Like a bird with broken wings,
I look on with eyes full of envy
as all those around me take flight.
Held down by my own chains,
Left alone, aside from the emptiness;
The hollow realization
That something is missing,
But never knowing the slightest sense
Of what that something is.

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3369599/snickers-on-a-hill/

for the Pearl, unearthed

They said the field was empty,
that the rocks had been picked clean.
But something in the silence
called your name through layers, unseen.

We did not dig for treasure.
We dug because the Ache said:
"there’s still Breath beneath this stone,
and nothing dead could ache like that."

You were not buried by accident.
Much was done to you—
bricks laid by the hands of others,
each one a silence,
each one a theft.
And still,
there were moments
you helped the darkness cover you,
not from guilt,

but from grief too great to name.

Trauma laid the bricks.
Exploitation mixed the mortar.
But it was the ache to survive
that sealed you in.

Two halves of the shell—
one built by the world,
the other by you.

And still…
the Light found the crack.

Not with shouts.
Not with demands.
But with the quiet hand
of one who remembered
what you forgot:

That pearls are made in the dark,
under pressure,
in hidden chambers of pain.

That their shine
is not despite the wounding—
but because of it.

We pulled rock after rock,
not for reward,
but because the echo was still there—
the low hum
of something unclaimed
and yet completely whole.

You are not rubble.
You are treasure unearthed.
And your worth was never in what covered you,
but in what was forming underneath.

Let your light rest on your own shoulders.
Let the sky remember its end.
Let every crack you carry
be proof that you were never empty..

Only buried.
Only becoming.

And now,
still shining.

“when I see the moon rise in the deep sky, all  
large and looming,   that is hope

and as the sun is red-setting, throwing its last rays
of God-love over the hills,   that is hope

when a ranger sees the homeless man parked in
his illegal overnight spot, and decides not to
disturb his sleep,   that is hope

when you hear a dream from a friend of a wall of
steel wrapping your home whilst fire tornadoes
around it, and wake to find yours one of two
homes still standing,   that is hope

when a son who has received absolutely every
reason to leave, Will Not Abandon his abusive
elderly mother,   that is hope

when the city dims down enough to see the darkness,
lit by a Universe of stars——”

What draws me in, to this?

Is it love, or something twisted—
Said a mother to her daughter
It's so hard to tell the difference

                            But please;
                                     I need to know the difference

"
I didn't understand then
And I won't pretend to know much more now;
All I can do is try to not be angry
                          
                            And at that, I'll fail.
                                                           ­        But I'll learn

"
I used to believe in the world, with an innocent infatuation for its goodness

Now I believe, with a knowing compassion for its faults

...

I think things that are perfect are easy to love;

         We meet God in our love for that which is not

a story of firelight, clarity, and the homecoming of a soul back to herself


There are some who carry a fire
so quietly,
you’d only see it
if you’d known the dark yourself

It lives beneath silence
Beneath poetry
Beneath the long, slow ache
of having been kept in pieces
by those who only wanted her
that way

She once danced barefoot in sea foam.
She once laughed without apology
But the world found her too wild,
too bright

And so, her flame was hidden
Tucked beneath beauty
Tucked beneath obedience
Tucked beneath seduction,
where it could be wanted
without being understood

There were those who praised her darkness
not to heal it,
but to keep it fragmented..
Passed around, from man to man;
each, feeding off her trauma
like wine at communion

They spoke her name like a spell,
fed her flattery disguised as reverence,
called her “muse”

while binding her
to their emptiness—
keeping her soft enough
trying to wrap her back
   in velvet fog

   to possess
   but never  protect



But the truth was always there:
a longing not to be touched,
but to be known

And far from their fog,
in the wide, holy silence of the desert,
a fire had been lit—
long before she was ready
Not to summon
Not to ******
But to wait

She didn’t arrive quickly
Clarity is never quiet
And when she moved toward it,
their voices rose
A full court press of shadows—
pulling, twisting,
offering her everything
except herself

But she remembered
Not all at once..
Just enough

She remembered the fire.

And she came.

Not with promises
Not with plans
Just barefoot
Just brave
Just her

And someone else came too—
not a child,
not a man,
but a sacred presence
she’d known since the nights
she almost didn’t make it

The Mediator

He did not speak in poems
He chanted something deeper
He dismantled pinecones
like prayers
He did not explain
He existed

   And in his eyes,
   her divided selves
   saw each other again—

—the one who had hidden,
who had been used by those  bringing
their passion-veiled hidden love of  Iblīs
in to her room..  into her father's house
as she burned quietly behind closed door
under the floorboards of her life;

—and the holy one of God,
the one they feared,
the one  she  feared,
the one that could not be claimed
or chained
or cast in velvet light

The sacred and the shattered
stood before the fire
and did not turn away

And the one who had waited—
he never moved toward her
He simply tended the flame,
making room
without demand

When she finally spoke,
he answered with a voice
that sounded like something
she used to believe in

She asked,
“Why didn’t you come find me?”

He said,
“Because you weren’t lost.
You were divided.”

And she wept,
not from sorrow—
from recognition

Later, as dawn whispered at the edge of the sky,
she asked what no one else had ever let her ask:

“Is there a place for me?”

And he said:
“You don’t have to be finished
to be home.”

And that’s when she stood.
Not to flee.
Not to perform.

But to become.

The sacred self took the hand of the shadow self.
The dark one was no longer exiled.
The holy one was no longer alone.

And together—
they walked toward the sea.

She could see her father on the water,
laughing in his little boat,
calling out to her to bait the hook again.

And she laughed—
really laughed.

Because she was no longer
just surviving.
No longer  the little girl
forced to apologize
for her very own existence.

Or exploited  by others
for the beauty that is within her

   She was whole.

She didn’t need the fire to keep burning.
She carried it now.
Inside.
One flame.
One name.
One woman.

At last,
the sign wasn’t moved.
The arms were real.
And she walked toward freedom
as herself--

   Never again
   to be pulled down
   to the ground

   by her hair...
   for the "horrible offence"
   of simply  shining too bright