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.