Poems

The Stanley Hotel, Colorado – Room 217 Under the Stanley’s looming gaze,where the pines conspire and hushGrand facade shivers in the blue of night,moonlight slick as a blade’s rushWindows flicker secrets, curtains breathing in the chillFloorboards creak with memory, stairwells groan with willSome say the walls remember every scream and secret kissThat the very air […]

The Stomach Remembers What the Mind Forgot The stomach remembers what the mind forgot,the exact heat of the parking lotbehind the rib joint where the smoke hung lowand thick as winter fog twenty years ago,the stomach keeps a record that the brain can’t touch,the muscle memory of too much and too muchand too much again,

The Simp Accusation He said it loud by the soda machine,like shame was a sport and he held the ringsHe said it sharp with a sideways grin,like hearts are jokes and love has stringsI’d just texted back, I’d just shown up,I’d just kept faith with ordinary thingsHe called it “simp” like a court stamp,like kindness

The Sound of Ending There’s a frequency beneath the floorboards that only the dying can hearIt hums like transformers before they explode,like vertebrae grinding in fearI woke up with my teeth on the pillowand something else wearing my faceStaring back from the bathroom mirror with my eyesbut nothing else in placeThe walls are breathing in

The Second Time Around You think you know the drill the second time you loseThe stages and the casseroles, the managed grief, the newsYou tell your friends and family — you’ve been here beforeReturned customer to loss, familiar with the chore But then the new grief arrives and all your knowledge fallsThe college of the

The Second Wind When the first surge of momentum had exhausted its reservesand the body and the operation both ran out of nerve,I sat down in the middle of the distance I had coveredand found inside the fatigue a second wind I had not discovered. The second wind does not arrive until you push pastwhere

The Silk and the Bone She learns my angles with her fingertips,geography of spine and hipwhile I map the pale terrain of her ribs,the hollow where her collarbone dips.We’re archaeologists of flesh tonight,digging up what we bury by day,uncovering teeth in the dark,learning what we won’t say. Her mouth is contradiction born,gentle then sharp then

The Screaming Tunnel, Canada – Fire Burns In the tunnel’s hollow depths, where darkness keeps its throneThe whispers crawl through crumbling stone,a girl’s anguished moanHer scream once tore the summer air, now brittle, cold, and thinTrapped in endless silence, bound by shadows stretched within The tunnel weeps a mournful hymn, a song of fire and

The Room After We cleared the room in pieces over several weeksno urgency, no need to force the pacethe shoes went first because the shoes hit hardestevery pair had worn a different face I left the books the longest on the shelvingI’d run my fingers down the broken spinesand find his handwriting in the marginsa

The Ruined Resilience In crumbling shadows where the echoes sleep,Among the ruins, dust and time entwined,You stand, a figure where the wrecks grow deep,A monument to what the past confined.With laughter dark as fallen stones you bear,The weight of countless years of shattered trust,Where laughter blends with whispers of despair,You greet the dawn amidst the