Bay One
HCMC Stabilization Unit

We stand in the bays where chaos lands first,
Where sirens deliver the battered and cursed,
Where blood speaks louder than words can shout,
And the line between life and death plays out.

The worst that humans do with their hands—
Steel, fists, gravity, bullets—no one understands.
A look in their eyes, sometimes blank, sometimes wild,
Sometimes it’s a man, sometimes it’s a child.

We patch what we can in fluorescent light,
Hold back the dark with our gloves pulled tight.
A breath returned is a battle won,
But the war? It’s never truly done.

Some come in screaming, some come pleading,
Some carried by hate, some swallowed by pills.
We don’t ask why—it’s not ours to know—
We just press and suture, and tell them, “Go.”

And then they come back—again, again,
Same wounds reopened, same cycle of pain.
Sometimes we see hope; sometimes just delay.
Sometimes we wonder why we stay.

But in between the screams and moans,
We witness the soul rebuilding its bones.
A girl who wakes, a heart that beats,
A mother’s cry when her boy finds his feet.

We see resurrection in the smallest spark—
A touch, a blink, a pulse in the dark.
And still, the ones we mend may fall,
But that doesn’t make our work small.

This place is heavy with what it holds—
The truth of the world, both savage and bold.
We clean the wounds of a broken street,
And sometimes, just barely, make it beat.

So if you ask how we carry this weight,
The violence, the cycles, the edge of fate—
We don’t have answers, just blood and breath,
And the stubborn will to wrestle death.

In Bay One, Two, Three, and Four… where the broken descend,
We’re not just healers—we’re witnesses, friends.
And though they may return, and return once more,
We’ll be here still, behind the secure door.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved

The Secret Miles
2024 Lutsen 29er, for those who know….

We started beneath skies pretending to shine,
Wheels spinning forward, all feeling fine—
But the woods had a different tale to tell,
One of mud, of water, of slipping through hell.

Thirty long miles, deep in the trees,
Water so high it soaked past our knees,
Chain grindin’, brakes cryin’, grit in our teeth,
And still more climbin’ just waitin’ beneath.

There’s a silence in suffering no crowd can hear,
No cowbell cheers echo back here,
Just you, your bike, and the voice in your head,
Asking, “Why?” while you pedal instead.

We laughed through the muck, ’cause crying felt cheap,
We pushed when the trail got too cruelly steep,
We found strange joy in the cold and the grime—
A bond born quiet, outside of time.

The finish line glistened—clean, serene—
Set on Superior Golf Course, trimmed and green,
People clapped, handed out drinks with pride,
But they didn’t know what we left back inside.

They didn’t see the falls, the spats,
The jokes we cracked soaked through like rats,
They didn’t feel the weight we hauled,
Or how the forest, for hours, stalled.

But you knew. And I knew. And that was enough—
The trail tried to break us, but we stayed tough.
And in that shared silence, beyond the cheer,
We carried a truth no one else could hear.

It’s not in the medals, not in the time—
It’s in every unspoken, mud-covered climb.
And that, my son, is the real reward:
A secret pact, forever stored.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved

Headwinds and Heart

I taught you grit not in soft-spoken words,
But out where the wind howls louder than birds,
Where dust coats your teeth and the sky stays wide,
And the gravel don’t care how strong you ride.

Emporia called us with whispers of stone,
Fifty hard miles we’d tackle alone—
Or so it would seem, with the headwinds ahead,
Thirty long miles where the brave ones tread.

The Kansas wind fought us at twenty-five strong,
A punishing rhythm, an unholy song,
It pushed us back like a stubborn tide,
But grit, my son, is the will to ride.

Not when it’s easy, smooth, or fair—
But when every turn makes you gasp for air,
When your legs cry quit, and your thoughts agree,
But your heart says “kid, just follow me.”

We leaned into pain, into purpose and pride,
I watched you battle with every stride,
Your face set firm, your eyes locked true,
And I knew in that moment—I’m learning from you.

This race was more than the finish line’s glare,
More than the medal or the stories we share.
It was proving that strength lives deep in the bone,
That courage shows loudest when you feel most alone.

So when life brings storms you can’t outrun,
Remember this ride, my gravel-spun son.
Head down, heart up, keep your hands on the bar—
Grit isn’t winning. It’s knowing who you are.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved

Never Proud Of You

Twenty years, I’ve held the line,
In silence strong, through rain and shine.
No medals pinned upon my chest,
Just tireless steps and little rest.

I gave my hands to healing pain,
To strangers’ needs, through loss and strain.
Spent 10 years with kids on frozen rinks,
While others cheered, I stood and blinked—
Exhausted, cold, but always there,
A shadow shaped by love and care.

Two hour commute per day, behind the wheel,
To give my small world a safer feel.
A house built by aching limbs,
With every nail, love whispered hymns.
I bled into those walls and beams,
So others lived their easy dreams.

Gravel roads and distant trails,
Where will alone outran the gales.
I conquered Big Sugar, I conquered Unbound,
With fire that scorched the broken ground.
Victories that few could see,
Except the man I swore to be.

But not one time, through all the years,
Through swollen joints or stifled tears,
Did she say what hearts ache to hear—
A truth both simple and sincere:
“I’m proud of you.”

So here I stand, not crushed, but worn,
Not bitter, though my soul feels torn.
I carry silence like a stone,
But I have never walked alone.
For in the mirror, I now see—
A man who’s lived with dignity.

And if her voice won’t ever ring,
I’ll still rise proud of everything.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved

The Hug That Never Happened

They sat in silence, inches apart,
Two aching chests, one broken heart.
A single word could bridge the gap,
But pride stood tall, a cruel mishap.

The morning light through curtains poured,
Like grace that neither one implored.
A touch, a glance, a soft “I’m sorry”—
Could’ve rewritten all the story.

She brushed her teeth, stared at the stream,
He watched the wall, lost in a dream.
Each waiting for the other’s cue,
To do what both just meant to do.

A hug—just that. No grand parade.
No speeches long, no debts repaid.
Just arms around and tempers softened,
The kind of peace they’d both forgotten.

But silence grew where love had been,
A slow erosion, paper-thin.
And lawyers came with suits and sighs,
To box their lives and split the ties.

No scandal flared, no great affair,
Just missed connections, vacant stares.
The final line, a quiet shrug—
All for the lack of just one hug.

Now a year has passed, and so has he—
The boy who once sat on their knee.
He builds his walls with heavy care,
Afraid of love that won’t be there.

He flinches when voices start to rise,
He searches truth behind goodbyes.
He wonders why the warmest homes
Can turn to halls where no one roams.

His laughter, once so quick to bloom,
Now echoes softer in his room.
He says he’s fine, but in his eyes—
You see the cost of grown-up lies.

And they—the two who chose to part,
Now carry shards inside their heart.
Two separate lives that once were whole,
Now ghosted by a half-lived soul.

They fake their smiles, they learn to cope,
They grip at joy, they reach for hope.
But every quiet night reveals
A wound that time just never heals.

They’ll build new paths, they’ll find their way,
But something pure got lost that day.
For all the things they rose above—
They’ll never quite outrun that love.

Two people who will always ache,
For what they lost, and didn’t take.
And all because, when push had come,
They chose the cold and not the hug.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved

Built for the Fire (more than ever)

I could stay numb.
I know how.
I’ve done it—
sat in the quiet aftermath,
let the weight of loss press me still.

It’s safe there,
in the ache that asks nothing.
No risk,
no rejection,
no reminders of what we once had.

But I wasn’t built for numb.

I was built for heat,
for tongue and lip against skin,
for tangled sheets and laughter
that opens something holy inside.
For conversation that strips the armor
and hands that say
you’re not alone here.

So no—
I won’t shrink.
I won’t hide behind the ruin.

I want love again.
Not the edited kind—
not filtered, polite, or halfway.
I want the messy, honest kind,
the kind that sees me, stays, and builds.

I want closeness that burns with truth,
touch that doesn’t just touch skin,
but says something deeper,
says you matter. You’re real. I’m here.

I want to risk it all again—
not because I forget the pain,
but because I remember the feeling.
What it’s like to be alive in someone’s arms.
What it’s like to look across the room
and know: this moment, right now, is everything.

Yes, I’ve been hurt.
Yes, the loss nearly wrecked me.
But I refuse to stay frozen.

It’s human to want love.
To crave the sacred electricity
of closeness, of presence,
of hands and lips and hearts saying
let’s try again.

So if I love again—
and I will—
it will be fully,
boldly,
fiercely.

Because even after all I’ve seen,
I still believe:
there’s nothing braver
than choosing love
when you know exactly
what it can cost—
and you do it anyway.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved

Blueprint for Healing

I’ve rebuilt engines, wired a home,
Framed up sheds with hands of stone.
I’ve tamed machines, I’ve braved the climb,
Outpaced the weight of wear and time.

But nothing buckled me like this—
The silent war, the hits I missed.
No smoke or flame, no outward scar,
Just echoes locked behind a bar.

PTSD—they gave it a name,
Like it’s a blueprint, just the same.
But wounds unseen don’t read like plans,
And healing isn’t built by hands.

It took more guts than steel and fire
To face the ghosts that never tire.
To sit with pain, to breathe through dread,
To meet the past I left for dead.

I tried to run—I tried to hide,
Behind the work, the sweat, the pride.
But pain will wait, it knows the way,
And finds you when the noise gives way.

So I turned in, not out this time,
Learned to climb a different kind of climb.
To trust, to cry, to not retreat,
To feel the ground beneath my feet.

Therapy sessions like stripped wires,
Exposing faults, re-routing fires.
Nights alone, but less afraid,
Forging peace from what remained.

And slowly, like a stubborn bolt,
Something shifted in the jolt.
The weight grew less, the fog drew back,
I found the path, rebuilt the track.

Now I stand, not free from pain,
But stronger for each broken chain.
Not perfect, no, but far from lost—
A man who paid the highest cost

And made it back, rebuilt and scarred,
With softer hands, but beating hard.
I am the proof, the living plan—
That even wreckage builds a man.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.