stray thought: hard earned wisdom

is there any other kind?

the easy come ~ easy go kind,
kinda never quite sticks around
long enough to make an
indentation like facts, kinda like
factuals memorized for a school test,
gone so quick you never truly
had them to keep, beyond the
inevitable ending by a bell
ringing

true learning means the earning,
the earning is hard, painful, oft,
gained usually at greatly
but not~too~cheap a cost
which makes sense,
long,
or even short, 
knowing, comprehending, & remembering

can created to be
savored, favored, and welcomed
each time from the recesses it
comes unconsciously summoned

no one more surprised
than you!
at the value of
a memory precision tooled,
ready, willing and able,
to be re~loved when
the heart doth summon

like the face of the one who got away....

I’m not sure why I feel bad,
but I do.
A shy human,
I fear that my silence will speak louder
than my heart ever could.

I’m not ignoring those who liked,
loved, commented, reposted—
I see you, I do,
but my shyness keeps me
from finding the right words.

I should thank them,
but I’m stuck,
swallowed by my own reluctance.

I’ve been here before,
hesitant to share what’s not perfect,
scared it won’t fit the mold,
so I keep it hidden,
a secret between me and the page.

It’s easier to just press ‘like’,
to let my words stay trapped behind the screen,
than to find the right ones
that feel big enough to match their kindness.

I could message them, privately,
but that feels worse,
more intimate in its awkwardness,
and I’d only wish I could say it better
where they all could see.

So here I am,
apologizing in silence,
for all the gratitude
that never quite makes it out.

I look around the full gym
Full of souls
Hundreds and hundreds of them
Sitting on bleachers

And I remember something crazy
I don't know **** about any of them

Every single one
Has problems
Thoughts
Feelings
Beliefs
And a life
And I don't know it

I wonder how many people's parents
Provided them with trauma
And how many provided them with care and love

I decided that I didn't like most of them
When I only saw their outside
I only  saw their carefully sculpted masks

How dare I?

I have taken the flowers.
Ripped them from the light,
peeled their bright faces back
like something skinned alive.

They did not scream.
They only folded—
like lungs emptied of air,
like mouths pried open
with nothing left to say.

O, love is a quiet violence.
A hand that plucks.
A hand that presses.
A weight that does not crush—
only keeps.

Here, a lilac curls,
like a severed breath.
Here, a daisy chokes on dust.
Here, a rose—veins milk-white,
mouth frozen in a paper-thin hush—
a relic of something that once burned.

And tell me, do they still remember?
The wind that kissed them last,
the trembling hands that held too tight,
or only the silence left behind?

I listen—
ear to time’s brittle ribs,
to the breath of pressed petals,
to the ruin love leaves in its wake.

And somewhere,
in the marrow of silence,
I swear I hear them—

whisper back.

—a poem for the broken quiet of Hello Poetry

This was meant to be a haven—
ink-stained sanctuary
where silence could bloom into verse,
where hurt could heal
in soft stanzas and shared breath.

But now—
every scroll feels like stepping
through shattered glass.
The comment threads,
once stitched with kindness,
now rip apart at the seams.

Accusations buzz like hornets,
each reply a stinger
piercing deeper into fear.
Names thrown like knives,
defense and damnation
fighting for dominance
in spaces meant for peace.

I see poems
not of love, not of loss,
but of monsters
lurking behind usernames,
of children caught
in digital snares,
of moderators gone silent,
as if safety were a forgotten draft
left unpublished in the void.

I haven’t spoken—
not yet.
But I feel the shadows
pressing against my page,
wondering if one day
they’ll find me,
slip through my poems
with sugary words
and hollow hearts.

What if I mistake poison for praise?
What if I smile at a trap
thinking it’s just another reader
kind enough to care?

I haven’t been touched by it—
yet.
But that doesn’t mean
the fire isn’t creeping closer.

I write in hope,
but I carry worry like watermark—
invisible until held to light.

So I ask,
not just for myself,
but for every young poet
finding their first courage here:

Where are the watchers?
Where is the warning bell?
Who guards the gates
when predators write poetry, too?

I want to believe
this space can be better.
That we are louder than the silence
that lets evil grow.
That we are not just witnesses—
but protectors,
word-warriors
with sharpened pens.

Because poetry should not be
a hunting ground.

And no poem
should end in a wound.

All that knowledge
for

a  couple of trips
around the board

as well as pieces
of that plastic pie

for the win the
victory

trivial
of little value and importance