Inside, I’m screaming out, “look at me!”
“Notice me!”
Too, long, too long,
I’ve neglected to see me because I was lost, looking over at others.
Such wasted years, such waste to fears, discouragement in my ears, the many times, I’ve wiped those tears
Stained eyes, they were closed for a period of many, many days, to get new sight, and
To hear the truth within; “darling, I see you; you are my beloved.”
Deep senses quieten, even though tremmers still pulse,
Claiming life within thriving for expression.
I can’t stop; I allow you to be seen, heard, criticised, discarded...celebrated, yes, honoured, revelled, desired, loved.
Because that’s who you are, who you’ve always been, when you were off, waiting to be seen.
But now I am here, and now I begin again,
New steps, new paths; enjoy, embrace joy!

We are but a speck of dust,
Gold and valuable, but
Small and crushable.
Worthy of all love, and yet
Wounded we live, held.

What happens after
success; the things you've
been hoping for,
working towards,
what happens then?

Daily, I work so hard
To be straight,
Perfect.
To need not.
But daily, I am reminded
Of how crooked I am;
Abundantly needy.

The clouds look old today, grey and sagging.
They hang lifeless, bringing everything down with them.
I shiver, not with potential, but with bitterness
About the bleak foreboding that looms.

They will tell you there is a right way.
They will hand you a torch and call it the sun.
They will roll their words in raw linen and whisper:
"This is what poetry is meant to be."

And you will nod.
Because they have made it so that not nodding feels like blasphemy.

But listen—
the ink does not check your credentials.
The meter does not ask if your suffering is organic.
A line does not collapse because it was crafted instead of bled.

They will tell you a poem must be naked, barefoot, aching—
as if there is no beauty in a well-cut suit.
They will decry the temple and build a pulpit in its ruins,
preaching freedom in a voice that allows no dissent.

Good poets are cult leaders,
and the first rule of the cult
is that they are not one.

So write the sonnet, carve the sestina,
sculpt the page in iambic steel.
Or break it, shatter it, scatter its bones—
but let no one call your wreckage untrue.

And if they do,
smile.
Because poetry does not kneel to priests.

Beneath the skin of the world,
there are names no lips have touched in centuries.
They linger in the mouths of ghosts,
curl in the spaces between prayers.
What do we call the ones
who have outlived even memory?
Perhaps nothing.
Perhaps that is the final death.