I'm coming home, where voices call.
With love that wraps around it all.
They wait with hope I cannot see,
Yet I’m pieces of who I used to be.

They need my fire, my laugh, my light.
But I’m bruised and battered from this fight.
I'm shattered in ways I can't explain.
A heart that breaks with silent pain.

I love them more than breath or skin,
But don’t know what I hold within.
What can I give when I’m run dry?
A ghost beneath a living sky?

I’ve got to go, though burdened, slow.
For even embers faintly glow.
I hope my love,
Though frayed and small,
Will be just enough for them all.

I remember that day, the shelves of dusty books.
And me, suspended in the hush.
Shoulders shaking so quietly, hoping not to be seen.
But you saw
You passed by
Eyes flickering over my tear-stained face like I was just part of the room.

Just a child.
Not the storm, barely contained.
You didn’t ask.
You didn’t sit.
You didn’t even stop.

Is this resentment I’ve carried?
Silently in my heart like a stone.
Hardening around the edges with the thing I couldn’t say?
What he did.
How it felt.
How wrong it all was,
and how I was to blame?

If you’d asked me, just a gentle word –
“What’s wrong, love?”
Maybe you’d have heard?
Maybe the shame wouldn’t have rooted.
Maybe I’d have learned to speak
Instead of hide.
But you didn’t.
And I did.
And it’s taken decades to peel back the silence
To name - if only to myself,
What has been so heavy to carry.

Resentment.

And I wonder...

If you’d known what you were walking past
Would you have stopped?
Would you ask me now?
Because
I hope I would answer.
Somehow.

I need to not be sorry for the space I take.
For the air that I breathe.
For the sound I make.
Try not to whisper ‘sorry’ - for just being here.
Have I not earned my love, each smile, each hug, each year?

I need to learn now, to get up off the floor.
To try and find my fury, it’s just, it’s raw.
I need to search for anger’s thread,
Not to cut it out, but see where it’s led.

To speak it soft, not swallow it whole
To accept it’s there, not to shatter my soul.
I’m so homesick.
For my wife, I long.
Music so loud I could sing along.
I know she loves me for all of who I am.
Broken, aching
Human.

So hard to start again not flee.
Instinct to run, to fight, to freeze
Once a response to howls by moon,
A sharpened sense.
A primal tune.

But now it thuds behind my eyes,
A terror wrapped in silent cries.
Where shadows stretch like daunting screams,
dissolving into restless dreams.

I choke on words I never say,
And ache to let the rivers flow.
To scream and sob and simply be,
But still afraid to let it show.

A vicious cycle I now know
Healing starts by breathing slow.
So much practice I must do.
But I’m learning, still, safe and true.

Was so hard to leave when love is there,
In every whispered, held-back tear.
In every morning not yet broken,
In every laugh and word not spoken.

I see you there, so strong, so still.
My heart breaks twice, against my will.
Once for the pain I’ve put you through,
And once because I can’t stay too.

I had to go to try get well,
Not of your doing, but in which you dwell.
Adventures wait, if I endure.
If healing’s path can make me sure.
I will survive this storm, this guilt.
This house of sorrow I have built.

I see you carry what I’m unable,
With stoic strength, I know you’re able.
I’m so sorry, that it is like this.
That joy feels edged by an abyss.
But I’m so grateful, through the ache.
You give warmth I cannot fake.

Please know this parting’s not goodbye,
But just a pause beneath our sky.
A breath between the now and when.
A hope to hold until we’re then.

When I come back, it’s for your light.
The way you anchor me at night.
I’ll fight this shadow, find my shore,
So we can laugh, and love, and more.

For now, I left but not to flee.
To go and find the rest of me.
And when I win this quiet war,
We’ll write the life we’re longing for.

Some daily life, some jobs done,
some simply ‘being’ in the sun.
But time to say ‘goodbye’ again.
To find the light through clouds of pain.

In stillness guilt now takes its root,
A love that tastes like bitter fruit.
I leave to fight a war inside.
Not run, but rest.
Not fall, not hide.

Alone, but lonely even more,
Each mile away cutting my core.
Not your fault, my wounds to tend
To mend for you, my wife, my friends.

If I can start to heal this soul
It’s not just me who’ll then be whole
So I must go with heavy grace
To meet next time in a kinder place.

Stolen moments with my wife,
Needing to stay, stay in her life.
And then the kids - their world’s so small.
Music thumping through the floor.
To slammed-shut doors and wanting more.

But it is sweet, this mess, this spark,
The chaos that ignites the dark.
I hold it close, yet flinch inside.
Breaking when I used to glide.

I smile, I nod, I play my part,
But panic claws behind my heart.
How can I hold their soaring skies?
When mine are stitched with silent cries?

How do I cheer when I’m so tired?
A flickering flame, but still no fire.
Still, I reach for that dancing sun,
For fleeting moments where we’re one.

Let them not see the cracks I hide
The tears that fall because I’ve lied.
Let them remember laughter’s song,
Not how I feared I can’t stay strong.

For love is fierce, and love is wide.
Even when it hurts inside.
So I breathe in slow, I try to appear
Not far away, but oh so near.

I’m back inside - our house, our home.
Familiarity surrounds.
Sounds and smells, and bits of me,
Reminders of what used to be.

The sofa feels like old terrain, it’s cushions shaped by who I was.
But I sit down and feel the space.
Where something’s missing.
Just because.

“How am I feeling?” I reply, “I’m fine”

Smile half-real.
What do you name the hollowed-out?
How do you name what you feel?

Mail stacked up, grass so long
Small signs that time has carried on.
Though I’m not sure what I return to them.
When the floor still creaks beneath my tread,
I know I’m alive, but somewhere else instead.

I’ll flicker here, a half-lit flame.
Not fully here, but still I came.
I’m in motion, life still mine.
I’ll try so hard to thrive, with time.

I sat shaking with pain, a silent guest,
No words to hush it into rest.
Its edges sharp, its shadow wide,
It’s stabbed beneath my ribs to hide.

In quiet rooms where healing grew,
I found a place, a safety - new.
But even here the heart would race,
Is peace for me a borrowed place?

Now homeward beckons with both light and lead,
With hope, but unfounded fear I dread.
What will they see behind my smile?
Is it too soon to walk this mile?

Will they believe the spark I’ll show?
Or sense the storms still ebb and flow?
I carry calm like a fragile thread, dreams that love and joy are fed.
It’s so hard to speak of wounds so near,
To show I’m better, yet so unclear.

But I will I go, with trembling grace.
Back to the world, to find my place.
To cuddle those I hold so dear.
To hold them tight and keep them near.
Each heartbeat peace into my core,
Hoping someday to win this war.

Just be curious, just challenge - “What if they’re wrong?”
What if I’m not the burden.
The mistake.
The too-much, too-broken, too-worthless thing they told me I was?

The thought terrifies me more than hate ever did.
At least hate is certain. At least it makes sense.
But now - People say kind things and mean them.
They stay.

They say that I matter. They say that I’m needed.
And I don’t know what to do with those words.
They burn in my chest like a truth I wasn’t built for.
And if they’re right?
I will have to relearn.
Everything.
Like a child who’s only ever been taught to flinch.

How do you believe you should live, when you’ve only learnt how to survive?
I feel like I’m standing
On the edge…terrified.
Not death,
But hope.
And I don’t know how to move forwards
When behind me is dark and ahead there is light,
I don’t feel I deserve.
Please help me to fight.