This opening chapter lays the foundation for a story told across time, memory, and transformation. This Old House: Chapter One introduces a voice that begins in quiet devotion—rooted in belief, in purpose, in the inherited certainty that becoming something “greater” is the ultimate calling. Through the eyes of the tree, we witness the fragile nature of that belief as it collides with a harsher reality, where purpose is not honoured, but taken. This poem sets the tone for the series to come: a long, watchful journey through what is built, what is broken, and what remains to bear witness long after everything else has changed. 💚

This poem traces the slow, devastating unravelling of a home—not through spectacle, but through the quiet, accumulating moments that precede collapse. Crater explores how something once full of warmth and life can be reduced to absence without a single visible explosion, leaving behind damage that is both invisible and permanent. At its heart, it is a story about the aftermath—about standing in the hollow left behind, recognizing what cannot be rebuilt, and choosing, with painful clarity, not to remain there. It speaks to the kind of loss that reshapes a life entirely, and to the strength it takes to walk away from the ruins instead of trying to call them home again. 💚

This poem steps back just enough to tell a deeply personal story in a way that feels both intimate and universal. By shifting the perspective, it becomes a reflection on inherited harm—the patterns that repeat when they go unexamined—and the quiet, powerful act of choosing differently. What He Couldn’t Unlearn is not concerned with assigning blame or uncovering intent; instead, it centres on the moment someone sees the fire for what it is and decides not to step into it. It is a poem about awareness, distance, and the kind of strength that doesn’t need to be loud to be life-changing—the strength to walk away and, in doing so, rewrite the ending. 💚

This poem is a quiet declaration of intention—of choosing, with purpose and care, to leave something meaningful behind. It speaks to the kind of legacy that isn’t built through recognition or applause, but through the subtle, lasting impact we have on the people we touch. Britt Was Here is about pouring yourself into your work, your words, and your relationships in a way that lingers—offering comfort, strength, and a sense of being seen long after the moment has passed. It is a reminder that even the smallest acts of kindness and creation can echo far beyond us, shaping a world that feels just a little softer, a little braver, because we were in it. 💚

Feelings Aren’t Even Real is a confrontation with the voice that lives beneath everything—the one that whispers you are not enough, that you are behind, that you will never become what you hoped. It is not a story of overcoming that voice, but of learning to move alongside it, to create in spite of it, to refuse to let something so loud and convincing dictate what gets made and what never sees the light. This piece sits in the tension between belief and defiance, asking what happens when you stop waiting to feel ready—and start anyway.

Trigger warning: This piece contains themes of childhood suicidal ideation and self-perception.

I wrote Vesuvius when I was eleven years old, at a time when I felt a quiet but persistent need to leave everything behind. Not in a loud or visible way, but in the kind of way that convinces you your absence might be a kindness. I am deeply fortunate that I no longer believe that to be true. Time, life, and perspective have shifted something fundamental in me. And still, if I am being honest, I am learning—slowly and deliberately—how to fully inhabit this life without that old instinct whispering that disappearing might be the gentlest thing I could offer the world. This poem is not a return to that belief, but a recognition of the girl who held it, and the woman who chose to stay.

This poem sits in the quiet, often unspoken space between perception and truth—the place where effort is rewritten as ease, and discipline is dismissed as chance. Unlucky explores the subtle arrogance of those who stand at a distance and reduce another’s becoming to something accidental, something they were simply denied. It is a reflection on what it means to be seen incorrectly, to have your work diminished into something convenient for others to believe—and the quiet, unshakeable power of knowing the truth of what it took to become who you are.💚

There are moments in life we can never return to—places, people, and versions of ourselves that no longer exist in the same way, if at all. But It Was Ours sits in that quiet space between loss and meaning, where what is gone is not undone. This piece reflects on the enduring weight of lived experience—the simple, profound truth that something does not need to last forever to have mattered completely. It is a meditation on memory, belonging, and the quiet, unshakeable proof that for a time, we were there—and that it was real. 💚

This poem sits in the quiet devastation of memory—the place where nothing is physically present, and yet everything still exists. It explores the haunting reality that there are people, places, and versions of ourselves that continue on in memory, untouched and unchanged, while we are forced to move forward without them. There is no resolution here, no comfort offered—only the slow, aching recognition that some things are not lost in a single moment, but fade until they exist nowhere else but in the mind, waiting for us to remember them. 💚

This poem challenges the idea that survival is an individual pursuit, drawing from the quiet, undeniable intelligence of forests. Beneath the surface, trees exist in systems of connection, exchange, and interdependence—not out of kindness, but because it is the most effective way to endure. In contrast, we have built a world that rewards separation, accumulation, and dominance, even when those instincts lead to collapse. This piece is not about ideology—it’s about reality. About what it actually takes to survive, and the uncomfortable truth that nature has already figured out what we continue to resist. 💚

This poem is about the quiet, unwavering promise of partnership—the kind that isn’t built on certainty, but on commitment. It acknowledges that life will bring both beauty and hardship, often without warning, and that not everything can be controlled or prevented. But within that uncertainty, there is something steady: the choice to face it all together. This is about standing side by side through whatever comes, not because it will be easy, but because you’ve decided you will handle it—together, no matter what. 💚

This poem is about the family we choose—and the quiet, powerful truth that love given freely will always mean more than love demanded by blood. It reflects the shift from obligation to devotion, from enduring connection to embracing it, and the profound sense of belonging that comes from being seen, accepted, and held exactly as you are. This is a celebration of the people who found me, who chose me, and who have poured something real and life-giving into my world—something deeper than where I came from. 💚

This poem is about what comes after the damage—when nothing is clean or resolved, and healing isn’t a destination but a lifelong commitment. It’s about the unfairness of having to carry what you didn’t choose, and the quiet, relentless work of choosing who you want to be anyway. Even when it’s exhausting. Even when it feels like you’re losing. This is a promise to keep going—not because it’s easy, but because there is too much at stake not to. 💚

This poem is about the quiet, relentless erosion of something I once believed was unshakeable. Not the kind of loss that arrives all at once, loud and undeniable—but the kind that happens slowly, over years, through small moments that wear you down without ever fully breaking you. It reflects what it feels like to fight to remain soft in a world that rewards sharpness, and the fear that comes when you begin to feel yourself changing anyway. Not because you want to, but because something in you is tired of being the one that bends. 💚

This piece explores a quieter, more disorienting kind of harm—the kind that comes from proximity you never chose. It is about being shaped by someone who was simply there, embedded into your life without invitation, and the long, complicated process of disentangling from something that was never yours to carry. Even after distance is created, the imprint remains—subtle, persistent, and often unfair in its endurance. This poem sits in that tension: the relief of leaving, the reality of what lingers, and the truth that not all connections are chosen, but their aftermath is still ours to reckon with. 💚

This piece sits inside the anger that follows harm—not the kind that explodes outward, but the kind that lives beneath the surface, constant and uninvited. It is about the dissonance of becoming someone you were never meant to be, carrying a heat that does not feel like your own, and the quiet, exhausting work of holding it without letting it take over. There is an understanding here that the fire will not burn this brightly forever—but that knowledge does not lessen the reality of what it feels like to live with it now. This is what it means to contain something you never chose to carry. 🔥

This piece explores the quiet but irreversible moment when a life is divided into before and after—not by choice, but by something done to you that you were never meant to carry. It is about the disorientation of remembering who you were before you knew, and the stark, often unrecognizable person you become after. There is a particular kind of unfairness in being reshaped by harm while the source of it continues on, untouched, elsewhere. And yet, within that fracture, there is also a truth that refuses to be erased: that even in the aftermath of something you did not choose, you are still here, still becoming, still learning how to live with both versions of yourself at once. 🖤

This piece sits in the uncomfortable space between love and loss—not of another person, but of the self that slowly disappeared in the act of trying to be loved. It is about the quiet ways we learn to reshape ourselves to stay close to someone who feels like gravity, and the harder truth that sometimes, what we gave was not taken, but offered—again and again, until there was almost nothing left. There is grief here, and there is permanence in what was lost, but there is also something steadier beneath it: the moment where the giving stops, where the harm no longer continues, and where a life—unchosen for so long—begins to belong to you again. 💚

This poem lives inside the moment, not after it. It captures the frantic, unravelling logic of needing to be wanted so badly that the self becomes negotiable—adjusted, reduced, reshaped in real time in the hope of finally getting it right. There is no clarity here, no resolution—only the relentless internal bargaining that convinces you the problem is you, and that if you can just fix yourself fast enough, thoroughly enough, you might be allowed to stay. It is not love. It is not reason. It is the quiet, desperate machinery of self-erasure in motion. 🖤

Sometimes the most profound damage in a relationship isn’t loud or obvious—it’s gradual, internal, and difficult to name while it’s happening. This piece explores two very different experiences of the same dynamic: one rooted in certainty and self-preservation, the other in doubt and quiet erosion. It reflects on how perception can be shaped over time, and how, in the absence of being truly seen, a person can begin to lose sight of themselves. 💚