Poems

My insides feel like haunted walls with doors I cannot touch. They open and close on their own, each one casting a different memory into any sense it can find. I stay hidden behind the walls, watching him trapped in the hallway as the doors open around him. And for a moment, what is gone is everywhere, and what is here is nowhere.

There is a place in me where language goes to die. Rooms without doors. Staircases that forget where they lead. I leave breadcrumbs and still get lost. Sometimes a hand finds its way in, and I become smoke before it can touch me. I don’t know how to be found without disappearing. So I gather what the wreckage leaves behind, small pieces of knowing pressed into my palms, held so tightly they leave an imprint. Because I have learned how easily I forget the way. And I am tired o

Oh, it is Tragic The swirling Of the words In your mind That you cannot utter aloud.

Sometimes I, well most of the time, if not all of the time, feel inherently bad. Like a monster not welcomed in this world. Would a monster save an ant? It's a thought I have as I guide an ant onto a piece of paper and carry it outside, releasing it onto a leaf with the hope that its life can continue. With that thought comes a flood of memories. They capture me, pulling me into the past. Memories of times where I haven't been so kind. Memories that fill me with shame, the ki

Take my hand And teach me What it feels like To experience softness Against my skin Teach me The ways a heart Can appear Without bruises And statements That cause fear Teach me how To hold ambiguity Like a crystal orb Something to be admired And not forsaken Because answers are Hard to form Lead me into Learning How to be a man That can hold All of these things Gently

You are like the stillness of ocean water under the moonlight Like coming home to the smell of fresh baked cookies being pulled from the oven You are like the inhale and exhale of a regulated nervous system Like the scent of freshly cut grass on a rainy summer day You are, to me, the epitome of care

Slice through my skin The way you would butter And crack open my ribs Where grief has made its home Grip my heart and take it Barehanded I don’t want it anymore I want to lie among the daisies at sunset The last view Peaceful

Oh, I've read about foolish men The book I now hold Is the book About me A foolish man Who let home Walk away From his stupidity It wasn't perfect It wasn't free Of flaw But her arms felt like home And her heart Was soft What a foolish man I am To have lost The love Given to me Actions have a cost.

How do you write About things That turn out the lights, That pull you away? Your own reflection, Distorted and gray. How do you put language To the feeling of nothingness? Like the world isn’t the world, And your mind belongs to someone else. You’re trapped and watching Everything float away. You watch yourself sit And start to decay. You want to ask for help. You want to express the pain. But your lips are sewn shut, And you can’t access your brain.

3,000 seconds Poured into my soul The ticking of time Softening The intensity of humanness Expanding Wrapped in past, present, and future Simultaneously Mind and body separated, Yet clashing together The way waves meet the shoreline. And for 3,000 seconds My soul is bare, Held, Witnessed, And released again.

When I look through the window into my soul, I catch glimpses of versions of me that I don’t want to hold. They carry memories of times when actions did not align, when values were forgotten, and trust was hard to find. But healing matters to me. It prevents harm. So I take each one of them and wrap them in my arms

My breath stopped when I saw it. Hanging there, delicately, tucked away at the far end of the closet. White and soft. Memories cascading from the moment my eyes fell upon it. Your radiant smile as you walked down the aisle toward me. My body trembling as tears rolled down my face. My mind asking, How did I get lucky enough to find you? To marry you? And there I sat with your dress in the corner of the closet. Where grief met the floor in drops of tears. And heartache met my s

His back carries patterns of boot prints. Stories held within the spaces of his ribcage. His hair once long, used as a tool for dragging him upstairs. The full weight of his body stretching every strand. His feet too tiny, too weak, to stop his body from reaching what lay beneath. He knows what a tightened hand against flesh can do. He remembers how breathing could easily be stopped. How his feet hovered over the floor. Grown, but trapped inside his own mind. Sometimes he cra

I’ve befriended sharpness the way the wind befriends a kite. The piercing pain keeping my breath as my own. Preventing it from becoming the universe’s rhythm. It has saved me since I was a child. Alone within the four walls of a dark room. Tears unseen but felt as they cascaded onto my skin. The sharpness never leaving me alone in suffering again.

Loving in proximity is not a strength of mine. It is only in distance that love can blossom within my heart in ways I could never feel before. I don't feel worthy to mourn the loss of those once before me. For it's my own fault they turned away and left. I want to grow. To learn to love close. But I fear I'll only discover the depth of my love after they've turned their backs.

Metallic against my lips that’s the first thing I taste before I can feel and hear my heart beating outside of my chest. A finger never feels quite as cold and stiff as when the looming weight of inevitable silence glistens in the moonlight. Sometimes I sit this way, but the courage never quite makes it to the finish line.

Roots do not trust the rain immediately. They remember drought. Long stretches between plentiful showers that seemed to last longer than the leaves could bear. The tree remembers watching its leaves fall, unable to gather them back. Brittle. Still. Alone. Then one day, a woman arrived with a small watering can. The tree did not drink. Yet every week she returned. Watering the same patch of earth. And slowly, the roots reached. I think I see a new leaf springing from a branch.

My body still feels the imprint of conversations it longs for. The absence of people who matter. The goodbyes said and the ones that never got to happen. My heart still aches for people who are still alive. I was never prepared to grieve the living. How painful that kind of loss is. How the mind and heart can continue holding someone long after the shape of the connection changes. So many of them. And still, hope lingers. Hope that eyes could meet again. That words could stil

Searching… That’s what I’ve Been Up to. Searching for my soul, My identity, My values. I know them well, My values, that is. But sometimes I stray From what Truly is. I’m lost. I’m alone. I’m sinking More than I swim. I’m trying to Fight for my life, Trying hard not To let depression win. And all my mistakes, They haunt me like ghosts. They make me feel like a bad human, A burden to most. And if I could change One thing, It would be: To live my life By my values, Indefinitely

Content Note: This poem speaks openly about suicidal thoughts and the weight of living with them. I have studied attempted suicides the way historians study history. When your mind circles something long enough, you start looking for patterns. You learn the mistakes people made so you can avoid them. None of the bridges in my state are tall enough to guarantee breath stops when the falling does. I was young the first time I started researching this. Before national hotlines w