I used to build words
like a carpenter—
lines hammered out
plank by plank
word for word,
like bridges
spanning waters
for anyone
eager to cross.

And now
I write to meet the page
like aching skin,
like quiet water
hesitant to ripple—
careful to bear a mark.

All the words
I’ve sent off—
paper boats,
adrift.

I let them all go,
travelers,
and bridges alike,
let them sink or rise—
and let the tide
bring the words
home.

We built
a tower
with hands
that did not know
how to touch.

It rose,
stone by stone.
Each word, a brick.
Each silence,
the mortar.
Promises—
vanishing into air.

We stood
at the bottom,
blaming the height
for our aches—
but the tower
was never
what broke us.

The pears
bend the
crooked branches—
flushed
and drowsy
with sugar.

The juice waits
for something—
for its skin
to be bruised
for a mouth
to bite in
and when done
waiting—
suffer the wind
do what must
be done.

Fences fail quietly—
in a slow tilt
colors give way
surrendering—
a silent retreat
from brown to brittle.

I press a finger
catch the rough
edge of metal
its dust scratching my skin—
years thin us
like coins drowned
in riverbeds.

It goes this way
I think—
a long fade
grit slipping
into dark water
turning to mud
just enough to remember
we once held on.

And I wonder if we, too
were made to loosen
to dissolve—
no shards or splinters
just a long sigh—
as time corrodes
at our hearts
turning all we were to rust.

The sun
has burned too long—
fields left hope in rags
grains shuddering
against
the wind’s heated tongue
enough to set fire
to the rain.

She runs her hands
through the ruin
palms sifting for life
aching
for the yield
that will not come—
nothing—
all husk
but one seed—
her renewal.

One step in—
the air bleeds thin,
heat curling at the walls,
lungs straining
beneath your brand—

One look—
the room sways,
the way fire bends
before it gives in to wind.

One smile—
a burning magnet,
searing my thoughts
laces undone with just a look—
knowing when to forget
how to hold back.

I meet you there—
skin against skin,
a shiver between shadows,
a heartbeat, staggered and wild.

Your mouth—
an invitation between gasps,
a tide swelling, slipping,
breath against breath,
falling further in.

Fingertips etch urges,
scrape constellations into skin,
the night between palms and sheets—
a hunger deeper than air.

You collapse,
the world now a quivering mess—
a slow-burning ruin,
softened into embers,
breathless—wanting more.

We hoard thoughts
like coins
that burn the pocket—
the less we have,
the harder it is
to let go.

We treasure their shimmer,
but in the end,
the vault remains bare
of what we hoped
to find—
what we were led
to believe.

We gather—
each passing thought,
as a leaf in a stream
that never stops
flowing away.

Some things
are only true
when falling—
slide and snag
bang and brag
a snarl
gone viral.

The trick
is not to fear
the bruise—
but love
how the bruise
proves
the skin.

There is something quiet
in the way
the flowers bloom
against the gray
among abandoned doorways
and forgotten walls
as if they belong there—
their softness brushes
against decay
like a secret
they aren’t trying to keep.

You stand still
and time slows.
Nothing moves but a subtle drift
nothing speaks
but the quiet cascade of petals—
growing where they shouldn't
thriving where the world
has grown tired.

It’s almost enough
to make you believe
in something—
a small kind of hope
that hides itself
in unexpected places
waiting to be noticed.

I found you
holding torn poems
like broken wings
telling me
you forgot the key
behind a locked room.

So I sat
on the cracked floor
beside you
and built a map
out of sighs
and stubborn hope.

You don’t need a perfect way out—
just a beginning
even if it looks hopeless
like more hurting.

I gave you my shoulder
the way
rain gives the earth a second chance
the way light waits
beside your door.

And when you can’t believe—
I'll believe twice as hard
with hopeful charm
and hopeless stubbornness.

Through your side
you’ll find the door—
you will.

I stand atop your tower
built from words we no longer share—
my soul once peered, admired and awed,
with your star-struck heart
and a knight in shining armor jones—
now I suffer a thousand-yard stare
of a battle-weary tease.

I wait above, hands empty,
wondering if the air between us
has always been this thin.
I watch as the horizon deepens,
stretching from dusk to dawn—
a vigil with no end.

Not a mislaid would-be princess in sight,
never that—but something smaller—
only unemployed, starved dickens
defeating the scorched countryside—
souls eager for your ravaged ***** and spilt milk,
roaming roads where you left behind
dusty footprints and battles long surrendered.

The stones are smooth,
each one perfect in its place.
Your walls press against the clouds,
against my patience—
I am put to shame,
exposed to a dead language.

My mind and body grow rampant—
I dream of what might happen
if the mortar gave way,
if bricks tumbled,
and all this distance crumbled—
to feel the earth under my hands again,
and paint you in moss and ginger,
dust and grit grounding my fingertips—
remembering all that once was.

I am torn—
between the sacred and the scarce,
between walls that claw at the heavens
and the raw ache below.

There is a kind of holiness here,
even in the dirt and dust—
the way it rises, coats my skin,
fills my lungs.
I think of your hands—
how they might feel,
how they left me in shreds—
drenching me in wet dreams.

And though I wait,
against your impossible walls,
I know the truth—
even the strongest tower
will crumble,
even the loneliest heart
will fall to the ground.

No one sees them at first—
a shadow leaning
from the corners,
the slow hand that catches a vase
just before it shatters.

They work like rain—
quiet, unnoticed,
softening the world
in a way
you didn’t know was hard.

It’s the way
they keep their silence
between words,
tend to what frays—
their style blending
into the rhythm
of a place becoming itself again.

Later,
when the music stops,
when the lights dim low—
they are there—
stacking chairs,
sweeping the floor,
leaving no trace of their hands.

I'm not always a good first impression—
sometimes my mouth staggers out
before my kindness gets dressed.
Sometimes I laugh at the wrong time
or forget someone's nickname
but remember their favorite color.

I know sometimes I can come off
as a misplaced sentence
in the middle of a calm paragraph—
but know I'm not the type to edit others.

Sometimes—
I look like a bold question mark
in a room full of exclamation points.
but I am not confused—
just hard to react
with built-in soft-spoken backup plans.

I want you to know—
I'm on your team even if it's left-handed
even when I blink too slow
or speak too fast and too long
stand too far away
don't say the right thing
at the right time—
or add thank you at the end of a sentence.

I may be awkward—
but I'm real and care loudly
even when it doesn't sound like it.

I unspool the silence,
shed the smallness
in my head.

I take it all in,
let my voice swell—
and no longer ask
permission to exit the room.

A stag lifts its head,
moonlight drapes across its back—
the woods watched over.

One wrong turn—
no worse than any other—
but this one
this particular slip
stuck its foot out
caught you sideways
and the ground
now refuses
to forgive—
or you lead yourself
to believe
you are to blame.

We'd like the world
to balance
but sometimes
it tilts—
and we drink down
the bitter
without ever
spilling the sweet.

It’s okay—
because patience
is no accident.

Silence—
a draft in an attic
with nowhere to go
slipping under a door
holding its breath
until it forgets itself.

It is the cracked cup
hidden at the back
of the cupboard
turned upside down
as if laid to rest.

It is the nest
in a bare branch
at winter’s cold fist—
the ache
of having been left behind.

Silence stretches itself
thin—over the night’s spine.
It is the single leaf—
caught mid-fall
held in the wind’s soft hand
never to be let go.

It stirs
a quiet defiance—
the walls ache with it—
heavy as love too shy to speak
fragile as a memory
melting into dark.

We draw hearts
in the margin of things—
never quite even
always squiggly
as if love refuses
to be taken
in picture—
only drawn
with candle wax
from a shaking hand.

Curves
hesitations
dips in doubt—
love is unsettling
that way.

I kept them always
faithful to my faith—
lived in linens
creased corners
noteworthy notebooks
tearful retreats
as if affection
could be
as messy
and still mean everything.

If I sit too long, time gathers in my chest,
as my mind sees the finish line waiting for me—
It makes it hard to breathe
not from the aches of the world,
but from the slow diminishment of time—
my own.

I find myself caught,
between the urge to fight
and the desire to let go,
between wanting to stay
and fearing I’ve overstayed
my welcome.

I wish I could run backward in time—
through rain-soaked streets
where I should have spoken,
to rooms filled with words
I swallowed down.

To rewrite a road already traveled—
I’d keep close only a few,
kind souls etched in love and loss,
and have us meet on softer roads
and brighter dawns,
let love linger longer—
so much longer—
before it learns to fade away.

But the clock never bends,
so I dwell in tiny moments,
trading the vastness of tomorrow
for the precious depth of just one day—

There is comfort in knowing
not all battles are won
with clenched fists
or held breaths.

I have no wars left to fight—
only the love for others left in me,
fading to purple, barely breathing—
but finally unmoored.

Beneath the soft-spun green,
where stone and root rest in silence,
moss gathers itself.

It clings, quietly—
with soft shades of green,
cradling close the forgotten—
a fallen branch,
broken walls,
blanketing the injured places
left to time.

Moss teaches us to rest
in a gathering of dark places,
where eyes have no reason
to remain shut.
It is a slow healing after sorrow—
the way the world forgives itself.

Walk with care—
where moss stretches,
with a patience that heals
and forgives—
forever enduring,
forever moss.

I am the boulder that never said no
feet in the seafoam
hands full of sky.

A poet unmoored always returning—
to shadowbox with waves
and trace figure eights
in the palms of ghosts—
to write themselves into the wind
and carry your pain away.

A lunchbox of wisdom
a tree of light
a hug just for you waiting—

Round around.

Parkinson's is not a stranger—
it's the shadow in the room
I try to staple to the wall
but who always finds a seat
staring at my hands
like they're already his.

He is jealous—jealous of the clay
that once softened beneath my thumbs
jealous of how my fingers
could command a world into form—
curls and strands of bolts and wires
shapes and contours of emerging faces
from nothing but faith and patience.

He wants to take that all away—
he wants to steal away my hands.

My hands—
the ones that pointed at shooting stars
and said There, son, wish.
The ones that held sorrow like it was glass
and never let it shatter.
The ones that cupped water
from a mountain stream
built sandcastles and kingdoms
wrote love letters and goodbye notes
and every poem in between.

Parkinson's is not polite—
He shakes me not to wake me up
but to remind me I am falling apart
in small bite size morsels—
inconvenient razor-sharp tremors.

He wants to convince me
that every stroke of my pen
is an affront to gravity—
that each line I draw
is a negotiation with more failure.
He leans close and says,
Why bother, brother, sculpting worlds
with hands that no longer listen—


These hands—weathered and worn out.
They have kissed a thousand stories into being
held loved ones in the rawest nights
lifted others from the floor of themselves.

These hands are ink-stained prophets
keepers of promise and possibility.
I have built entire universes in my palms
and no thief—no trembling thief
in the guise of a disease—
will erase what I have made.

So if Parkinson's comes,
hands outstretched,
grinning like he owns my ending—
I will raise my broken fists
however crooked, however cracked
and I will write one more verse
before every period,
from every last stanza
from every poem
I ever wrote
rains down on me.

He can shake me—
but he will never steal the art
I already gave to this world
to just make me into a caterpillar
with broken hands and broken wings.

Pear against my lips—
late snack under the stars,
porch light flickers.