Lee - Hello Poetry

Lee Mar 23

We met in the hum of duty,
the weight of uniforms,
two lives marching separate paths,
yet always crossing.
For ten years, we were only friends,
witnesses to the quiet wreckage of growing up,
learning how to rise,
how to carry what we could not undo.
Then, the world shifted.
We were no longer just airmen,
but two unguarded hearts,
finding love in an unexpected place,
where peace did not demand permission to bloom.
You who loves without hesitation,
who steadied me when I could not stand.
You—who taught me that tenderness
is not something to be earned,
but freely given, like breath.
I hope I offer you something in return—
a quiet strength, a grounding force,
a partner who sees you,
not just for who you are,
but for the quiet goodness you carry
in every step, in every touch,
in every moment you show up for us.
You may not always understand me,
but you never turn away—
except when you’re laughing at me,
when your humor lightens the weight of my past,
turns the heavy into something I can hold.
Eleven years have shaped us,
not into something broken,
but into something whole.
So, on this first year of us,
I offer you my truth,
my gratitude,
and the peace your love has given me,
hoping I can give you even a fraction of the quiet
you’ve given me.

This is a poem that was meant to be just mine, but I'm really proud of it. I celebrated one solid year with the love of my life. We were friends for a long time and met when we served in the Air Force together. It wasn't until we both finished our careers that we made the jump together and tried dating. I didn't deserve a love like his when we met, i wasn't ready. I'm so glad we waited until it was right. So Happy One year (when i wrote this) anniversary my love. I hope you all enjoy it too.

Lee Mar 23

Death Doesn't Make Me Cry

Death doesn’t make me cry—
it’s the eyes that watch,
the way they crumble in the space between loss and goodbye,
like they’ve just learned
that love can be taken,
that time can slip,
and nothing is as solid as they thought.
I can stand tall,
unshaken by the stillness,
but when I see them—
the ones who remain,
the ones who try to breathe through the ache,
my heart splinters for the weight they carry,
a burden not their own,
yet it clings to them
like it was meant to stay.
Death doesn’t make me cry—
but the ones who are left
to navigate a world without,
to make sense of the pieces scattered,
to stitch themselves together,
that’s where I break.
I mourn them.
I mourn the ache that grows in the quiet,
the weight of memories too heavy
to fit into the spaces we leave behind.
Death doesn’t make me cry—
but seeing them carry it,
that is where my tears begin.

Lee Mar 23

My Sister, My Shield

You have always been the place I run—
when the house shook with anger,
when silence was too sharp to bear,
when I need to remember who I am.

You walked ahead, unbreakable,
taking the weight so I could be light,
standing in the storm so I could have sun.

I learned from your triumphs,
but more from your wounds—
ones I watched you carry,
ones you never let me feel.

You have been the steel in my spine,
the edge in my voice,
the force that made me fearless.
I only get to walk through this world soft
because you stood in it hard.

Life has tried to wear you down,
but nothing bends you, nothing breaks you.
Tough as stone, soft as a whisper only I get to hear.

The world takes from you,
but I have only ever been given.
You deserve love that does not take,
a world that bows before your strength.

Everything I am, everything I have,
is because you stood,
because you fought,
because you have always been
the force that made me free.

At times i feel like an only child, weird thing to say when you have so many siblings you love with your whole heart. However i get to feel that because i have an only sister who has been the entire definition of a big sister my whole life. The things we have been through together and separately. My entire life from my first memory to my last...i have learned from my sister in everything she does. I have watched her in awe, sometimes i even tried protecting her. At 33 i would take the same hits i tried to take when i was 7 if it meant she didn't have to feel any of it.

#sibling #sister #love #protection #bonds

Lee Mar 18

The Weight of Wings

She wore hunger like a shadow
that whispered of what was not there—
but she held it,
her shoulders
never quite bending.
She wrapped us close,
tightened the circle,
and in the quiet of those moments,
taught us that survival could taste like sweetness
even when the world was a desert.
Four children,
each carrying the mark of a different man,
but none of us carried more
than the weight of her love.
She danced in the dark,
and we followed,
not knowing
how deep the cracks in her skin went—
how her bones carried the scars
of battles fought with fists,
words that bruised in silence,
love that was both a weapon and a shield.
And when the lights went out,
she didn’t let us see the dark.
She made it a game,
the flicker of candles
casting ghosts that we could laugh with,
ice cream sundaes dripping with hope
where there should have been tears.
Her hands, though worn and trembling,
made something out of nothing—
something we could hold onto
when there was nothing else to grasp.
She was a storm in a house of glass,
crashing, breaking,
but never surrendering.
Her pain was the silent kind,
the kind you could taste in the air,
but still, she loved
with the fierceness of a world
she thought would swallow her whole.
And we never saw the weight of her wings—
the way they were clipped,
but still, she flew.
She said, Forgive me,
but how could we?
We only saw the strength
in the way she kept walking,
kept trying,
even when her footsteps echoed
against walls that never stopped whispering
of things she could never forget.
She wasn’t broken.
She was the quiet hum
of a river running
beneath everything—
underground, unseen,
but always moving.
She didn’t need forgiveness.
She needed us to see her,
not as a woman bent by the weight
of the world she couldn’t control,
but as the one who held us all
and made sure we breathed,
even when she couldn’t

I hope to be capable of the love in my mom's heart, she is truly my hero, good bad or indifferent.

Lee Mar 18

Picture Perfect

Stand up straight, don’t make a face,
Fix your collar—know your place.
Hands behaved, don’t drag your feet,
A perfect child, so small, so neat.
Smile wide, let no one see,
The part of you that isn’t free.
A family framed, so proud, so tall,
A happy home—or so they call.
Green velour, a little grin,
Hiding everything within.
A flash, a snap, a moment caught,
A memory you never sought.
They see love, they see grace,
They never saw the other face.
The one that flinched, the one that knew,
What happened right before the view.
So up it hung, so big, so bright,
A picture bathed in perfect light.
And there you are, still frozen in time,
Smiling like you’re doing fine.

The last family photo we took, i was about 7, i was wearing a green velour suit, my brothers, my sister, my step dad, my mom and new baby brother. right before the photo i got in trouble, i was probably being uncooperative or didnt want to smile idk, but i got handled, and then right before the photo, i "fixed my face" and they got the photo, that photo hung in our house, every time i see it to this day, i see how i was crying, i see how I'm barely holding it together and i see how we all look so happy and well behaved but we were really just under control.

Lee Mar 18

What We Remember

I. The First Lesson

It was just a few blocks home,
but my legs burned like I had run forever.
Bare feet on pavement, breath caught in my throat,
too afraid to scream, too confused to cry.
We were just playing a game.
Worms throwing bombs at each other,
until he turned, and I was the game instead.
Pinned. Trapped. Hands moving where I hadn’t given permission,
lips pressing down while I twisted away.
I didn’t even like boys yet.
Didn’t understand what his body was doing,
why his hands wouldn’t stop,
why my voice—
my small, shaking, pleading voice—
meant nothing.
I ran.
Told.
Waited for justice.
But the world said it was a misunderstanding.
A boy’s future was too heavy a thing
to be ruined by a girl’s fear.
A piece of paper said he had to stay away—
until it expired.
And that was all.
So I learned.
My body was not mine.
My voice did not matter.
I was just a thing
that could be taken, used,
and forgotten.

II. The Betrayal

She remembers laughter.
A room full of us,
bodies draped over hotel beds,
the heat of youth humming in the air.
She says it was fun,
a wild night,
a story to tell.
She had already walked through the fire.
So to her, this was nothing but a spark.
A chance to get it over with—
shed the weight of innocence,
become someone new.
But I still flinched when a boy touched my hand.
Still froze when lips brushed too close.
I did not want to burn.
I was not ready.
Yet somehow, I was beneath him anyway.
A stranger.
A face I can’t recall,
but a weight I still feel.
And I let it happen.
I let myself disappear into it.
I let the world’s lesson ring in my ears—
You are nothing but what they take from you.
And that night, he took everything.
Later, my best friend would smile,
say, "We had a blast, didn’t we?"
And I would smile back,
because the truth was mine alone.
Because the truth was,
I scrubbed my skin raw that night.
Because the truth was,
I cried until I forgot what I was crying for.
Because the truth was,
I had betrayed myself.
And no one even noticed.

I always thought the night i lost my virginity was the night i lost myself, but the truth is that night just re-confirmed that i had already lost myself years before.

Lee Mar 18

Kameko

She moves like a shadow,
quick as a thought,
but I call her Kameko—
a stillness I’ve always sought
in a world that asks her to rush.
Meko, she knows herself
in the way she watches me,
in the soft tilt of her head
that holds a thousand words.
I hear her before she speaks—
a glance, a shift in her paws,
and in that silence,
she is everything.
To them, she is just a dog—
a creature of instinct and need.
But to me,
she is the sun,
a spark that burns quietly,
a love that doesn’t demand
but fills every corner of me.
In her gaze,
I see the world we’ve built,
where she doesn’t need to be anything
but herself—
and I love her for it,
for the way she fits into spaces
that weren’t meant for anyone.
She wears no leash inside,
no collar but the weight of her love—
and here, she’s everything we need,
as steady as the earth beneath her paws,
as wild as the wind she chases

I got My Shiba Inu as a gift from friend, i was getting out of the military and spiraling with what would come next. Everything i knew was changing and i was scared. Then i was gifted my dream dog, she grounded me and continues to ground me, she is spicy and bold and independent. I named her Kameko because she always moved so fast, I hoped it would will her to slow down, instead its a constant reminder she was never meant to be slow.