I drown myself in tasks,
pour coffee five times a day,
so even in those brief seconds,
my hands are not idle, my mind not still.

I raise the music to a scream,
to drown the voice that gnaws,
the voice that sounds like you.

I write and write and write,
so I do not reach for you,
so my fingers find ink instead of absence.

I do the things I do not wish to do,
fill the silence with motion,
but still
you slip into my sleep,
a ghost pressing its weight upon my chest.

What is success worth,
If it leads me to solitude’s embrace?
What is the purpose of words,
If my muse fades with every breath,
A fleeting ghost I can never grasp?
Was I destined to bleed ink,
To spill my soul on blank pages,
Only to wonder if this agony is the reason I exist?
What does God ask of me,
To pour my essence into a world that doesn't see?
I no longer yearn for a muse
Who leaves me empty,
But for a fire to consume me,
A love that will burn my poetry to the ground,
Where sorrow finds no home,
And my ink is no longer a sacrifice.

I dream of waking to soft mornings,
In a home close to the mountains,
Where I can hold my babies,
And care for them with gentle hands,
Living a quiet life,
Far from the rush of the world.

I picture the days slow and simple,
Filling the space with love,
Nurturing them, being their world,
Finding peace in their laughter,
And the stillness of the mountains around me.

But somewhere along the way,
I feel like God has a different plan,
One that doesn’t let me stay still,
One that pushes me forward,
Telling me I’m meant for more.

Maybe it’s better, maybe it’s bigger,
But it doesn’t feel easy,
It feels like a kind of punishment,
Taking me away from what I wanted,
To something I never expected.

I know God’s plan is meant to be good,
But right now, it’s hard to see,
Because all I wanted was simplicity,
To stay home, to love, to rest.

But maybe there’s something else I need to give,
Something beyond the quiet I crave,
Something that will stretch me,
Even if it hurts.

I am a mouthful of wind,
a bell ringing past the hour,
a flame that does not know how to hush itself.

I speak, and the walls lean back,
startled, disapproving.
They say I should shrink, fold my voice
into the palm of a quieter woman.

But love is a confession,
a cathedral of echoes,
a mouth stretched wide with its own urgency.

I do not know how to whisper it,
to ration it out like breadcrumbs.
I give it whole, body and bone,
a flood, a monsoon, a fevered hymn.

Do not make me bite my tongue raw
for loving too much,
too recklessly, too ruinously,
as if devotion were something to be buried.

You-tight-lipped, unshaken-
do not tell me my love is too large to hold.
If your hands are small,
if your heart is locked shut,
do not make me the trespasser.

I will not shrink myself down to fit you.
I will not carve my love into a quieter thing.
Let it be known: I spoke it aloud.
I will not regret the sound.

Love isn’t something you can give me in bills,
or count on fingers like something owed.
It’s not measured by bloodlines,
not because we share the same last name.

I don’t need money to know you care
I need your ear, your heart.
Love is the one who feels my ache without asking,
who knows my silence and still stays.

Blood may tie us,
but it doesn’t define love.
I choose the ones who hear my pain,
who see me without pretending to.

The rain sounds like you
soft at first, then heavier,
like the words I never said.

Clouds gather, pressing against my chest,
thick with unsaid confessions.
I hold them in,
tight as the sky before the storm.

Maybe I’ll break like thunder,
spilling everything all at once.
Or maybe I’ll just keep raining,
slow, quiet, unnoticed
but drowning all the same.

I’m falling for you again,
even though you’re miles away,
and I have no idea who’s lying beside you
when the night wraps its arms around you.
But memory, sharp and clear,
still recalls the way your hand
used to rest on my stomach
so gentle, so sure,
like it belonged there.
I’m falling for you,
for something I don’t even know anymore.
I’m falling for a version of you
that’s never coming back.
A memory that keeps pulling me under,
even though I know
it’s a love that ended
before it really began.

I’m falling for the absence of you,
for the space between us
that stretches farther every day,
but still feels too close some nights.
I’m falling for what we had,
or maybe what we never had,
but could have had,
if only the timing was different,
if only we had been who we needed to be.

I’m falling for a memory
that’s beginning to blur,
a love I’m still holding onto,
even though I know it’s fading.
But I can’t let go
not yet, not when it still feels like you’re here.
And maybe, just maybe,
I’m falling for the idea
of what we could’ve been,
even if that idea is all that’s left.