This is dedicated to my mother.
I can’t say thank you enough
for everything you have done for me.
I hope this puts a smile on your face
even tho I’m in this place.
My heart didn’t break all at once.
It cracked the way ice does, quietly,
beneath the weight of footsteps
I never thought I would walk away.
You left,
and the world didn’t end.
But it tilted just enough
that every memory slides toward me
when I’m trying to sleep.
I hear your name in the rustle of night.
I still feel your absence
in the places you used to fill,
the hollow of my palm,
the space beside my shoulder,
the corners of my days
that now echo with nothing
but unfinished sentences.
Loving you was a door left open.
Losing you was the wind
that slammed it shut.
My ribs still ache, but they are healing.
My future still trembles, but it is coming.
And through the pieces of me
still remember the shape of your hands,
they no longer wait for me to hold them.
One day this won’t hurt as sharply.
One day your name will be just a name.
And I’ll walk forward unbroken,
not because you come back,
but because I finally remember
how to carry my own heart
without dropping it at the door
of someone who didn’t stay.
Conversations come and go like passing storms.
Some men talk tough
to hide the fear trembling beneath the surface.
Others talk soft
because yelling won’t fix a thing.
You learn real quick
that everyone has a story.
Some carved into their hands,
some buried so deep
you only see the edges.
But we’re all here,
breathing the same recycled air,
trying to survive the same slow-burning fire
that crawls under your skin
when you’ve got nowhere to go
and nothing left to do but think.
And thinking,
That’s the real SENTENCE.
The mind can be a cruel warden.
It drags you back through moments
you want to forget.
And the strangest part?
Hope knows how to slip through bars
better than any thief ever could.
One day the door will open.
The world will look too bright,
too loud,
too fast.
But you’ll step into it anyway,
because surviving a place
that tried to crush you
means you carry a piece of Strength
the outside world will never understand.
