Some presences do not fade with distance or with time; they linger, insidious, until they are less memory than marrow. The Haunting is a poem about what it means to be inhabited by another—about the way a voice, a gaze, a history can press itself so deep into the body that escape becomes impossible. It is not a ghost story, but the story of being ghosted by the living—of carrying someone who refuses to let go, even in silence.💚

Birthdays are supposed to be celebrations—moments of joy, laughter, and memory. But when memory itself begins to slip away, the day takes on a different kind of weight. This poem is for my mom, whose Alzheimer’s means she may not remember this day, or the many birthdays that came before it. Still, I will remember. And in remembering, I carry the joy of all those past celebrations, even as I grieve the distance her illness has placed between us.💚

Some dreams are too heavy to carry alone, and some joys are too bright not to be shared. This poem is a love letter to the one who steadies me as I chase the wildest vision of my life—the dream of being an author. Every word I write is lifted by his belief in me, every step I take is doubled by his presence. What I’ve learned is that success is never mine alone—it is ours.💚

Sometimes the greatest freedom arrives disguised as abandonment. When someone who thrives on control and cruelty removes themselves from your life, they believe they’ve delivered a punishment. In truth, they’ve handed over a gift—an unlooked-for mercy, a release so profound it feels like air filling your lungs for the first time in years. This poem is about that liberation, and the strange, beautiful miracle of discovering that what was meant to break you has instead set you free.💚

We rarely notice how quietly our lives are shaped by what we give our attention to. Every thought, every glance, every moment of focus becomes a kind of offering, a gift of our hours. This poem is a meditation on that truth—on how the mind, when fixed on another, can surrender entire days without meaning to. It is both gratitude and lament, both a love letter and a warning: whatever we crown with our thoughts, we crown with our time.💚

There are goodbyes that tear at us not because of what we are leaving behind, but because of what will never come. To release someone who has brought only ruin is, in its own way, a blessing—but within that release lives a quieter, sharper grief: the death of the hope that they might have been different. This poem is about that ache—the sorrow of letting go not just of a person, but of the dream of who they could have been, and the love they never gave.💚

As my love and I revisit the world of Game of Thrones, I’ve been struck again by the layered brilliance of George R. R. Martin’s storytelling—particularly in the chilling dynamic between the Hound and the Mountain. Their relationship, steeped in silence, violence, and unspeakable trauma, feels like a myth within a myth. This poem is a literary exploration of that fraught brotherhood: a reflection on how power corrodes, how pain echoes, and how survival becomes a language all its own. The depth and darkness of their story never cease to awe me.💚

There are people who do not bruise you with fists, but with silence. With lies. With slow, deliberate rot. They hollow you out with cruelty so casual it almost sounds like charm. But make no mistake—what lives inside them is not pain. It is poison. And I have met it. I have loved it. I have barely survived it. This poem is not just a reckoning. It is a mirror held to the mouth of someone who only ever breathed in love to spit out hate. This is what it means to have seen hell—and walked away from it.💚

Some stories should never have to be written. But when cruelty is allowed to flourish in plain sight—when a life is tormented not in darkness, but in full view of those who could have intervened—we must write them. They All Watched is a poem wrapped in metaphor, but anchored in truth. It speaks of a girl who was punished for her light, her beauty, her existence. Singled out. Tortured. Forgotten by everyone but memory. This poem is not meant to comfort. It’s meant to unsettle. To remind us that silence is complicity, that evil does not always hide, and that sometimes, horror wears a familiar face. She was not invisible. She was betrayed. And we will not stop saying so.💚

Sometimes, beauty isn’t born in sunlight. Sometimes, it rises from the muck—from the rot, from the decay, from the kind of origin story that no one wants to tell aloud. What the Swamp Made is a poem about that kind of becoming. It’s a meditation on nature’s strange and startling ability to create something breathtaking from even the most repulsive conditions—and a metaphor for the lives that begin in darkness but bloom anyway. This poem isn’t about shame. It’s about emergence. It's about claiming the miracle of becoming something beautiful, even when the world around you was built to drown you.💚

There was a time I didn’t know if anyone would read my words—let alone feel them. Launching my writing career was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. I was vulnerable, exposed, and filled with doubt. But somehow, impossibly, beautifully, you showed up. You read. You listened. You stayed. You Have to Use My Name to Get Any Attention at All is a poem about that shift—about going from being afraid to speak to being someone whose name means something. It’s about the overwhelming joy of being accepted by an audience who sees me, believes in me, and calls themselves my fans. It still doesn’t feel real sometimes. But it’s happening. And this poem is for everyone who helped make it so.💚

There are some figures who refuse to remain buried—who linger not in presence but in aftermath, in shadows that move with you no matter how many miles you walk. Luca is a poem born of that haunting: the weight of someone lodged too deep in memory, their voice echoing through marrow and dream alike. It unfolds like a meeting in a rain-slick alley beneath the muted glow of a failing streetlight, where silence is more suffocating than sound, and recognition arrives not as relief but as inevitability.💚

As writers, especially women who dare to speak boldly, we often find ourselves under a microscope—scrutinized not just for what we say, but for how we say it, how we exist, how we dare to grow. Every Misstep You Take is a poem for that moment. For every step forward taken under the weight of expectation. For every word written while knowing someone is waiting for you to fail. It’s about the exhaustion of being watched—but more than that, it’s about the audacity to keep going anyway. To be seen, and still be yourself. To turn even your stumbles into something sacred. If you’ve ever felt like the world is holding its breath, just waiting for you to fall—this is for you. And this time, the fall is a flight.💚

Some breakdowns don’t come with sirens. They come with silence. With slow fades. With whispered pleas hidden behind polite nods and half-smiles. It’s Pretty Obvious I Am Crumbling is a poem for the people who are still functioning, still showing up, still doing all the things—but barely. It’s for the ones who are unraveling quietly, hoping someone might notice before they fully disappear. This isn’t about drama—it’s about depletion. And it’s a reminder that just because someone seems okay doesn’t mean they are. Sometimes, the most obvious signs of suffering are the ones we’ve learned how to mask the best.💚

We often mistake inheritance for numbers on a page, for coins tucked away, for the measure of what can be counted. But the truest legacy is not stored in vaults—it is planted, nurtured, and tended across years. This poem is about the kind of generational wealth that endures: the love, the care, the growth, and the devotion that can be carried forward long after we are gone.💚

Some people mistake your existence as an attack, as if the simple act of breathing in your own skin is defiance aimed at them. They build entire battles out of shadows, convinced that if they can erase you, they will finally find peace. But survival is not submission. This poem is for every soul who has been targeted by another’s delusion—and chosen, instead, to remain unshaken, unvanquished, and undeniably here.💚

There are people who will spend their lives trying to rewrite you, twisting truth until it frays, scattering words like weapons in the hope that you will mistake their version of you for your own. This poem is for every woman who has stood in the wreckage of those lies and chosen, instead, to rise as the author of her own story.💚

There are days when I feel like I’m fading from my own life, as though my world has been rewritten without me at its centre. The weight of being silenced, erased, or pushed aside leaves me drifting—half here, half gone. This poem is my attempt to give those feelings shape, to put words to the ache of becoming a ghost in the story that should have been mine.💚

There is something sacred about surviving what was meant to break you. Something radiant about choosing healing over hate—again and again—no matter how loud the world tries to drown you out. This poem is a declaration. A reckoning. A love letter to the version of me that refused to disappear. My Healing Is Louder Than Their Hate is not about them—it’s about the fire I carry now. The peace I earned. And the voice I’ve built from ash and defiance. If you’ve ever risen from something meant to ruin you, this is for you too. Let them whisper. Let us roar.💚