Welcome to the Poetry of Dr. Autumn Reese — a space where language breathes, emotions unfold, and the quiet beauty of reflection finds its voice. Here, Dr. Reese shares original poems that explore the inner landscapes of memory, longing, identity, and the fleeting nature of time. Each piece is crafted with care, rooted in her deep love for literature and her lifelong inquiry into the power of words to heal, question, and illuminate. Whether intimate or expansive, her poetry invites you to pause, feel deeply, and discover meaning in both silence and sound. This page is not only a gallery of verses, but a living archive of thought and emotion, shaped by a scholar’s insight and an artist’s heart.
When the quiet comes, it does not knock—
it slips through the seams of the evening light,
soft as a breath you didn’t mean to hold,
sharp as a name you can’t forget to say.
It settles in the bones like rain,
not fierce, but constant,
each drop a memory folded in silk,
each pause a page you once turned too fast.
There are things I cannot write down—
like how your voice still echoes in empty rooms,
or how the scent of jasmine hurts now,
and no one understands why I freeze when it blooms.
Grief is not loud.
It’s the silence after laughter,
the space beside me on the bed,
the way my hands forget what to hold.
Still, the stars do not apologize
for shining over broken hearts.
They blink, they burn, they stay—
and maybe that is hope, or maybe it is mercy.
So I let the quiet come.
I let it wash over me,
teach me how to be still,
how to love even the ache.
Dr. Autumn Reese
There are words that live beneath the skin,
nestled in the hollows of the throat,
aching to rise like birds at dawn—
but we swallow them,
one by one.
Not out of fear, always,
but sometimes love—
the kind that holds its breath
so another can breathe freely,
even if it hurts.
We smile through the splinters,
folding longing into laughter,
pressing unshed tears
into letters we never send,
into songs only the soul can hear.
I wish I had told you
how the world tilted when you left the room,
how your silence was louder
than anything I ever knew.
But instead, I spoke of weather,
and coffee, and books.
I became fluent in pretending,
a master of almost,
a keeper of could-have-beens.
Now, at night,
those unsaid things come to visit,
gentle, ghost-like,
curling beside me like questions
that no longer need answers—
only remembrance.
There are corners of the day
where the light forgets to go—
shadows that hold stories
we never dared to speak aloud.
I live in those moments sometimes,
where memory flickers like a candle
in a room no one visits anymore.
Grief does not ask for permission.
It lingers in familiar faces,
in the echo of a laugh
that sounds almost like yours,
but not quite.
Some days I carry you gently,
like a folded letter in my coat pocket—
creases soft from too much reading,
ink blurred by rain I never wiped away.
Other days,
you arrive like a storm
I didn’t see coming,
filling the air with everything
we could not finish.
But still—
there is beauty in the breaking.
Even the sky must tear itself open
to let the stars be seen.
And maybe love,
the kind that endures the silence,
is not about holding on—
but learning how to live
with the spaces you left behind.
There is a place the heart goes
when no one is watching—
not quite memory,
not quite dream,
but something softer than both.
It’s where your name still lingers
on the edge of thought,
like a whisper caught in wind
that never quite reaches the ear.
I go there sometimes
when the world is too loud,
when the days blur together
and time forgets to be kind.
I find you there—
not as you were,
but as I needed you to be.
You smile,
and it doesn’t hurt.
Love is strange like that—
it doesn’t leave when it’s gone.
It folds itself into the quiet,
settles in the stillness,
waits beneath the weight of ordinary things.
And though I move forward,
though the road bends
and the seasons turn,
some part of me always stays behind—
in that hidden place
where the heart goes
to remember
without breaking.