We stood outside the building by the smoking area. You leaned against the railing,one boot hooked around the bar at the bottom. Every few seconds a car passed and your eyes tracked it without your head moving. You kept your hands busy— took your phone out, put it back, rubbed your thumb along the edge of the case like you were checking for a seam. When someone laughed behind us, you flinched just enough to notice, then nodded as if nothing happened. You told me about work. About nothing in particular. While you talked, a delivery truck backfired down the street. You stopped mid-sentence, jaw tight, waited a beat, then finished the thought like the pause hadn’t been there. At one point you asked what time it was. I answered. You checked your watch anyway. When we said goodbye, you shook my hand twice— once firm, then again, lighter, like you’d forgotten to let go. You walked to your car, scanned left, scanned right, opened the door, and only then exhaled.

The face of a stranger Haunts me, It’s my brother Looking distant, Drunk with regret, melancholy, sorrow Though we couldn’t know, What was behind The constant blindness, I wonder now... Why were you running? Now, the face of a stranger, Haunts me, It’s you, It’s the same distant sorrow Painted on your face Trying to forget, Etched in the lines of your features, In the tiny, wrinkles next to your Light, blue eyes. I don’t know why, Strangers' faces haunt me - So much, lately. I wish I could see your face, Ask you, why? But, I can’t. And, I never can. Maybe that’s what haunts me, occupies my thoughts, When faces of strangers Haunt me, It is their likeness, And, their foreignness, That remind me, I can’t ask. And, I never can.

Sorry I've been absent, my husband Chuck had that stroke on March 23rd and I've been helping him with therapy and rehab. Also we are moving from North Fort Myers FL, to New Brighton, PA (to be closer to family) and let me tell ya, between his shoulder surgery on March 13th, stroke March 23rd and my double hernia it is a challenge!!! We are actually selling everything that won't fit in our Mustang convertible and Mitsubishi Outlander. Anyways... I'm done babbling, I missed ya'll and am going to somehow try to catch up on all this amazing poetry that everyone has written!! I'm also gonna try to get back to writing, I miss it so much!

Somewhere in my darkest hour I found a light and it became my superpower probably always had it it was just too dark to see I want to share it with the world because from a new perspective me turns into we this world is full of surprises what if tomorrow never cameto leave your gift unopened isn't that a shame there are a few that really hear me but they know who they arethey talk in higher tongue and travel like a star I think the time has come there's so much motion in the airso hurry find your purpose because there's beauty everywhere have eyes to see the beauty and ears to hear the music sometimes you have to silence the mind, to find stillness is therapeutic. ;)

She looked at herself in the mirror, and started to see the shards of her former self. Not all at once. Not cleanly. More like fragments surfacing through fog, through water, through time that refuses to stay still long enough to be trusted. Versions of her she once moved through the world as. Versions that once felt solid, certain, complete in their certainty. Now they only appear in pieces. She was stuck between two worlds. One of who she used to be prior to the battle. One where she is putting the pieces together. Still fading in and out, she holds strong. There are days when the mirror feels like recognition. Other days it feels like confrontation. Like standing in front of someone who knows everything she has tried not to name. The reflection does not always behave like a reflection. Sometimes it lingers too long. Sometimes it feels like it is remembering her before she can. Memory does that now. It does not stay in place. She steadied her breath, watching the woman in the mirror flicker like a candle caught in a draft. Some days she felt solid, anchored. Other days she was smoke—memories, instincts, and echoes of who she used to be. The battle had carved something out of her, but it also left space for something new to grow. Something that did not arrive loudly. It arrived as silence. As hesitation. As a different way of noticing. What the battle took was not always visible. It did not always leave marks others could see. It changed how she enters a room, how she leaves one, how she understands safety in its absence. It changed how quickly she trusts stillness. It changed what her body remembers before her mind does. And still, she keeps going. There are moments when forgetting feels like distance, like standing slightly outside of herself. Not gone. Not absent. Just not fully inside the moment. She used to read this as failure. Now she understands it differently. Forgetting is not emptiness. It is protection. It is the mind setting something down because it could not be carried at the time.