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.

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.

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.

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.

She holds her children
as if she could keep them forever
as if her arms could become
a wall against time
drawing the world smaller
into her universe of warmth.

Fingers trace small backs
pressing hope into tender spines—
their touch speaks louder
than any prayer.

This is how she endures—
a calm sentinel
watching the winds rise
gathering her own
against the open maw
of the world
drawing them closer
into her silence
to remind them
they are safe.

A silent witness—
I do not ask
I do not offer
I do not even question—
all I can do is listen.

My heart resting
still as quiet rain.

Some griefs
are meant to echo
to fill the room without reply.

I do not turn away.
I do not quiet the storm.
I hold space
only a presence—

This is how I honor you—
not with words,
but with a silence
that lets yours
be heard.

I am—
an unlit wick,
a sparrow unseen
in a flock of starlings,
a smudge,
in a trail of erased steps.

No one claims
the air I move through,
as names fall away,
unspoken—
a shadow too faint
to take notice.

I am—
and I vanish.

The crowd breathes
indifference,
dissipates—
a broken branch off a tree,
a blank page
torn out of a book.

I was—
now vanished.

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.

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.

My hands knew
what I should do.

My mother understood how—
carefully carve into my soul,
shaping me softly.

She was never one for goodbyes—
you behave
she used to say instead.

Her mouth learned
how to make me know
she meant it.

My hands understood,
my heart, too.

The bourbon
curves
to the bend
of frosted glass—
ice drifts,
aching to be sunk,
collapsing
under
a slow burn.

The amber
liquid
turns to gold
in my palm—
I lift it
to my lips,
time drips thin,
as my mouth
fills.

All that is left now—
a soaked
orange slice
and
an itch
for another
pour.

I have learned
to listen
to the soft voices
of broken things—
rain sighing on roofs,
curtains moving
like ghosts,
wildflowers aching
to bloom
in forgotten patches.

I see broken hearts
all around me—
I know without asking,
where what might have been
is buried—
standing there in their ruins,
shadows heavy on their dreams.

I lean into empty spaces,
stray through cold drafts,
search their sorrow—
as if this fractured quiet
could teach me
how to help them
feel unbroken again.

Even as I know,
I break too.

It begins soft, like the touch
of fingertips trailing your neck,
each note a sensation, a memory
from a deep pocket in your heart.
I sit by the window—
light slanting across my face,
as if the song brings back the warmth
of someone who is no longer here.

Stréliski plays as though
she knows the precise measure of aching—
the heft of it—how it brands into the chest,
drawing you forward,
closer to the keys, closer to the past,
closer to the place where a single chord
could bring you to your knees.

The piano returns—
the way her hands hovered,
above the keys
like a sparrow deciding
whether to take flight or stay,
the way she would play until dawn.

With eyes closed,
the melody gathers,
a gust through bare trees,
the kind of wind that tugs at your coat
and uncovers the truth
you have been trying to avoid.

In the music,
I see her hands, veined and sure,
holding the ache of a life spent
between silence and song.

The last note hangs,
suspended like the final break
before silence.
It’s not an ending—
more like the pause
when the wind shifts,
and you feel it—
this change, the way
it both moves you forward
and leaves you behind—
making you want to listen
all over again.

Poems come from care
not loosely struck from a pen
but from a firm hand

A vacant room sobs
like autumn shedding its leaves
I step into change—
the past—a shoulder left behind
the future—my hand

Like the rain down a well
it comes down easy
down my spine

Like the wind through a passage
it comes through easy
through my spirit

Nothing to gather
nothing to chase
no reason
no rush
no rhyme
no punctuation

The air is open
the ground is firm
the time is near

All at once
once and for all
there is nothing to answer—

Not even myself.

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.

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.

I am walking in the sky,
lifting my feet the way you do
when stepping into cold water.
Below, the sea churns in its sleep,
pulling at the horizon,
looking for an even line.

Here,
names don’t matter—
the stars blink like tired old porch lights,
watching something
they’ve forgotten the reason for.
I stand barefoot under their thinning light,
feeling an indigo swell behind me,
its silence as blue as the sea.

I dream of a balloon—
purple, round as a promise.
I watch it turn into a speck, then nothing.
I remember that kind of floating,
the way the air is gentle,
like it doesn’t know what to do
with something so off balance.

And maybe I am that too—
adrift, a buoyant breath waiting to land,
too proud to fall, too restless to settle
into the dark, soft earth.

This is how autumn leaves must feel,
falling not because they have to,
but because the wind is ready to catch them.

I am not lost, you know—
I am just a drifter,
pretending that the stars know me well,
imagining them, bright-eyed,
following me home, dancing in the night.

It doesn’t sit right—
not anymore
the way three chairs
got up and left
without even
looking back—
it’s not right
when nothing is left.

I set a plate
anyway
push the salt closer—
just the right seasoning
for food
and wounds
left open—

It doesn’t sit right—
alone—
having leftovers
left and right
with a table
left standing—
It doesn’t sit right
when a table
can’t even talk back.

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.

Small and ragged—
he broke off
from the pack,
mud splattering like rain.

No one believed,
but he soared—
dirt-clad winged underdog,
cutting through doubt,
beating the track
with a resolve
that defied rain
and the worst odds.

Mine that bird—
mighty horse
with Pegasus wings.

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.

A day that leaves
its gloves on the porch,
and takes the air in—
quiet as an afterthought,
cool, but not cold,
leaves suspended midair,
hanging in the balance
between what is gone
and what is on the way.

Not yet winter,
not quite autumn's end—
a short pause,
with the sun dipping
on the horizon,
waiting to decide
which way
the leaves will fall—
making us count the days
before the first snowfall.