To be a piece of paper
Thrown at sea,
Crumpled—furiously
Unable to be.

To row against
Undaunted waves,
Tall as mountains,
Jagged as nails.

Oh, to wish
To greet the sand,
Just to meet
Some reader's hands.

Hello world
You may not recognize me
though now I finally recognize myself

I made a difficult choice
freedom over familiarity
I ran to a new beginning
Shedding all those who attempted to control
through lies and vitriol

I have found my voice
I will use my voice
to be a truth teller,
a mirror,
a fierce catalyst for wellness

I have found my voice,
so I sing out
with rebellious joy
Hello world
Hello

© 2025 SincerelyJoanWrites. All rights reserved.

They call her names,
send their curses through a screen.
She blocks them,
but the words slip through the cracks,
curl beneath her skin.

She scrubs her face,
but the insults don’t wash away.
She sleeps,
but the whispers slither through her dreams.

Years pass.
The usernames are gone.
The accounts are deleted.
The laughter has moved on.

But the words—
the words still stay.

If everything is going well
then something must be wrong

I think, those wrinkles on your face
The ones you want to erase
The ones that appear with every laugh
Are waiting to be shaped
Into musical notes
That form the melody
Of the sound of healing

~
This forbidden city
walks on water,
keeps all the undesirables at bay,
it's always a balancing act.

Oh, blighted court
of Catherine the Great,
thy friends are having a hard time,
but horsing around, no less.

Enlightened by summer drugs,
and busting out of
their tops and castles,
thongs on thy feet,
and thongs on thy bottoms,
this zenith and this nadir
come in colorful collages,
everything else is a flash of flesh.

Sped along by
frequent bloodletting,
there's a revolution in
thy teenage mind,
a looking for the hidden
and interested motives,
but no one can live
their life on the skis.

Rulership of heart is far
from recreation,
but you raised
a smile to sin,
until all we could do was
shake our heads and laugh.
~