way back
to the childhood she lost.

 

A Man's World

Machines hum like they always do,
steady and certain,
but her hands tremble at the keys.
The blinking cursor stares back at her
like a silent accusation.

The room feels heavy.
Their voices low,
their glances quick,
like static she can’t tune out.
She wonders if they notice
how small she feels,
or if they’ve already decided
she doesn’t fit.

She feels their eyes
slipping under her clothes
every time she turns her back,
or leans forward too far,
or bends from her waist.

She wonders silently,
Is this the place?
for a girl whose past
harbors objectifying ghosts?

Her dreams of building something beautiful
feel cracked,
like a circuit that won’t complete.
She whispers to no one:

"What if they’re right?"

She lingers, unsure,
caught between staying
and walking away.

 

Almost

A black hole,
pulling everything in,
drowning everything I am.
Silence.
Darkness.

The sound of my own heartbeat.

Standing on the edge of nothing,
toes curling over the edge,
the world whispering its indifference
in a cold relentless hum.

Will anyone even notice?

Then a small voice,
faint but insistent,
an angel reminding me
of a laugh I hadn’t heard yet,
a hand I hadn’t held,
a dream, a future
tomorrow waiting quietly,
just beyond the dark.

I stayed.

Not because I was strong,
but because I chose to hope
there was more to this life. 

 

Keep Going

A glimmer of dawn
after an endless night,
it waits quietly
beneath the wreckage,
growing roots
where no one thought to look.

It hides in small things:
Laughing children,
the kindness of a stranger,
the warm hand of a friend.

Hope doesn’t ask for much,
only that you believe,
just enough,
to keep going.

 

Homeless For The Holidays

Every morning
by the corner store,
Clothes tattered
like a patchwork quilt
draped over a forgotten chair,
a forest in his beard,
and weathered eyes
that never quite meet mine.

The world around him sparkles
with tinsel and Christmas joy,
but his cardboard sign whispers
softly in red crayon,

Just need a little help

I wonder if he ever
had a Christmas tree,
a family,
a warm place to rest.
Or maybe this street
has always been home,
the sky above his head
decorated only with stars.

I wish I could leave him with more
than a sympathetic smile,
or a warm blanket,
or a sandwich.

Maybe a piece of hope,
or some magic Christmas dust
to lead him home.

 

Becoming Whole Again

Like salty whispers
down the valleys of my face,
each tear an unspoken word,
a memory clinging to the edges.

The walls listen in silence,
shadows stretching long and patient,
bearing witness to my slow unraveling.

And in my quiet sobs,
there is a rhythm,
a release,
and maybe,
just out of reach,
the first traces
of wholeness.

 

First Christmas Without

The lights on the tree twinkle softly,
casting shadows on walls that remember joy.
Christmas music permeates the air,
but the melodies seem dissonant,
blue notes falling hollow,
out of rhythm, frozen in time.

An empty chair,
in a quiet room,
where laughter once echoed.

But beneath the heartbreak,
hope lingers,
whispering softly
that even in the bluest of winters,
love remains.

 

The Year Without A Christmas Tree

No needles on the floor,
no pine scent filling the room.
Lights packed away
in darkness.

No gifts or garland,
no carols or family gatherings.
Only silence,
mixed with chaos.

That forgotten year
when the world stopped,
just before Christmas.

 

Ode To My Period

Oh, crimson tide,
you come unbidden,
like heartbeat rhythm
older than stone

You paint my days in aching hues of red,
turning my insides inside-out,
fierce reminder
of life’s power, coiled and waiting.

Your periodic presence, a clever muse,
inspiring strange cravings,
warm blankets, dark chocolate,
the softness of retreat.

Yet I salute your stubborn constancy,
your defiant, untamed return.
You are my body’s truth,
its whispered song of creation.

And though I curse you,
gasping through clenched teeth,
I honor the force you embody,
ancient, raw, and eternal.

 

Ode To My Best Friend

How is it you know,
like a gentle wind knows leaves,
how to touch my fragile heart
without breaking it?

Your reassuring voice,
a song written only for me,
because you know my truth.
Like a soft and gentle melody,
it lingers,
filling the empty spaces
with a calm I didn’t know I could hold.

In your eyes,
I see no judgment,
only the reflection of someone
still worth believing in,
like an unspoken promise,
until I find my way again.

Thank you,
For being my life boat
when I'm sinking.
For being my voice
when I can't speak.
For being the words
that always help me
find my way home.