let me down easy
not with silence
settling like dust
on everything we built
not with a door
closing so softly
I mistake it
for the wind
if you have to leave
leave like evening
slow enough
for the light to understand
tell me the truth
before it hardens
into stories
i’ll spend years
trying to untangle
I can survive
the clean edge
of honesty
it’s the dull blade
of maybe
the weight of almost
the unanswered room
that keeps drawing blood
so if my name
has grown too heavy
set it down
look at me
long enough
to remember
I was once
your favorite place
to arrive
then go
I won’t ask
the horizon
to turn around
Inkbound
*Picture is my own*
we began as margins
empty spaces waiting for a hand
to spill ink into our quiet
you did not read me
you memorized the shape
of my syntax
running a thumb
along the rough cut of my edges
until the dust of old chapters cleared
revealing the spine
we are not written in a rush
we are the slow turn of heavy paper
the smell of old bindings
and the afternoon sun
trapped between sheets of parchment
I have found myself folded down
at the corner of your thoughts
a creased memory
you keep returning to in the dark
here in the white space
between the paragraphs
where the author fell silent
we speak not in words
but in the weight of punctuation
the soft exhale of a semicolon
the breathless pause
before the next line begins
let the world close its heavy cover
let the shelves grow dark around us
we are pressed together
in the quiet typography
two separate stories
bound into the very same breath
Remembering
the path remembers us
every stone still holds
the quiet weight
of your hand finding mine
simply to say
I’m here
and I love you
beneath these old trees
where even time hangs gently
from the branches
your fingers folded into mine
like they had always known
the shape of my loneliness
since then
every empty bench looks as though
it has been saving a place
for the warmth we left behind
I could walk this road
a thousand times alone
yet my palm would keep searching
for the memory of your touch
because some hands
never really let go
they become
the way you carry love
long after the path disappears
If I return
just let me go
not because I stopped loving
but because love
should never have to beg
for a place to breathe
release my name
from the grip of your silence
untie the knots
we kept calling forever
if I return
let it be as rain
remembered
never held against the sky
and if I don’t
let the empty space
be proof
that something real
once stood there
Happy 250th Birthday America
Happy Independence Day.
Today we celebrate the freedoms that unite us and remember those whose courage made them possible. As the fireworks light the sky, may we also remember the quieter freedoms we often overlook: the freedom to heal, to hope, to love, and to begin again.
Wishing you a safe and meaningful Fourth of July. I hope today reminds you that you are loved, valued, appreciated, and that every new day is another chance to live freely and wholeheartedly.
Borrowed Faces (Audio)
some mornings
I fasten a face to my own
before the mirror has finished
telling the truth
one for kindness
that swallows its own hunger
one for certainty
stitched together
from borrowed words
one for laughter
light enough
to keep questions
from settling on my shoulders
I wear them
because the world
is full of bright rooms
where vulnerability echoes louder
than confidence ever does
by noon
I have forgotten
which smile belongs to survival
and which one
was born with me
the masks are patient things
they learn the shape of our breath
they memorize our silences
they become so fluent
in our names
that even our reflections
hesitate
still there are moments
rain on an empty street
a hand that does not ask me
to be anything
the long forgiving conversation
between dusk and the first star
in those moments
the straps loosen
the borrowed faces
slide quietly to the floor
without accusation
underneath
is not perfection
only skin
scarred by every season
it refused to stop feeling
only eyes
still searching for wonder
after years of pretending
they had already found it
perhaps that is all
a human life has ever asked
not to live without masks
for sometimes they are shelter
sometimes armor
sometimes the bridge
across impossible days
but to remember
they are not our bones
and when night arrives
to set them beside the bed
like shoes that carried us home
so that sleep
may recognize our true face
and morning
if it is gentle
may find us
with nothing left to hide
except the light
we have mistaken
for weakness
Behind my eyes
I keep the rain
behind my eyes
a storm with no thunder
only the quiet ache
of clouds too heavy to leave
my breath learns
the shape of silence
holding each crack together
like fragile glass
afraid of becoming light
the tears wait
patient as tides
pressing gently
against the shoreline
asking for nothing
but a moment to exist
instead
I swallow oceans
wear steady hands
and answer the world
with a voice
that almost doesn’t fade
still
somewhere beneath it all
the river remembers its name
and one day
it will find its way home
Your love
your love
arrives like the ocean
a rhythm older than memory
moving through me
in endless waves
sometimes it brushes the shore
with quiet hands
leaving traces of light
on everything it touches
sometimes it rises
deep and untamed
filling every corner of my heart
with its tide
I stand at its edge
listening
and with every return
it teaches me
how beautiful it is
to be carried
Hues
you make me see
a thousand colors
not just the ones
the sky spills at dusk
but the kind that live in things unspoken
in the pause before a reply
in the space where distance used to sit
you teach light new ways to exist
there are hues
I never knew had names
like the blue
between breath and silence
where thoughts hover
just before they become words
or the gold
that vibrates in your laughter
warm enough to soften time itself
you touch the gray in me
like it was never meant to stay stone
it loosens
becomes lavender in slow unraveling
then deepens
burns into crimson
then spills further still
into colors I don’t have language for yet
even the dullest corners of me
start remembering how to burn
and the shadows
the ones I used to mistake for endings
learn they can shift
that they are not absent but waiting
and they begin to shimmer
like they’ve been holding light
the whole time
when you’re near
Facade
in shadows cast
by a broken facade
we once existed
in this old home
stained glass
from hushed secrets
the lies fell one by one
on the ledge
a breath away from freedom
these empty walls
now echo with echos
absorbing words of anger
stale smoke now lingers
through every room
screaming to be heard
but no one there to listen
and somewhere inside
that fragmented place
a part of her is still there
hidden in memories
The Creative Chic 