5 feet from me
an answer lies still.
2 jumps away
the path to nothingness.

I forgot how much strength
it takes to stay alive.
I forgot how much of something
it takes to keep my hands
from the medicine cabinet.

A funny joke?
I knew better,
and still I am here.
Ashamed, tired,
but breathing.

The past is a stone
I can’t un-throw.
It sinks,
but I don’t.

Not so funny joke,
Hope is not shining,
it’s cracked,
faint,
a coal I cup in my hands.

But maybe,
I don’t need to soar.
I just need
to last the night
and rise,
however heavy,
tomorrow.

I'm saying,
If hope can last the night
So can I.
The medicine cabinet stays shut tonight.
We’ll fight again come morning.

Kano.
Your name means promise.
And tonight, under this sky,
your mother makes one.
I vow that we will live.

We will not trade our days for dust.
We will not bow to a world
that forgets the taste of rain
or the voice of the wind.

We will feel the grass between our toes,
and let the earth’s heartbeat guide our own.
We will plant food with our hands
and eat it warm from the sun.
We will drink water that remembers
its journey through stone and root.

We will wear our hair as it grows from our souls,
no mask, no shame, no weight that isn’t ours.
We will dance to music that shakes our bones,
and laugh until the stars lean in to listen.

We will love so fiercely
that no shadow can survive in its light.
Kano, I vow to raise you in truth,
that you are enough,
not because of what you earn,
but because you are.

I vow that when you look at the world,
you will see beauty first,
and when you see pain,
you will answer with kindness and courage.

And when our time here is done,
we will leave with hearts full,
hands warm from holding each other,
and the joy of knowing
we kept our vow.
We lived. We relied on each other🤍

Yeah, we’ve got holes in our lives-
the kind that don’t close,
just scab over and split again.

Maybe this is the first day of my life,
or maybe it’s the day I remembered who the hell I am.

The fighter's back.
Not the brave kind,
not the noble kind.
The kind that comes when nothing else works.
The kind that shows up when the world won't let you rest.

She doesn’t cry.
She doesn’t feel.
She doesn't love.

She survives.
That's it.

She’s cold steel and clenched jaw,
no softness,
no room for it.
The heart? Closed. Locked.
You won’t find it in her.
Because feeling would break her-
and she’s got no time to break.

I wanted ease.
I wanted to be gentle,
especially now...
Carrying life inside me.

But gentle doesn’t work in a world that bites first.
And so she came back.
The other me.
The one who doesn’t flinch.
The one who doesn’t hope.

She's savage.
She's smoke.
She'll do what has to be done
and feel nothing.

Don’t mistake it-
she's not here because of love.
She’s here in spite of it.

For my child,
I wanted peace.
But what they’ll see now is a woman
with eyes like war
and hands that only shake from adrenaline.

There’s no love with her.
Just the fire.
And in the fire?
No one survives unchanged.
Not even me.

Again and again
The again fatigue.
The ache of it.
I’ve taken my surfing board to sea
too many times to count,
trying to master these waves
that never seem to cease.

They keep on coming.
Crashing.
Breaking.
Unrelenting.

But I...
I keep getting up.
Crying, trying,
Again and again.

Fatigued.
Tired.
Exhausted.
There must’ve been meaning
to the waves I crossed,
to the rage I dared to face.
Surely they meant something!

But they don't stop.
Not yet.
And neither do I.

Because maybe...
maybe I was never meant to master the sea.
Maybe I was born to dance with it.
To laugh in the face of the tide.
To scream and fall and rise like fire
Not to win,
but to become.

Maybe it was never about what others had
but what I’ve carried,
what I’ve kept,
what I refused to let go of
even when it nearly cost me everything.

Maybe it’s okay to fall.
To lose my balance.
To crack open.
To come undone
in the arms of the ocean
and still find myself whole.

And maybe...
just maybe
the waves will always come.

But I will rise.
Again.
And again.
And again.

Until peace meets me
not when the waters calm
but when I know
I was the storm all along.

I shall sea tomorrow.
Again and again.
But this time,
I will have fun.

I know how to carry pain
not like a burden,
but like a second skin.
I've walked through fire in silence,
kissed betrayal on the cheek
and called it by name.

I know bad words.
Not just the ones they speak,
but the ones they plant
in the soil of a soft heart
and leave to grow wild.

I've tasted different traits
bitterness sweetened by charm,
gentleness sharpened to a blade.
I've danced with shadows in daylight
and called it love.

But this one...
this is new.

This ache that lives in my ribs,
this grief that kicks from inside,
this quiet war I fight
while smiling, while feeding,
while staying alive.

Excuse me,
but I’ve never been pregnant
with someone else's cruelty before.
Excuse me
if I need space
to untangle this web
before I decide which thread to cut.

I will lie here,
wrapped in blankets and restraint,
saying “I’m fine”
while every door in this house
begs to be torn from its hinges.

I want to set this silence on fire.
I want to burn this version of me
and walk barefoot through the ash
until I meet the woman
waiting on the other side
the one who chose herself.

I’ve known pain.
But this one is new.
And still
I will survive.
Because I have to.
Because I always do.

Today, I Saw a Woman

Today, I saw a woman I’d never be,
Carrying a seed not meant for her.
A woman who let him back inside,
Though once he broke her, crushed her pride.

I saw her weary, heavy with weight,
Her dreams postponed, left up to fate.
Her beauty dimmed, her spirit worn,
A love returned, but not reborn.

She bore the scars, the silent cries,
The lessons learned through tear-stained eyes.
She watched him change, but far too late,
Only when pain had sealed her fate.

But today, I saw her for the last time...
Because tomorrow,
Tomorrow, she'll rise, she'll climb.
Tomorrow, I’ll see a woman bold,
A heart unshaken, fierce and gold.

A woman who hopes for a daughter's grace,
A love that time cannot erase.
A woman who dares, who dreams, who flies,
Who finds her home beneath wide skies.

And if love returns, it will be sure,
Not one she begs, but one that's pure.
And nothing, not sorrow, not doubt, not fear-
Will break the woman standing here.

For that woman is me.

Country Roads, Dusty Towns

I.
Shifting skies paint my journey,
as I carry the me I’ve become.
Budapest, oh refuge of light,
tattoos your lessons into my skin—
wisdom etched deep, surrender tendered,
a new self rising, full of life.

But the roads turn dusty,
and the smoky windows of home
consume the tissue of my being.
The me I thought I’d carry back
is buried beneath the sorrowful weight,
dust smothering, airless.
Inside me, I am buried again.

II.
Sweet home, bitter walls,
where every stone has found me,
every wound still heals, still weeps.
A mother who never chose me.
A sister, favorite in her shadow.
A brother, his cries laced in poison.
No corner spared—
each breath a test of endurance.

Yet I learn again to survive,
for living belongs to Budapest.
Here, in all-year-winter-town,
I crawl to the surface,
stitch myself together with hope.
Goodbye to the me who couldn't stay whole.

III.
Budapest—Kay’s arms,
a borrowed peace,
his better house in town.
Yet cracks of betrayal whisper louder now.
Five years marked in shadows,
love fractured but familiar.
I switch my code, detach my soul,
find my peace in the spaces between.

Even as I know:
these roads will lead me back,
the cycle will return,
dust will cling to me again.

IV.
But this time,
hope is louder.
This time, I carry the dream:
a house that is mine,
walls free from echoes of hurt,
a life where survival steps aside
to let living take the stage.

Country roads, you know what to do—
take me back, for now.
But one day,
lead me to where
I’ll never have to return.