When I am lost, my shadow is still with me.  
It doesn’t ask for direction.  
It doesn’t rush.  
It simply follows,  
soft-footed and patient,  
like memory without judgment.

I wander through questions,  
through days that blur at the edges,  
and still
there it is,  
stretching beside me in morning light,  
curling beneath me at dusk.

It knows the shape of my doubt.  
It’s traced every ache,  
every pause,  
every almost.

And though I feel alone,  
I am never unseen.  
My shadow stays  
not to guide,  
but to witness.

Shadowing Still

When I am lost, my shadow is still with me.  
God is also my shadow
not above, not beyond,  
but beside me,  
folded into the hush between footfalls.

No thunder, no decree.  
Just the soft echo of presence  
in the curve of my doubt,  
the warmth behind me  
when I cannot face the sun.

God does not lead.  
God lingers.  
God waits in the outline I cast  
when I forget how to pray.

And maybe that’s grace
not the path,  
but the patience  
to walk with me  
even when I wander.

Snap.  
    Curl.  
        Trace.  
            Flick.  
       ­         Pause---  
                    Breath.  
               ­         Bound.  
                            Beg.  
            ­                    Yield.  
                                    ­Yes.  
                                        Again.

.        light                     shadow  
       rising                      falling  
      golden               ­     rusted  
     bloom                     hush  
    barefoot                 boo­tprint  
   jasmine                 cider  
  dare                      gather  
spark                    rest  
  rise                       fall
   tilt                         tilt  
    hush                     hush  
     breath                 breath  
     pause                  pause  
     now                     now  
     pause                  pause  
     breath                 breath  
    hush                     hush  
   tilt                           tilt  
  fall                            rise  
rest                             spark  
  gather                      dare  
   cider                      jasmine  
    bootprint           barefoot  
     hush                 bloom  
      rusted            golden  
       falling          rising  
        shadow     light

Words hurt, sword hurts, both can scar,
One cuts deep, the other far.
A blade may wound, but words can bind,
Leaving echoes in the mind.

A careless whisper, a sharp retort,
Can break a heart, distort.
For words, though soft, can wield great power,
Turning sweet moments sour.

So speak with care, let kindness reign,
To heal the wounds, to ease the pain.
For in our words, we hold the key,
To love, to peace, to harmony.

A poetic dialogue between The Scribe and The Blade
For performance, invocation

The Scribe:
I write in silk and syllable,
My ink a balm, my breath a spell.
I do not pierce, I press and hold,
A whisper warm, a story told.

The Blade:
I speak in edge and consequence,
No velvet veil, no recompense.
I do not soothe, I split the seam,
Expose the wound beneath the dream.

The Scribe:
But dreams are sacred, stitched in light.
They guide the lost, they birth the rite.
I conjure myths to mend the soul,
You cleave the parts that make us whole.

The Blade:
Wholeness is a lie we crave.
I carve the truth, I do not save.
Your myths may comfort, but they stall,
I cut to free, I cut to call.

The Scribe:
Call whom? The broken? The betrayed?
The ones whose hearts were never weighed?
I write for them; I write to lift.
You wield your edge as if it’s gift.

The Blade:
It is. A gift of clarity.
Of rupture, raw sincerity.
I do not lift, I let fall fast.
The truth is sharp. It does not ask.

The Scribe:
Then let me ask, and ask again.
Let me rewrite the ache as friend.
I do not fear your blade, but still,
I’d rather ink than force the ****.

The Blade:
And I’d rather cut than let it rot.
Your ink delays what must be taught.
But even blades can learn to bend,
Perhaps your verse is not pretend.

The Scribe:
Then bend with me. Let edge and word
Compose a truth both felt and heard.
Let ink and steel entwine, not clash.
A kiss of fire, a healing ****.

The Blade:
A **** that sings, a wound that glows.
A cut that teaches as it shows.
I’ll carve the lines, you’ll write the lore,
Together, we become much more.

The Scribe & The Blade (in unison):
We duel not to destroy, but dance.
A ritual of second chance.
Where word and edge, both fierce and kind,
Reveal the truths we’ve yet to find.

To be seen —
not as an object of desire,  
but as another human being.

To be seen—
for what she is made of,
for what strengths she carries within
and
not for what she covers her body with.

To be admired
not for her beautiful body
but for the beauty within.

Her voice to be heard
and not her screams.

To have dignity —
in life and in death.

To have self-respect.


Is it too much to ask for?

They say the body weeps in salt
when the soul cannot speak.
And so it was
tears fell,
not just from eyes
but from every seam
that once held me together.

She had been the thread.
Forty years of quiet stitching,
laughter tucked into hems,
arguments patched with time,
a life quilted in shared breath.
Then came the rip.
Not sudden,
but final.
Joy, her name,
and the irony of it
cut deeper than the silence she left behind.

I did not cry at first. I tore.
The world split,
in calendars, in cupboards,
in the way the bed
no longer made sense.
Grief was not a visitor.
It was a blade.
And I, a fabric unravelling.

Tears came later.
Not as weakness,
but as water finding its way
through the fault lines.
They were not just drops.
They were declarations:

“I am broken.”

“I am still here.”

“I remember.”

Each tear a stitch,
not to mend the rip,
but to honour it.
To trace its edges
with trembling fingers
and say –
this is where love lived.
This is where it tore me open.
This is where healing begins.