I was supposed to write something wonderful today, about writing or marketing or something akin.

I was supposed to sell my books to you today and tell you how much you’ll love them, and how fun my writing is. I was supposed to remind you to submit, to tell you to check out my social. To connect to me in a thousand different ways, and hey–leave a review if you can? And tell me you’re favorite romance trope…

But today…is not that day. Today the poet sits in the captain-of-my-soul chair. Today I want to connect to you with words and not flashing scrolling reels. Because today, grief and loss are sitting heavy in my soul. Because I’ve crossed over a line I cannot travel back over. Because I have lost so much of myself. And I am tired. Today I am tired. And I’m full of heavy words and thoughts.

So– I’m not going to sell you my books, or my enemies to lovers tropes, or my poetic tomes. I’m not going to sell you myself today. I’m just going to gift you a piece of my heart, while I still have some of it to call my own.

Rooted

I fell
a lone tree in the woods
not even the soft whisper of leaves
touching ground
to announce my end

and now, even slain
recumbent on the forest floor
my heart continues on
in irregular beats
a strange, sad creature
gnarled and stubborn
a stump not removed,
rooted too deep 
a fixture of these 
dark woods

you cut into my core
the center rings
the childhood yew
the heart of my heart
cleaved in two
with such a cruel and easy
grace

I am no fixture to you
no rooted thing
you see forests,
not me
a weeping willow, 
scythed down, 
with one stroke 
of your sharp
and pitiless
tongue.



Found
 
when they find me

i will be alone

the questions and headshakes
directed in quizzical depths
to the loam and silt they cannot sort through
no reasoning to be caught
in bucket or screen
 
when they find me

dressed as animals are
in the skin i was in
the day i roared into the plain
i will shock in cold white
filled with trout breath
and minnow kisses
 
When they find me
broken shell
battered 
lovely in purple and blue
head struck rock 
knee scraped branches
lips in shades to make 
mountain bluebell envious
they will lament
such wasted splendor
 
when they find me

the questions of why
i was lost to the brine 
a jointer to the self-takers before me
whispers will static the air
of all the ways i failed
and too long loitered in futility
 
when they find me

they will burn the empty package
while I sneak, 
soul-snake in water
down river bends to the sea

never to be found again


This Isn't a Poem for You

So this isn’t a poem for the broken hearted
it is not for those who were left behind
or ghosted
or dumped
or abused
or disregarded

This is a poem for those who watched
as another soul walked away
sat in their silence
was released from another person’s life
faced pain at their hands
or were simply ignored
into nothingness…

You are the warriors of time
you, who have felt the sting
of heart break 
and disappointments

you are the carriers of grief
and the bodies made of scars
and you have lived through
every burning cut
and every lonely night

This is not for the soul they broke,

this is for the you that survived.

This is not a sermon from some high tower
that you are stronger for it
that you are braver because of it
that you are a better person
a heart bigger, 
with these new and ragged cracks 
to let the light in

I will only tell you what I know

You survived.

you packed up your heart and your mind
and you moved on
you accepted their silence
you treated your wounds and closed the door
you started paying attention to yourself 
when they no longer did

and that carries weight

self determination
and the ability to move past
the fickle and soft-seated lies,
of a love always perched to flee 
the very second things got hard

Your feet remain grounded
and you outlasted

You heart is a seasoned warrior
and it may never let another in

but it doesn’t have space anyway
because in their absence
beyond the echoes of their abuse
the pain of their mistreatment,
you’ve filled your heart
with the unfaltering love
of yourself

they can’t ever move back in

there isn’t room any more.