It’s odd how you realize, one quiet day,

That you’re not seven anymore in any way,

And you haven’t been seven for years gone by,

And your mother doesn’t pause when she makes you cry.

Not out of cruelty, not out of spite,

But because you’re meant to be stronger, ready to fight,

The world doesn’t soften the way it once did,

Comfort’s a language you slowly outgrow as a kid.

Pain used to live on your skin and knees,

In scraped-up legs and unwanted peas,

In burns on your tongue from food you despised,

Hurts you could name, and clearly describe.

Back then pain waited for someone to see,

A plaster, a kiss, a “come here” for free,

It had an address, a start and an end,

And left when it healed, like a well-behaved friend.

Now pain is a mess you can’t point or explain,

It hides in your chest, it speaks in the rain,

In rooms filled with silence, in words left unsaid,

In thoughts that stay loud when you lie in your bed.

You learn how to smile, how to soften the truth,

To carry your age with borrowed-proof youth,

To clean up the messes that aren’t even yours,

And lock all your feelings behind closed doors.

And sometimes you miss being seven—

Not the age,

But the safety of knowing

That someone would come running

The moment you broke.

I will not admit it 

how I held the world in my hands

only to watch it slip through my fingers

How I say I’m fine

but there’s a sweetness in the lie

that leaves a sour taste on my tongue

How I so often tell them what they want to hear

but the truth? It lingers

too bitter to swallow, too raw to say

How I struggle to surrender 

to spaces, to people

I remain guarded

How I fear fragments of my past are fading

as if time is erasing me

Piece by piece

How I wish I could go back

just to feel it all again 

the highs, the lows, the rush of something real

How I replay old conversations

rewriting them in my head

finally saying the things I never said

How I ache for love 

the kind where my name is spoken like a promise

not just as a passing thought

And the sound of your name

makes me feel alive in a way

I’m too afraid to admit

And I won’t

Not now

Not ever

You asked me once—quite casually—

What good I was, if not materially.

The question rested lightly in the air,

As though it named a fact we both could share.

You did not raise your voice, nor press your claim;

You spoke as one reciting something plain.

The room remained as orderly as before;

No glass was broken. Nothing struck the floor.

I searched for words that might enlarge my place,

But found no language fit to shift that scale.

My silence filled the space where worth had been,

And passed for calm. You took it as serene.

I nodded—yes—not wisely, not with grace,

But as men nod when time has picked its face.

I thought of all I’d carried, all I’d tried,

And felt it fail to qualify my side.

You turned away—not sharply, not in spite—

As one who ends a thought already right.

I stood there, holding nothing I could prove,

Still shaped like someone eligible for love.

Later, alone, I practiced what I’d say

If worth were not a thing that had to pay.

The lines arrived too clean, too late, too whole;

They fit no hour that had taken toll.

So this is all the answer I can give:

I stayed because I did not know to leave.

I mistook quiet for a form of care,

And called myself enough by standing there.

If healing comes, it will not speak my name,

Nor dress this moment up as growth or gain.

It will arrive as truth arrives—too small

To save the man who thought he was at fault.

Our house floods every night the same way.

I set the table every morning.

I place dishes carefully

on a sopping tablecloth.

I pretend the chairs don’t remember

the sound of rising water.

I hum as I work.

His apologies are watermarks.

His promises smell like mildew.

He says he’s sorry.

i stop humming.

i wring out my hands

on a dishrag that’s damp.

i once fought the current—

i slammed doors, drained rooms.

i built sandbags and barricades

of explanations and hope.

I open the windows.

Rain spills onto the hardwood,

I gasp, take a breath.

He tracks mud across the kitchen.

He kisses me on the head.

He asks if breakfast is ready.

He complains his socks are wet.

He turns on the faucet.

He walks away.

He doesn’t fetch the mop.

He doesn’t see the mold crawling up the baseboards.

He does straighten the plate I just laid.

My work is remediation,

mine—always mine.

He tells me he’s hungry.

His discomfort an emergency,

his damp socks a crisis.

He says, “Breakfast is burning,” and departs.

He leaves the faucet running.

The sink overflows.

Rain spills onto the hardwood.

The window gets closed.

The faucet gets turned off.

The salvaged remains of breakfast

fill only his plate.

I ignore my hunger.

I find the mop.

I’ll eat later—

when the kitchen’s dry.

My slippers don’t dry anymore.

#1

i am just calling to say

that choosing to marry you

 was not a mistake

#2

it has been lonely without you

please call me when you get the chance

i know you are busy

but i just want to hear your voice again

#3

you said you would be back a week ago?

please call me

this isn’t funny

do you know how much i gave up?

just to be with you

#4

was that you on the other end?

when i called i only heard senseless mumbling

and what sounded like mocking laughter

please talk to me

with words

not whatever that was

#5

i talked to your parents

and they told me not to worry

but i love you too much to be apathetic

call me and we can talk this out

if you have plans

i understand

but we need to communicate

for this relationship to work

#6

it's been a year already

did you die?

what kind of sick joke is this?

#7

i finally talked to my parents

(i’d been avoiding them because of you)

and they told me you don’t exist

that i never had a wedding

that i made us up

Big coyote spotted roaming neighborhood 

streets. Residents eagerly notified via Facebook

and Nextdoor.  Put your pets away, the glut of posts warn.

In days past, town criers gave notice of impending 

Viking raids, helmeted marauders intent 

on plundering with ravenous appetite.

Today, worries of such an invasion

are replaced by the perceived danger  

emanating from a clever animal searching 

between double parked Amazon trucks for 

rich garbage, leftover dog food, or a plump pup. 

Coyote warnings scramble human minds, 

making people fleetingly forget threats 

of earthquake, wild fires and floods, 

placing a mangy scavenger high on any 

contemporary hierarchy of panic. Is it 

the canine’s conspicuous hunger that rattles us,

upsetting a sense of suburban abundance, 

made evident by our insatiable quest for 

procuring warehouse size eating quantities?

Looking out my kitchen window to catch

a glimpse of the sharp-toothed intruder, I stalk 

my front yard like a seasoned hunter, while staying 

within arm’s reach of a well-stocked pantry. 

Speaking of hunger, imagine the social

media mayhem –the flurry of jumpy posts –

if this opportunistic omnivore were to 

attack the Uber Eats delivery person, putting 

a critical food supply source in grave danger. 

Most likely, we would react as commonly 

done in response to previous perils – by taking 

a trip to Costco, stocking up on toilet paper, 

then buying a twelve-pack of big muffins 

along with a giant-sized pizza.  I envision 

neighbors noshing away, cell phones 

in hand, furiously posting from a state of terror. 

Swing your scythe

dark farmer,

the weeds have overrun

their borders

and now tighten their grip

on the young.

Swing your scythe

heretic thresher

and raze the field of

its false and

strangled.

The landowners count

and recount their

copper

while they dream of life

on a cloud.

Swing your scythe

coal lidded Spaniard.

Your cape bold as ripe apples

before the fall.

You scatter your bitter

seeds into the local

night tales and pour

bloody libations

 into the ground.

Your blade a clean 

arc of sun 

sweeping the streets

of stale droppings

before

the passing 

of a bewildered 

Aeon.

How can I blame the wind

for the mess it made?

It was I who opened the window,

forgetting that to invite motion

is to also invite ruin.

Every force in nature is innocent.

The river only floods

because it knows no stillness.

The fire only burns

because it refuses to be cold.

The wind only scatters

because scattering is its truth.  

It is not the world that deceives us,

but the illusion

that we can open doors

without consequence.  

And so the question is never

why the wind entered,

but why I believed

I could remain untouched

while reaching for air.