Tag: poetry

The First Bone

Beneath this ink lie teeth and vows,
ribs of tales,
brittle and time-cleaned bone.

Here, words are an ossuary
of brows,
and knuckles,
knotted prayers that never dream.

I write with marrow.
Let the page decay.
Let tongues recall what lips
were taught to spare.

Each word is flint;
what burns shall stay —
a ghost that leaves its fingerprints
in air.

There is no holy here,
no clean descent,
only ash and root,
and something sharp with wings.

You came for light?
Then watch how dark is bent
to frame the place where light
first learns its rings.

So walk between these letters,
grave and thin.
When a story dies,
that is where we begin.

Unfinished Image

I’ve come to understand this about writing:
it is the inaccuracies—
the imperfect reach,
the difficulty—
that make room for presence.

Here,
time and image
meet.

I ask myself
whether I am speaking in order,
whether my thinking
holds its shape.

But order
does not always move
in a straight line.

The pace shifts.
One can stay
with a thing,
linger,
and still arrive—
elsewhere,
another moment,
another day.

Reading
forms
an inner image.
It must be allowed
to remain unfinished.

Its force
depends
on what is missing.

What emerges
comes not in spite
of the gap,
but because of it.

The point is not
to love the image,
nor even what it does,
but what it makes possible:

something
that can be held
without panic.

This is why
we return—
again and again—
to test
what we think
we understand.

Over time,
a deeper continuity
forms.

People
come closer
to themselves.

Hilltop Haze

A gap in the fence
where someone slipped through.

my spirit rose
in the hilltop haze—
for ease,
not yet.

I almost didn’t go.
the night already spoken for.
I stayed near the back
long enough
to watch myself fade.

electronic sound, sustained vibration—
music that asks you
to stay inside it.

I stand still.
I still see us—
just less distinctly.
a photograph breathing.

and then,
a fluid hand.

Not reaching.
Not needing to.

outside,
in spite of everything,
the air
turns cold.

They Said She Flew

Kate always said she wanted to fly.
I thought it was stupid.
She had everything here.

Kate always wanted to fly.
She tried once.
Tried again.
Didn’t succeed.
Gravity won.

Kate always wanted to fly.
She said she still did.
I was against it.
I didn’t like her in the sky,
away from me.

Kate always wanted to fly.
She texted me at midnight.
I didn’t ask why.

Kate’s seat was empty today.
They said she flew.

What stayed with me yesterday
wasn’t the hope
that everything was perfect.

I knew it wasn’t.
I saw the seams,
and still kept going.

It wasn’t the short fall,
the full days,
the asking for more.

What stayed
was the noticing.

That I think differently,
move to a rhythm
that changes the room.

In shared rooms
you learn where to bend.
Some did.
I chose another way.

And yes—
I was seen.

Understanding
doesn’t erase difference;
it makes space for it.

I don’t need the reminder
to disappear.

Only the room
to stay

long enough
to be named gently