There is a strange kind of silence that comes after everything falls apart. Not movie silence. Not peaceful silence. I mean the kind where the refrigerator hum sounds like a sermon, and the walls stare at you like they know you failed. Starting over from nothing is not brave in the beginning. It is humiliating. It is standing in the ruins of your own life holding a trash bag of what survived. It is selling things you once loved. It is eating cheap meals while pretending you are not scared. It is watching people disappear the second your usefulness does. And God the loneliness of rebuilding. Nobody applauds the foundation. They only celebrate the house after the lights come on. But there is something powerful about a person who learns to grow roots in scorched earth. A person who says, “I may have lost everything but I am not finished yet.” That kind of soul becomes dangerous. Because once you survive sleeping beside your broken dreams, once you learn how to rebuild with blistered hands and exhausted hope, fear loses its grip on you. You stop worshipping comfort. You stop begging for permission. You stop needing the world to believe in you first. And one morning, without even noticing, you realize the person staring back in the mirror is no longer the one who lost it all. It is someone new. Someone stronger. Someone quieter. Someone who understands that rock bottom is not a grave. It is a beginning. By Jason Strickland

Donna challenged me to draw a eye and write a poem for it. I think I did pretty good. I challenge you to write poem about this drawing

The manuscript is almost complete, we are still waiting on 2 more poets to turn in their poems. I will be nice this time and not mention names LOL. As soon as I get those poems turned in and I finish editing and formatting, I will send each of you a copy to make sure everything is the way it should be.

Trust is not a handshake. It is not words tossed cheap like pennies in a church jar hoping somebody mistakes noise for faith. Trust is the slow unlocking of a guarded rib cage. It is saying, “Here this is the part of me still bleeding,” and praying the other person doesn’t press their fingers into the wound. Trust is built in silence sometimes. In who stays. In who answers the phone at 2 a.m. In who remembers the things you never said out loud. It is fragile as old glass and stubborn as oak roots. Hard to earn. Easy to shatter. Nearly impossible to glue back together without seeing every crack. Some people wear trust like a costume for applause. Others carry it like a lantern through a storm, protecting the flame with both hands. And maybe that’s the tragedy of it the heart must risk itself every single time. Because no matter how many times life teaches us betrayal, we still ache to believe in somebody. We still leave the door unlocked for love. By Jason Strickland

The world’s on fire in a three piece suit, Smiling on camera while it steals the truth. Kids learn fear before they learn grace, And nobody looks anybody in the face. Bombs fall somewhere every damn day, While strangers online just scroll away. Politicians argue, billionaires grin, And the poor keep paying for all of their sins. The oceans rise while the forests choke, Half the world’s starving, half numb from smoke. Everybody shouting, nobody hears, Drowning in outrage and recycled fears. We traded front porches for glowing screens, Lost ourselves somewhere inside machines. People want love but settle for likes, Building fake kingdoms from hashtags and hype. And still somehow, through all the mess, A tired mother gets her child dressed. A man walks his dog to survive one more day, A poet still sits down with something to say. Because chaos is loud But the human heart is stubborn too. It keeps lighting candles In storms it already knows It cannot control. And maybe that’s the miracle. Not that the world is sane But that some of us Still choose kindness anyway A pause, A breath By Jason Strickland