I have come to realize:
life is a grand celebration
of being unfinished.

Not in perfection,
not in the final note of completion—
the true wonder lies
in the sweetness of becoming.

It is seen in the teenage boy
who lingers by the roses in the grocery line,
hands trembling as he chooses the bouquet
to mirror his beloved’s eyes.

The neighbor plucks apples,
gives them to strangers passing by,
as if the fruit could soften
the loneliness of the world.

Once I marveled.
Now I know:
these are not mere wonders, but proofs
of the beauty of being incomplete—
not wrought by the flawless
or the finished,
but by human hearts that dare:
hearts aching, flawed,
yet still alive.

What joy.
What sorrow.

We are never complete.

And yet,
in our incompletion,
we bear—
the whole weight—
of love.

Our spirits and souls are starving.
With each passing day,
we see only these mortal bodies that time will fray.

We kiss the skin,
find embrace within,
but no matter how tight the grasp,
the spirit stays beyond our clasp.

Is it only in our final sleep,
when we face the mystery it dares to keep,
that we will find these spirits starved,
and see the selves we've long discarded?

-Sonja Kettunen
Instagram: @sojafoxpoetry

Dark waters claim the lily pads,
Delicate greens shatter, blacken, and sink—
Deeper, deeper into shadows they wade,
To be alive in their mortality.
As cold twilight wraps them in tender embrace,
A mortal heart cannot love what cannot decay;
To love, to lose—such fleeting beauty lies.

-Sonja Kettunen (@sojafoxpoetry)

I would be this gentle mist that lingers
On autumn’s flowered field—
Yet I wish I could be a golden sunbeam,
Painting my lover's lashes in a gilded haze.
But that is not me. With gentle kisses,
I **** the summer’s flowers;
I am the coldness they fear.
I wrap the earth within my arms, but blind its sight—
My love summons winter’s night to arrive,
Stilling the pulse of all that once breathed life.
I swear my love brings death to every chamber,
But maybe that is the price we’re meant to pay.
For love and pain have always been entwined,
And when we bleed, as everyone must one day,
We will bleed as one.

-Sonja Kettunen (ig: @sojafoxpoetry)

If you said the spark was gone,
I'd set myself on fire.
I’d plunge into the darkest depths of my soul,
if ever you were to fade from my side.
When death parts us, as it one day must,
I’d search for you in heaven,
and if I found you not,
I’d cast myself into hell’s fire,
For I’ve already cradled heaven in my arms.
I’d forsake myself to keep you near,
And in doing so,
I’d become The very shadow of my deepest fears

-Sonja Kettunen (IG: @sojafoxpoetry)